Over the course of the week I've been moving all my data and other odds and ends off my old Windows PC and onto a new Macbook Pro and for the most part it's as simple as you would expect. The only times when things get a little more tricky is when you are trying to move application data that maintains paths to files on the system, such as Lightroom and iTunes do. Luckily in the case of Lightroom the move was fairly simple.

Note: Adobe says that the official way to move files from one computer to another is to use the export catalog feature, move the catalog over, then import. Well, that's nice, but 20K raw photos would take forever to export and I didn't want to mess with that if I could avoid it.

So, plan B was to simply move everything over to the Mac, open up Lightroom, and hope for the best. Here's what I did ...

1. Make sure that you have the same exact Lightroom version on both computers as there can be differences in the catalog between versions. I did this using 1.4.1.

2. Copy all your Lightroom data from Windows onto your Mac either via an external drive or if you want you can just do it over the network. In specific, you need to copy the Lightroom directory under your "My Pictures" folder which holds your catalog file, preview files, etc, plus you need your original image files. Hopefully you don't have your original photo files spread out all over the place because if you do then this will be more of a pain, so you might want to fix that first.

3. Simply remove the Lightroom folder on your Mac (assuming it's empty) and replace it with the one from you Windows PC. Since Lightroom uses the same exact catalog format on both OS' it won't have any problems reading the catalog off your Windows PC.

4. Now open up Lightroom on your Mac and you should see all of your images (with previews), your collections, metadata, etc. In the Library view you should see all the folders in the Folders dialog marked in red, which indicates that Lightroom can't find where those folders are on the system.

5. For each folder in the Folders dialog just right click and select "locate missing folder", then use the file navigator to point to wherever you copied that folder to on your Mac. Lightroom should then go through all the files that were in that folder and check that they are there. Once it's done that folder should be back to working as usual. Just repeat this for all your folders and you're done.

This process worked out great for me and it only took a few minutes to fix up Lightroom after I had copied everything over to my Mac. One thing that definitely helped the situation is that I had been letting Lightroom manage all my original photos and it was storing them in simple date based folders where the top level folder was the year the photo was taken. So I only had 4 folders for 2005-2008 which needed to be updated with their new location. If you use tons of different folders then this part would take you a bit longer.

My Ferrari 3400 has aged pretty badly and now that the defacto laptop option in our team has become MacBooks it is finally time to give in and be assimilated. So here's some impressions after my first day on a Mac. Note that Windows holds no dear place in my heart and I have actually wanted to rid myself of it for quite some time. My main computing goals outside of work are stability and simplicity.

• So far the change in keyboard is probably the most annoying difference. I'm sure it's just a matter of learning the differences, but nonetheless it can be frustrating. Things I'm not particularly fond of on the Mac are the loss of having both a backspace and delete key, and the addition extra command key. That and the fact that the control key is in a different position. blarg.
• The touchpad is sweet. I still need to get a bluetooth mouse 'cuz it's just faster and more useful, but the touchpad is silky smooth. It took me 'til this afternoon to figure out you can scroll by using 2 fingers. super sweet. I do still long for the right click, but it's not a big deal.
• The overall look is just much more comfy than Windows. You can tell Apple goes the extra mile to apply little details that make your desktop look and feel nicer. Shadows between overlapping windows, lots of little animations, things bouncing in the dock. I'm sure you can do all that in Windows, but on a Mac they are default.
• I wasn't impressed with my first attempt to install an app though. I went to download and install Firefox and since I didn't know anything about .dmg files it was a little confusing. I actually ran the app out of the mounted .dmg at first because I hadn't realized you need to copy things into the "Applications" folder to install it. Once you sort that out it's fairly straight forward, but as a total newb it was not apparent to me at all.

Most of the rest has been more or less equivalent to the Windows experience IMO. The "System Preferences" on a Mac does seem much better organized and easier to modify than the Windows "Control Panel". I actually learned a number of things just be fidgeting around in there a bit.

Now the one thing I want more than anything is the ability to paste-selection using a mouse center click. I sure hope that's possible on a Mac. That's probably the only thing I have felt my Solaris desktop at work does so much better than Windows. Oh, that and the ability to have a window roll up on a double click rather than minimize. Those two features are gold.

Supposedly the U.S. government felt that it would be saving folks some energy costs by extending daylight savings by an extra month, but reports of that actually happening have been inconclusive. What it definitely has not done, at least in my case, is made me more productive because just when sunrise and morning light were hitting that perfect time of 6:30am here in the bay area, DST kicked in and it's now still dark out well past 7am. What's up with that?

I am generally a morning person, but there is one thing that I cannot handle and that is getting up when it's still dark out. Won't do it, no way, no how. Not unless I am forced. So thanks to the new DST policy my work schedule is out of wack and on days where I do have to get up early I am grumpy.

So thanks for nothing you lame-o U.S. government peoples. You've ruined daylight savings for me and I'll likely never forgive you.

P.S. i didn't even mention how messed up by cell phone is with the new DST times. all of my calendar appointments are off by an hour. again, productivity down the tubes thanks to DST.

This is probably true in other states as well, but I was recently surprised to find out that voters who are registered as "independent" in California have an opportunity to vote in the Democrat Party primary if they wish. Simply ask for the ballot when you get to your polling station and that's it.

So if you're a registered independent and feel like you would like to take part in the Obama vs. Clinton showdown, then do it! I know I am.

personA: "I don't like the word 'hike', it just doesn't sound like a fun thing ..."

personB: "Well, then throw in a power bar and call it a picnic."

=)

It's not too often that I consider it a bummer to be living here in California, but unfortunately today is one of those days. There is a total lunar eclipse happening today and basically the western U.S. and eastern Australia are the only places where you won't really be able to see it. Bummer, because this could have been a good photography option.

This diagram says it all ...

Over the past couple of years I've gone through a number of feed readers, each one improving over the last and the lastest in that line is Google Reader. I switched to Google Reader a few days ago after deciding that Newshutch just wasn't cutting it anymore.

Now I'm not what I would consider an avid feed reader or data junky, but I do have a modest and growing list of feeds that I keep up with and of course you need to have a decent tool to do that. When I first started reading feeds I was using desktop tools because I didn't think the online offerings were all that impressive. I used Thunderbird for a little while but found the experience uninspiring. RSSOwl got a bit of usage time but I never really felt comfortable with it. BlogBridge was pretty nice and I used it for a while but I never felt that their feed list synchronization stuff worked properly and ultimately once there were better online readers I had to jump ship. Newshutch was the online reader I had been using up until now, but after a few days using Google Reader I am officially pulling the plug on Newshutch.

It's not that Google Reader is anything miraculous, but it's certainly a step up and fixes some of the very annoying behaviors of Newshutch that I can no longer stand. The big things that forced me off of Newshutch is that they had problems with updating the feeds regularly and that gets really annoying with feeds that change frequently, so that's the main reason they got dropped. The big wins for Google Reader over Newshutch are that they let you view a composite of all entries in a folder rather than forcing you to read one feed at a time, which was really lame. Google Reader also auto marks things as read while you scroll through them which is a nice little perk because I hated having to manually mark all the entries as read, and if you ever forget you end up re-reading things =(

Colts 23 - Bears 24

This was too funny not to pass on ... 8 important lessons learned from 80's cartoons

well, it's been confirmed, e3 is officially dead. at least the old e3 that we all know and love.

i'm not sure why this matters so much to me, since i don't actually go to e3, but the couple times that i did go it was like being a 5 year old in a candy store, or better yet, your first trip to Disneyland. e3 was one of the last great meccas of adult entertainment, and now all i can think of is the new generation of gamers who will never get to see it in all it's glory.

sad day. very sad.

So I'm at the dentist monday for a regular cleaning and as I'm sitting there letting the dentist poke, prod, gauge, and scrape i got to doing some thinking. The rest of the medical world seems to making advances through technology, but what about dentists? I'm sure they have fancy new ways of doing fillings or prettier ways of replacing teeth, but what about the basic stuff, what about simple cleanings?

Seems like you still go in and have someone grind away with a sharp, pointy metal object while you try not to cry. After about 15 minutes of this they give your teeth a quick polishing and you're done. Can't they come up with some kind of new sonic cleaning, laser plaque removal, deep gum massaging, etc, etc? Anything better than sharp metal objects scraping away at my teeth?

Maybe then people wouldn't mind going to the dentist?

Well, the sunny season has definitely started here in the Bay Area ... I can tell from the sun burn =(

And from the looks of things this weekend, I am not at all alone.

alright, alright, maybe i should find a little more time to some blogging because as they say ...

"the blogosphere waits for no man." --rr

truer words have never been spoken.

Just flipped on the tv and saw Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls playing on cartoon network.

You can't show live action movies on cartoon network. That's almost as bad as MTV! sheesh.

I think I leave horrible phone messages. You know, bad enough that I continue to cringe for the next 10 minutes as I replay what I said in my mind. Seems like a simple skill, but I'm pretty sure I suck at it.

Of course, the root of my problem is that I am not good with phones. This is actually something I have pondered a bit in the past and here's what I came up with. First off, when you can't see the person you are talking to you lose a huge portion of contextual information about the conversation. Everything becomes more ambiguous, and as i've said before, I am not a big fan of ambiguity in communication so I think I get discouraged. Then there's the fact that phone time is naturally more boring and distracting because you don't even get the best part of the conversation, watching for all the little quirks in people's faces as they laugh or smile or roll their eyes or whatever. Without the good stuff it's so easy to drift off and lose focus, which anyone who's been on the phone with me for more than three minutes would know. I am so bad sometimes that I will essentially forget that I am on the phone with someone while I am doing something on my computer, whoops =(

Now take my obvious phone talking deficiencies and then compound them with the fact that leaving a phone message is like talking to yourself. There isn't even anyone talking back to you so it's like giving a monologue, except that it's unscripted *and* recorded. sigh. I can't think of many things that are a greater recipe for disaster than that.

So, to anyone I happen to leave messages for, I appologize in advance.

Well, thanks to Rama's suggestion to check out the Ticket Assassin I managed to get my first ticket dismissed. Wahoo! Once again my record is clean =D

Thanks ticket assassin!

I don't play a whole lot of poker, but over the past year I've started to play a bit here and there with friends. I always thought that poker was a pretty fun game, but I wasn't hooked until I started playing no-limit hold'em. After watching parts of the 2004 World Series of Poker on tv I started to realize how complex and interesting poker can be, so recently I decided to work on my game and order a few books.

The first couple books I got were David Sklansky's "The Theory of Poker" and Mike Caro's "Book of Poker Tells". As each book arrived I dug in immediately, but about a quarter of the way through each book I could tell I wasn't ready for these books. Caro's book is obviously for people who know how to play poker and are looking to improve their ability to spot tells, and I'm not there yet. Sklansky's book is more along the right lines, but it's not hold'em specific, and so much of it is theory that I got the feeling the info wasn't going to sink in until I had a little more experience. So I decided to try some other books.

I bought both of Dan Harrington's books on "Hold'em: Expert Strategy for no-limit tournaments". Jackpot. I tore into the first book getting about a third of the way through in only a couple days. This book is perfect for anyone starting out in no-limit hold'em. Harrington breaks down the theories in easy to manage chunks, focusing on just the most important elements like playing strategies, calculating odds, betting patterns, and some basic reads on the table. He walks you through scenerios making sure you are thinking about the right things along the way. Best of all, each chapter wraps up with a set of problems which are brilliant. As you get further along in the book the problems become the bulk of the material, and rightly so because they offer enormous amounts of information about how to think about all the steps that happen in the course of a single hand.

Over the weekend I got my first chance to test my new found knowledge and it worked wonders. I could have just been getting lucky, but finishing first, then second in our two tournaments is about all I could ask for. I might have even won the second tournament if I had been willing to be a bit more patient, but it was 3:30 in the morning and I decided to push, which was bad because my opponent ended up getting monster hands in heads up play. KK and 33 (then flopping a set) in the span of about 4 hands. how?

I've only read through Harrington's first book and I am eagerly awaiting my chance to dive into the second book, but consider this a strong recommendation.

See, this is what I was alluding to when I was dismissing the video ipod. As read on slashdot, Tv on Mobiles? Not there Yet? I think it's quite obvious that the market for portable video is vastly different than the market for portable audio. The fact is that a relatively small number of people have a desire for portable video, and that's why just slapping some video playback on an ipod is not going to drive the sales of ipods.

Highly Recommended Reading. This is a great book for anyone interested in understanding more about the history of societies and more specifically, how humans evolved from hunter/gatherer societies into the modern domestic societies which cover pretty much the entire planet today. My dad originally turned me onto this one and it had been in the book queue for about a year until I got hooked on audiobooks and finally got through it.

It's a pretty intense read, so be prepared. I ended up with the abridged audiobook form and I loved it. It only took me a few days to get through the whole thing (6 hours) and I believe it was far easier to listen to than it would have been to read. The book is chalked full of history explaining the evolution of humans around the planet, how humans expanded to different continents, and ultimately why some societies became the most dominant on earth. All fascinating stuff.

In addition to Guns, Germs, and Steel I would also recommend The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, the two books actually complement each other very well. The Tipping Point does't really focus on history or societies, but it does explore and breakdown those exact times in history when things seemingly start to "tip" and result is massive change. I'm sure that Jared Diamond would agree that there were "tipping points" in the history which affected the evolution of societies.

I was just reading this article in The Independent and it got me to thinking about the state of modern ethics. What happened? When did ethics become just a conept rather than an actual principle to live by?

The whole fiasco behind what is called the "Palmgate" incident reaks of unethical behavior. I don't consider myself a saint, but the idea that someone forged documents which stated that the Iraqis were trying to buy Uranium for building nuclear weapons is insane. The article claims that it was these documents that were picked up by Italian intelligence and contributed to the misconception that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction. That's not just being unethical that's being evil.

How do you cope with that? I don't think everyone has to be perfect, if nothing else that would just be boring, but it seems like everywhere we look now people just keep getting worse and worse. It's depressing. How about this for a troubling question, is the problem that we just aren't choosing ethical leaders anymore? or is the problem that ethics and politics are mutually exclusive?

I don't know why I didn't catch on to this before, but I am completely addicted to audiobooks right now. It makes reading so much easier and more enjoyable.

I usually don't do nearly as much reading as I would like because I don't have a whole lot of time, I am not a fast reader so it takes me a while to get through a book, and what time I have I like to spread among different activities. The result is that it often takes a month or two just to get through a single book. With audiobooks that has changed completely.

With audiobooks, not only is reading much easier because you don't have to sit and stare at a book to read it, but it's so much faster as well. Depending on the size of the book you are typically talking about 5-10 hours. For me, that goes by very quickly, especially considering that I can now use my work commute time (when I'm driving) to be listening to audiobooks. That means I can comfortably get through a book in a week, usually with time to spare.

I am also astonished at the selection. There hasn't been a single book that I haven't been able to find on audible.com, iTunes, or elsewhere. You can buy them and download them instantly, so it only takes about 10 minutes time between thinking of a book you want and actually having it on your iPod ready to go. Can't beat that.

So if you have and ipod or other portable audio player and haven't tried audiobooks I definitely recommend giving them a shot.

Yesterday I got into a little bit of a debate with my roommate about some of the propositions in the upcoming California special election. We went back and forth on some things and ultimately I realized that I still needed to gather some more info about some of the propostions so I did a little reading up today. After reading up a bit on proposition 75, which will require some unions to get permission from their members before being allowed to spend union money on politics, I realized that this seems like something that the unions should be voting on, not me.

Why should I be making decisions that affect how unions spend their money when I've never been in a union and probably never will be? I feel like this happens reasonably often, where I as a voter am asked to vote on something that has very little implication to me. Doesn't it make a little more sense if just the union workers were to vote on things like this? If a majority of the workers in the affected unions support this proposition then why shouldn't it pass?

This is something I often find disturbing about politics. It seems to me that in many cases voters are making decisions which don't apply to them directly. So I guess I don't really like the idea that voters are passing judgements on things that they don't really need to have a hand in.

One of the coolest things about having a trainer has been actually keeping track of my progress through regular tests. Yesterday I had my third test since starting up with my trainer after surgery and some of the changes are pretty interesting.

In the past 3 months I've gained 8 lbs yet lowered my blood pressure and % body fat. +1.25 inches of girth in shoulders, chest, and thighs, with smaller increases to girth in pretty much all other measurements. I managed 55 push-ups in a row, which is not bad, but more impressive is 40 inclined sit-ups in 60 seconds.

Looking back to 6 months ago the changes are even more crazy, and I even started in pretty decent shape and was mostly focused on injury rehab this whole time. I guess that goes to show you the value of a personal trainer.

For those who might be interested, here's where I train ...

Devine Design Body Sculpting
3199 S Bascom Ave
Campbell, CA 95008-6728
(408) 371-5313

This past tuesday my roommate invited me out to the Elbo Room to see "a brazilian group". I didn't know anything about the group or the music, but I was down to go out that night anways and I'm glad I did!

These guys are amazing. Anyone who's interested can check out their website and keep a watch out for live performances. I still have some of the songs playing in my head :)

I haven't talked about my knee progress in quite a while.

It's now about 9 months since the surgery and a couple weeks ago I started my new lifting cycle, the squat cycle. 145 lbs x 10. whoot! actually, 145 x 10 isn't all that impressive considering that a reasonably strong person should be able to do their body weight x 10, but I'm pretty happy about it anyways. This squat cycle is basically the last step before I am all set to return to full activities and *finally* get back on the soccer field. can't wait.

Pretty impressive when you sit back and think about it. Less than 9 months after having my knee sliced open and having one of my ligaments completely removed and replaced and I can already pack 150 lbs on my back and do some squats.

Gotta love it ... all you can eat pizza mondays!

There's just nothing better than sitting down with a pitcher of cold beer and all you can eat pizza after a tough monday at work. If you're in the neighborhood then you can enjoy this too, just head on over to Goat Hill Pizza at 300 Connecticut St, San Francisco 94107 (Portrero Hill). Lines are long on Monday nights, so prepare for a little wait.

It's always good to see soccer getting a little spotlight here in the US. Today the MLS all star game is being broadcast live on ABC, which is a good sign that network television is at least interested in the possibility of making soccer a primetime sport.

Up 'til now one of the biggest reasons network stations have steered away from soccer, aside from its limited popularity, is the fact that soccer is a continuous game which does not provide stop time for commercials. ABC has actually done a pretty good job of solving this problem with what they are calling "side by side". Basically, every once in a while they will split the screen and show a single commercial while still showing a small screen with the game on it. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

We still have a ways to go to get the quality of the games/league up with the rest of the world, but I think we're well on our way.

Well, that's twice in about 10 months now. This time the thieves were a little bit nicer and only broke the small thin window by the rear passenger seat, then just unlocked the door. how nice of them!

I actually smirked for a couple seconds when I got to my car this morning and realized what had happened because this time I was not so stupid and I had taken my stereo faceplate with me so the bitches didn't get my stereo. Unfortunately they were probably a little upset about that so they took my vizor full of cds instead :(

I still got the last laugh though (well sorta) because I actually had a full cd case hidden underneath the back seat which the thieves missed. haha punks, shoulda looked harder :p Also strange was the fact that they pulled my sunglasses case out of the compartment under the armrest but just left it on the front seat. Those babies cost over $200.

I think my new policy is to burn copies of all of my original cds and only keep copies in my car. All in all I am pretty fucking pissed that they got my Mushroom Jazz 5 cd ... I love that thing.

Maybe for next time I should setup some booby traps ... hmmm.

San Francisco has a reputation of being *the* city of fog and before I moved up to SF from the south bay I was actually a little worried that all the tales were going to be true and that I would be living in darkness for months at a time. Well, things couldn't be farther from the truth.

In fact, today was the first day since I've lived in SF that it's been foggy in my neighborhood when I came home from work. Granted, I supposedly live in the area of SF with the best weather, but still, that's pretty good. Pretty much every day it's the same, I come into the city from the south and as I pass through South SF and Daly City it's completely fogged in and things look bleek, but normally as I come into the mission things clear up again and it's crystal clear skies.

Anyways, this isn't really all that exciting, but I wanted to try and dispell some of the rumors that the entire city of San Francisco is just engulfed in fog year round. Some parts of the city probably come close, but others, like the Mission have great weather :)

I'm sad. I recently got my very first traffic ticket which breaks my almost 8 year shutout :(

It was a stupid ticket, but then again I bet most tickets are stupid. I was going 50 in a 35 and it was definitely valid, but the lame part is that the zone I was in probably shouldn't be a 35 because nobody goes that slow. I was the unlucky one that day though.

Bah ... now I have to go to traffic school too.

Wahoo! Verizon finally fixed whatever bug was causing problems when making online bill payments from non-IE browsers. I've been trying every damn month for almost a year now and they finally fixed it ... yay! Good work Verizon, now I won't have to switch my service again when my contract is up.

The Tour deserves it's very own category, after all it's basically my special month long religion :)

Go Rasmussen! His win on Sunday was just amazing, and now after hanging in there today I've got to say he's my favorite rider right now and I hope he gives Lance a serious run.

I think I'm getting bitter towards Lance actually :/ He's totally amazing, but I like to see a good competition even if it means Lance loosing. It's never fun to watch if it's one-sided right?

So, Go Rasmussen! Go Basso! Go Ullirch! Go Vino! Go anybody but Lance! Just make it a good race dammit!

I usually forget to post about cool places I find in SF, but this one was easy to remember. I tried this place based on a recommendation from my stylist and it turned out to be fantastic. Like trying different foods? Ever had Burmese food? Well now's your chance. Burma Superstar is located at 309 Clement in the Inner Richmond area and you are almost certain to discover a new culinary treasure on your first visit. It has a nice cozy little atmosphere perfect for sharing a good meal with friends, family, loved ones, etc. Lines can be long though, so prepare to spend a little time waiting if you go at prime time.

Anyone else tried it? I think it's horrible, but then again I never drink soda so that could be part of the problem. I'm not sure I can finsh the 20oz bottle i have in front of me now :/

Too bad ... it does sound good though ...

bwahahahah. friday funnies. this email was sent to a friend of mine today ...

!! ------

You must be ...

The cutest girl in the world. I saw you at lunch today and I kind of started crushing on you. I was the guy in the red shirt at the table next to yours about 20 minutes ago. Anyway, you seem to be uber sweet and are definitely uber beautiful. I thought I'd better email you, cuz I probablly wouldn't ever see you again if I didn't try to contact you. If you think I'm cute and want to be my pen pal, then just reply to this message. I promise I'm not a stalker and this will be the last time you ever hear from me if you don't reply.

Bests,

-Hopelessly Romantic

It's true. I dunno why, but I suck at mail. Not email, but the old school style snail mail. For some reason I am always about 3 weeks behind in my mail because I get it and either drop it on my desk at home or throw it in my bag and forget about it. Then with outgoing mail I always carry it around with me for about 3 days before it finally ends up in the mailbox. sigh.

The funny thing is that I am quite good with email, check it all the time, quick and easy. All I can say is ... thank god for paying bills online 'cuz otherwise I'd have serious credit problems :/

What would be awesome is a postal service that collects all your snail mail and converts it to email for you ... that would rock. When are they gunna come out with that?

What a pimped out idea ... let people style their own equipment and order it online. I just ordered some pretty dope looking FC Futbol iD shoes ... schweet!

check it out ... NIKE iD

Now who says advertising doesn't work? I actually just followed the ad link to this off of Gizmodo. boing!

Okay, this place is not to be missed. It's a reasonably small and trendy little joint basically at the corner of 19th and Valencia that serves up dazzling Thai food. The interior is very sheik with a very modern feng shui kinda vibe. The food is beautifully presented, priced reasonably, and totally delicious.

If you're looking for a good SF restaurant to try I would definitely recommend it. Be careful of primetime fridays and saturdays as you will likely have to wait a good hour :/

Man ... there just isn't anything like it. A couple sausage mcmuffins w/ egg, a few hash browns, and just sit back and enjoy the ride. Sure, I may have just lost 3 weeks off of my life expectancy, but it was worth it!

Ah ... what a fine thursday morning it is :)

What is it with American drivers and the middle lane? It's as if people think there is something wrong with the right hand lane, like it's only for tractors and slow trucks.

Every single time I am driving on the freeway, and especially when it's not too crowded, everyone piles up on the 2 left most lanes and leaves the *slow* lanes empty. I know you've noticed it too, those slow ass old folks who get in the second lane from the left and go 60 mph while getting passed on both sides. why? why must they do that?

I guess in Europe you can get a ticket for blocking traffic and not moving over. We should do that here in the US as well.

silly Americans.

I hate blogging about how I haven't been blogging, so lame. Oh well though, for some reason it feels compulsory in a situation like this where I have obviously been neglecting my blog :(

I would give a lengthy explanation for my absense but I don't really want to defend myself right now. The short version is that I have been busy, and not so busy that I couldn't post, but mainly so busy that I haven't been putting any thought into what I want to post.

After a bit of blog neglect I always seem to end up coming full circle and reflecting a little bit on what I like about blogging. The best thing about blogging, IMHO, is that it's so easy. Sharing information has never been an easy thing, but blogging takes a big step in the right direction. The web has always been the perfect place to share things, but up until blogging it still required a certain amount of expertise to setup a web server and then be able to author content. Now both of those things have become trivial, and hence you get an easy way for *anyone* to have a website for sharing whatever they like.

I also love the journal type format of blogs. There is just something so intimate about reading someone elses journal and I think that really adds to the appeal of blogging.

Then of course there is the freedom and anonymity (If you want) to write about anything you choose. It's always interesting to discover what things people are willing to share when they can do so anonymously.

You just can't fight it ... blogging rocks!

I don't really consider myself an anal consumer and usually i am willing to put up with some shit because a company is doing a pretty good job, but this one I just can't forgive.

All I want to be able to do is pay my bill online. You know, enter a credit card number and amount, click submit, done. But no, some group of meatheads over at Verizon think it is okay to say "we don't support Mozilla", uh wtf!?

This is one of those situations where if I actually did come face to face with the person who is accountable, I would kick 'em in the nuts as hard as I could and not even feel bad about it.

I hate idiots.

Originally uploaded by geezer87.

too funny not to pass on.

I could pracically rename this blog "Rigor Mortis" :(

Well, the fact is that I have been incredibly busy both at work and at outside. I was already reasonably busy working on opensolaris, and now I am set to contribute some time to the development of roller which is used by blogs.sun.com. Lately I have had enough to do that I will often forget to even check my personal email during the day ... sheesh.

On top of the chaos at work I am still juggling therapy sessions for my knee, figure drawing at ccsf, and of course there is The Madness, which brought me to Las Vegas last weekend for some fun.

I'll try and keep a more steady pace moving forward though.

-- AG

We all know we say it ... "There just isn't enough time in the day", "If only the days were longer", and "I need more time!" Even though your boss and employer really don't want you thinking about it, you must wonder from time to time if the 40 hour work week is a little too much?

If you do a little math and consider just the parts of your day that you contribute to essential living activities, like sleeping, eating, working, etc, then I figure my typical day constitutes nearly 20 hours. Now about 2 of those hours are commute time which sucks, but not at all uncommon. The days of the 10 minute commute are gone, at least most likely if you live here in the Bay Area.

So 20 out of 24 hours assuming I get a full nights sleep (8 hours) and spend some time on the basics, showering, eating a few meals a day, and of course my 8 hours of work. That's 83% of my time each day, gone.

We all know that those numbers get fudged here and there so we can try and make more time for ourselves. We either sleep less, eat fast food, or even telecommute nowadays. But the question still remains, in a society where a lot of people believe family time is losing to work time, are we really being overworked? I mean, who was it that decided that it should cost you 40 hours a week to earn your lifestyle, why not 30? Would a 6 hour work day provide society as a whole a better opportunity to reestablish a good family life?

well, i figured it would happen, just not this soon. over the weekend my car was broken into and my stereo was jacked.

it would have been truly classic to see a video of my reaction as i opened my door and climbed in to see the face of my dashboard flapping open in front of me. I remember thinking ... "hmm, that wasn't like that when i left." Then about 3 seconds later i noticed the stiff breeze that seemed to be coming from inside of my car and looked over my shoulder to see a nice back seat full of glass. At that point it clicked and the whole suprise element really set in ... "wow, i've been fucking robbed."

The next step was to survey the situation and try and remember if i had left anything valuable in my car, most notably my cds ... *fear*. Luckily I had been smart enough to keep those with me at all times and never leave them in the car, especially over a weekend, so my cd case was safe. I almost never leave anything of value in my car, but I kept looking around just in case. I remember a sudden fear when I realized the glove compartment had been opened and emptied. I immediately thought that for some reason the person had grabbed my car insurance and registration info, but again I was lucky and the glove compartment had simply been emptied onto the floor. As I finished assesing the damage I was suprised to find that the person had in fact left everything in the car except for the stereo ... they didn't even take the cds sitting in the visor above my car.

At the end of it all I just ended up with a broken window and stolen stereo, which in truth I had thought about replacing a few times over the last year anyways. Above all it was more of a rude awakening about the realities of living in a big city. Once I replace my stereo I am sure i'll be *much* better about taking the face plate with me when I go.

Now the question is what new car stereo should I get? :)

This item at slashdot peaked my interest. It says "[The UK] leads the world in TV piracy, accounting for 38.4% of the world's TV downloads, with Australia coming in second at 15.6% and the US in third at a pitiful 7.3%"

Here's some other stats:
UK population - 59 million
Australia population - 20 million
US population - 295 million
California - 35 million

What is interesting to me is that the UK and Australia, which have small populations when compared to the rest of the world, are the biggest pirates. Why? Why aren't americans higher on the list? Is it because the average american really does respect copyright laws? or because the average american doesn't have the technical skills to find, download, and watch this stuff?

I imagine that all the english speaking countries are at the top because most of the entertainment industry is english based, so there is a bigger market for it. A guess as to why the US isn't at the top could be because americans have easy access to all the latest entertainment in legitimate form, while the UK and Australia may have to wait 6 months to a year before getting the latest season of certain shows. Maybe they are just impatient?

You do have to admit that it is strange that over half of the tv piracy in the world is dominated by a population less than a third the size of the US. And where is China? we know those guys like to pirate right?

As mentioned in a Slashdot article this morning, the record industry is now trying to predict hit songs using software.

I think this is the ultimate example of why *pop*ular music is such junk these days. To think that you need a computer to tell you when a song is good or not is so totally ridiculous it's hilarious.

It's almost as if they shouldn't actually call it music anymore because it's only purpose nowadays is entertainment (read $$$). Anyone who thinks that Britney Spears (or any other pop icon example you prefer) is a musician is an idiot, she is an entertainer, and a good one i'll admit, but she is no musician.

Ick. Had a bit of the flu this weekend and it was not fun. The thing I hate so much about the flu is that when I get it I always get really sore all over my back and neck and it's just so damn uncomfortable. bleh. I'm glad it's over now, but I still have a lingering cough to deal with :(

It's 3 days later now and I am still feeling the vibe, that's how intense it was. 4 days of pure art frenzy ... learning, sharing, enjoying ... ahhh.

I'm not sure why, but I somehow didn't expect nearly as much from this workshop and even after the first day I was totally blown away at the level of creativity that was all around me. The whole event was too great to put in to words and I can't wait 'til the next one. In the meantime I gotta hit the books (sketchbooks that is) and work on seriously improving my skills.

As soon as I get my scanner back I'll make my sketchbook available online.

Oh, and if you are ever in the mood for some good artwork ... check out conceptart.org

You would not immediately think this is possible, but I have found out the hard way that it is true. I suppose that "over massage" may not be the best way to explain my experience, but oh well. The fact is that last wednesday after physical therapy i had a massage, and since it had been a month since my surgery and i was feeling good i asked the masseur to go a little harder. Well, maybe that wasn't a good idea. I felt normal on wednesday after the massage, so no big deal right?

Well, as thursday and friday passed I started to notice my knee feeling a little weird. Nothing painful, just a hint of laxity which gave enough of an unstable feeling to make me a little worried. I also noticed a slight throbbing or pulsing sensation mostly on the outside part of my knee. By saturday and sunday I was really worried that things didn't feel like they were getting better, and still come monday morning I was sure I would get to physical therapy and find out that I had somehow inadvertantly torn my replacement ACL.

I described this to the physical therapist as she examined my knee and I was figuring the worst. Luckily she told me that nothing was wrong with my knee and that it wasn't anything to worry about. After making it through the whole work out (some parts a little more shaky then they had been before) she told me that it was most likely that after the massage my muscles had relaxed a little too much. Combined with some decrease in swelling over the weekend and my still current lack of strength, the instability was simply a result of a sudden lack of tension (nothing too severe, just enough to make a difference).

So the moral is ... don't over massage when you've just had surgery and you aren't strong enough to make up for large decreases in tension.

There's a bunch more inside the printable pdf doc. sooooo funny.

So I've been MIA the past week due to my knee surgery. I still can't believe that I needed a major surgery. I consider myself a fairly healthy and cautious person, so surgery was something I never considered likely for me, but so much for that.

Anyways ... the surgery went great. I was only in there for about an hour and as it turns out my ACL was totally ripped up and I also had 2 matching meniscal tears to go with it. Now, not even 1 week afterwards, I am already moving around pretty well in my knee brace, and the swelling is well on it's way down. I still can't bend my knee past about 90 degrees, but the p.t. guy said that is mainly due to the swelling, and as that gets worked out the range can be increased.

Here's a photo of my knee from the day afterwards when I had a checkup with the doc. Sorry for the crap quality ... had to use a camera phone since I forgot to bring my camera with me.

I have more, including some before surgery pics, and a variety of afters, but i haven't had a chance to unload my camera yet.

This whole surgery thing is certainly a trying process, can't wait 'til it's over ... months from now :|

*sigh* ... this will certainly be worse than allowing people to choose their own colors in AIM. It looks like Verizon, and others, are starting to offer ringback tones which will allow people to choose what a caller hears when their number is dialed. i.e. you can force people to listen to old Depeche Mode songs every time they call you ... hmmm.

For now it seems that it's only available in a couple California locations, but will be widely available some time next year and costs $1 per month to use + the cost of the ringback tone.

This is one of those features that borders on intrusive/annoying if you ask me. I think it will be fun to see what people choose as their ringback tone, but at the same time I doubt i'll really want to hear it every time I call them. I suppose I'd go for it if I can find a decent tune not from Britney Spears or one of her lame-o-pop cohorts. we'll see.

If you buy dvds then you should know about this. Deep Discount Dvd is having a huge 20% off sale for thanksgiving. Coupon = "DVDTalk".

And if somehow you didn't already know ... Deep Discount is the very best place to find your dvds for cheap, sale prices aside. So pony up and buy some dvds, I know I am.

NOTE: sale ends 11/20, so don't wait too long.

Caught word of this little event via The Drawing Board. A really great idea to get out and draw for a day. Idea and image courtasy of Enrico Casarosa ... so join the fun and spread the word.

Well, the election is over and Bush has won, *sigh*

I usually don't bring up politics too often for two reasons. First off, political discussions can quickly make friends into enemies when you hit a touchy subject, and secondly because very rarely do I find that a political discussions leads anywhere. They seem to be like philosophy discussions to me, they just go in circles and at the end of it you are just tired and angry.

However, on such a day one must vent at least a little bit. So my question is why? Why are people supporting a man like George W. Bush?

From polls, the two biggest issues surrounding this election were "the war in Iraq" and "Terrorism", and I beg someone to prove to me that Bush is the man to lead the U.S. on both of these fronts. We *know* that while he has a cavalier attitude toward attacking terrorists that he still can't tell which terrorists are the right ones to attack. No weapons in Iraq, no connection to Al Qaeda, and yet we still attacked the Iraqis while leaving Osama bin Laden running around free. And while I will admit that progress has been made in Iraq, at what cost did it come? We *know* that Bush has not managed the Iraq war as effectively as he said he would and I see no reason to suggest that the situation will improve. Colin Powell, arguably the most intelligent person in the Bush cabinet, never supported the war in Iraq and is now expected to leave his position. *sigh*

Now to prove that I am not totally biased against Bush I will concede that if economics is your big issue then Bush (I really mean republicans) are my preference as well. I am a strong stupporter of a free and open economy which favors buisness, and so even though it's painful to say, I do think Bush will provide a better economy for the U.S.

However, I believe that all three of the topics mentioned above are insignificant when compared to the ramifications this election will have on our international reputation and domestic social and environmental issues. Those two topics decided my vote and I don't see how anyone could ever support Bush as the right person to make decisions on these topics. He has proven that the environment is not a pressing issue for him and so basically what we have is another four year delay on important environmental issues. Don't get me started on gay marriage and abortion. And then the biggest disaster of all is our foreign policy. The sad fact is that most Americans have never been outside our country and therefore don't realize how much the rest of the world loathes George W. Bush.

I feel like I'm at the beginning of a four year prison term. Ughh.

Here's an email I just wrote to Kinkysweet records ...

I'm so pissed off right now I don't even know where to begin. I just happend to buy a couple cds that came from kinkysweet records and I am appalled at the DRM you have embedded in these cds. I really don't understand why you would try and make things harder on the people who actually buy your cds.

I buy music every week and all i want to do is take the new cds that i purchased in full and rip them to mp3s for use on my portable music players, but you guys have to make that impossible. well fuck you guys. i refuse to have you decide how i will use the music i purchase.

first off, you will never stop music pirates with DRM ... ever. second, what good is DRM if it drives away your valid customers? gawd ... get a clue.

sincerely,
Allen Gilliland a.k.a someone who will never buy from Kinkysweet ever again.

well, let's hope that 3 is my lucky number, cuz saturday was the 3rd time that I injured/re-injured my knee and right about now it looks like a big ugly water balloon. It really sucked because in the back of my mind I knew that my knee wasn't fully recovered and ready to play, but at the time the team was short on players and I had made the trip all the way to Munich in order to play, so I was going to give it a shot. 10 minutes in ... ughh.

it's sad irony how we often put ourselves in situations where we just could not make the decision we know we ought to make. oh well, that's just being human i guess.

as for me ... at least 4 more months on the bench. sigh.

16th @ Valencia

Pakistani food; fast and cheap. This is a really great bang for the buck place which serves up good quality food for a few bucks. We had plenty of food for 4 people and spent only $37. Add to that a nice 22oz beer from the corner market (they don't sell any alcohol) and you've got a great meal.

I pickup up a wireless ethernet bridge today figuring that I would use it to eventually connect to the wireless network we'll setup at home, and when I started it up to just see what it could do I was startled to find 5 networks already prime for me to access.

So I jumped on one and here I am. Sigh. I am glad for the free connect, but i fear the number of unregulated networks that must be out there waiting to be abused.

I think the fact that I've started riding the train frequently has somehow lowered my car karma. I was down in SJ on Tuesday going to a movie with some friends and after the movie I get in my car to leave and it won't start. Luckily it was easy to just go to my parents house for the night and borrow a car from them for the next day while the car could be looked at.

The good karma part is that it ended up just being some corrosion around the battery, something which i probably should have been able to notice and fix myself, but i suck with cars. The fact is that I've never ever had problems with the only car I've ever had, so there really hasn't been a reason/opportunity to learn anything. But this time I did learn about corrosion around a battery connector.

Tip:
If it looks like there is built up corrosion around one/both of your battery connectors then simply disconnect, clean it off, reconnect ... a soda like coca-cola works fine for breaking down some of the corrosion that is solid and won't come off.

something new every day :)

Last night I tried out this vegan/vegetarian restaurant at Valencia and 20th (i think) called "Herbivore". Now, I am always a little reluctant to eat at vegetarian resaurants because for some reason they just never seem to work for me. I love veg. food, but I find that full veg. restaurants always go off the deep end some how and can't deliver good meals.

Luckily "Herbivore" was pretty good and kept me interested enough to go back for another try. My meal wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. What I loved about the place was that you get a lovely, good-sized salad with your meal, and the portions are huge. i mean huge. i was in pain about halfway through, you know ... like when you start to slouch over your meal so you don't have to lift the food as far into your mouth, then you get *the extremely long chew* and each bite seems to go on forever. Anways, i got a heaping pile of brown rice w/ veggies and tofu that easily left me with enough for a second meal.

So, kewl place, good portions, but try something other than the Kung Pao.

Went to this great Vietnamese place called "Sunflower" right on the corner of 16th and Valencia. The food was excellent, especially the clay pot catfish which was some of the most juicy and tender fish I've ever had in my life. I didn't try the Pho this time around, but I'll definitely be back some time to try that out.

mmm. nothing beats the food in the city =)

So one of the things that was pretty exciting about moving to SF was the opportunity to take public transportation to/from work. I had done some research here and there, looked at time tables etc, and knew that taking caltrain/bart would get me to and from work, but i wasn't sure how long it would really take and if it would be worth it.

Wed night I took the Sun shuttle from work over to the train station, then caltrain to Millbrae, and then BART to SF. The travel was easy, but the total travel time was roughly 2 hrs, which just won't cut it. By car I am looking at 60-70 mins and I am prepared to add a bit to that for public transit since at least I get to relax instead of drive, but 2hrs was way too long.

Thurs night I decided to try again, but this time I would skip the Sun shuttle and just drive to the station myself. The shuttle is nice, but unfotunately it is only scheduled once per hour and is designed to get everyone there early enough to catch either a northbound or southbound train. The result is that you waste a good 15-20 mins. Anyways, that pretty much solved the whole 2hr issue and this time my total travel time was 90 mins, which is long but acceptable I say since about 70 of those minutes are just sitting on trains and reading/writing/drawing/music/etc.

When I think about 3hrs of cummuting each day I cringe, but with a little more time to adjust I think it will be a great option. Plus, it's great for the environment.

Note: I am really disappointed that BART doesn't go to Millbrae except during peak traffic times, which makes this commute impossible at off times or on weekends if i want to take the train home :(

Well, it's been a pretty hectic past couple of weeks, but I've finally got moved up to SF and into my new home. The place is great and the room has worked out perfectly and has plenty of space for all my stuff. I don't have anywhere to put my clothes as of yet, but other than that it's all good.

Parking is going to be a nightmare for the first couple weeks or so until I finalize my parking permit. I let my dad park my car last night while I was working on a couple things and figured it would be okay until this morning ... wrong. First night in SF, first parking ticket. crappo. Ah well, lesson learned.

So I've been a terrible blogger this past month, but I feel it's at least partially justified with as crazy as things have been. Work has been quite a bit more hectic recently with more projects, etc. Then there's been the whole moving to San Francisco thing which has been a total vacuum or my time. Etc, etc.

Anyways, I've been busy and neglegent as far as this blog goes, but hopefully that will start to turn around now that I've found my place in the city and shouldn't be spending as much time on that anymore. I still have to move at the end of the month, but that shouldn't be too bad.

More later.

-- AG

Another really tough game yesterday where we once again only had 11 players for the whole game.

The first half was brutal and after about 20 minutes we got really sloppy. We had a # of opportunities, but so did they and at the half the score was 1-1. I started the game out in the field, but about half way through I tweaked my knee and it didn't feel too great for the rest of the game :(

In the second half I moved to goalie since we were once again without our regular goalkeeper and somehow we really managed to settle down a bit in the second half and play a better game. We had another unlucky call in the box which resulted in a PK, however this time I was sharp, stood my ground, and the guy kicked it pretty much right at me. I didn't do much, however I think that having the PK blocked did a lot for the team and helped raise everyone's spirit.

We got our second goal on a great counter attack that we controlled nicely and finished with a great shot.

We're still not making things easy on ourselves with all these PKs, no subs, no goalkeeper, but at least we are still winning. I should give some credit to the other team because they played just as well as we did and had some very strong players.

Went to see this Steve Martin adapted play called Underpants last night with the family+. Chels says that I was "bustin' up" the whole time which I suppose is the truth. There were definitely a couple times where I thought I was the only laughing and once I stopped I would wonder if nobody else got the joke or if I really was the only one who thought it was funny. The play was a fun little romp about a woman who had accidently had her underpants drop in public.

Funny stuff I say ... funny stuff.

I just wasted an hour in traffic ... and it wasn't even during morning traffic times!

I honestly wish we could rewind time back to the time when the rail/automobile wars happened and change the outcome so that trains had won. It would be incredibly interesting to see different the country would be if it was blanketed in a huge network of railways which were only supported by a more minor network of roads and automobiles. I also think this would have severly changed how our modern cities were designed and would have forced more centralized downtown areas around train stops rather than the suburban sprawl that we live with today.

Can't wait to move to the city and be able to use some public transportation for a while.

Finally got back on the field yesterday and got a chance to run around for little while. I think I had an overly optimistic vision in my mind where I would step out onto the field and everything would just feel normal again, but that certainly wasn't the case. Every move I made had an unsettling sense of uncertainty that really suprised me, and even with the knee support I wore I could tell that I was holding back a lot.

At the end of the day the fact is that it just felt really good to get out and run around a bit, and I am pretty optimistic that I will rebuild my strength fairly quickly. My knee was a little sore last night, but felt nice and strong by morning :)

-- AG

Finally got a little action yesterday when I filled in for our injured goalkeeper, which is ironic because I am injured too. hmm.

They got a lame goal off of a penalty kick at the end of the first half and i actually almost blocked it. It was a little off to my right and high, however i was only able to get enough of it to deflect it off the crossbar and in. bummer.

Anways, we got the "V" even though it was another shaky game with only 12 ppl showing up and 3 of us were playing injured.

Back in action after the break :D

-- AG

Well, not a great week of football for me. There is of course, as the title explains, the fact that we lost our first ever BABSL soccer game yesterday. Part of the problem was the fact that we only had 12 people available due to injuries (including me) and other commitments. We really should not have lost, but that's the way things go some times.

As if that wasn't bad enough, there is also the fact that now both England and France have been eliminated from euro 2004 :( Not that I have any particular ties to either team, but they are my favorites.

Ugh ... can't wait 'til I can play again!

Almost forgot to post the results of last weeks game. The score really doesn't reflect how well Cisco played though, because they actually played a good game and showed a lot of skill. Unfortunately they started with only 10 guys and I belive they just lacked the intensity they needed.

Anyways, I didn't do squat in the game because I twisted my knee earlier last week and therefore I'm sidelined 'til I get healed up :(

So I wanted to get soccer cleats about 3 months ago, and after looking for a while and trying some on I decided that I liked the nike total 90 II's. However the problem was that there weren't many available because nike was coming out with a new version in May.

So I waited 'til May and had to track down a pair, which took a bit of calling and effort to locate. Eventually I found a pair, tried them on in the store and they felt pretty good so I bought them.

I go out the same day to play in them and I come back with matching pairs of these ...

Now, not only do I have horrible blisters which are lame, but I need to figure out what to do with the cleats. I would like to just return them to the store, however that is often hard with soccer cleats because once they touch the field they get grass stained, etc. Mine look pretty damn new except for the very bottoms of the cleats which are a faint green color :(

And after all this I still don't have new cleats ... crap!

From a fortune cookie ...

"Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men."

Got this off the drawing board some time ago and wanted to put it here. I need to read this like *every* day.

!! --

Don't be afraid to sketch in public places such as museums, parks, restaurants, etc. And don't let wind, .rain or cold or heat deter you --those conditions sometimes yield the best sketching. Let someone else drive when travelling so you can draw. Capturing a scene while moving at.high speed will sharpen your eye. But also take time to do a more detailed sketch. First draw a rectangle and work within that to force yourself to make a composition, relating one thing to another and to the borders. If you feel a need for toning the sketches, use cross hatch or carry a couple of gray felt tip pens. Get in the habit of using a pen. It is much more direct and does not rub off like a soft pencil. Sketch at home too. Never sit in front of the t.v. without a sketch pad on your lap. Sketch faces, figures, stage settings. If your dog or cat is lying on the floor nearby, sketch them. Sports events are especially fun to sketch --boxing matches, football games, etc.
You may shun landscapes --saying that you are interested only in figures or cartoons, but trees and mountains, rivers and clouds have gestures that can be beneficial for analyzing action. Mountains stand erect, lean, lie down, sprawl, spill out onto valleys in alluvial forms. Trees loom, twist in agonized or humorous gestures; they stand erect,. stretch, lean; some are tired, some perky, some bear fruit or flower, wbich in itself is a gesture. Even the atmosphere of a landscape has a (spatial)
gesture.

Vehicles have gestures of their own. Some cars seem to slink along, some move proudly. Some are raised way up on springs --look like they're holding up their skirts so they can cross a stream. Special equipment like skip-loaders and semis and .derricks and delivery trucks --all doing their own thing. They're as different from each other as a farmer is from an office worker; or a military man is from a hobo. Don't sketch vehicles as if you were doing a Ford ad --go for their personalities, their gesture. Sketching can not only be fun, but it will help you master those blank sheets of paper you're going to be spending the rest of your life battling.
People usually do what they are in the habit of doing. That may seem like an obvious thing to say, but it is significant in a number of ways. Arguing in its favor, it is a comfortable way of living. There are a minimum of decisions that require attention, and hopefully the things you are in the habit of doing and the
manner in which you do them are compatible with your idea of the '.ideal'. life. And if you're studying to be a concert pianist or
a rock band drummer or a pro-tennis player, you had better submit to some rigorous habit forming --such as hours and hours of
practice.

Arguments against forming daily habits that guide you
through life without having make any new choices are quite
numerous, The old adage "use it or lose it" is applicable here.
If one has formed pretty solid days worth of habits that carry
him through the days and months and years --he is going to grow smaller and smaller as age sets and the more habitual he is the
sooner age will set in.
Someone said, "Change will help keep the balance sheets in order," or something like that. We're not talking change for the
sake of change --but for improvement. For expanding the consciousness; for an ever fresh and open-minded attitude to your piece of the universe. Habits are a blessing when they relieve us of the burden of having to relearn everything we do every day. But if they lead us down the narrowing road of complacency, they
become a drag.
.4
.
That great teacher and the great guy, T. Hee, told his students to be like a sponge --soak up all the knowledge and information you can. Never allow yourself to get into a self- . satisfied or complacent state. He advised never to drive home from work by the same streets twice. Take alternate routes --
observe the new houses, trees, gardens, etc., and don't just
drive by them --look at them, ~ them. When walking along a sidewalk, look into the store windows, not just a glance, but a good look, to see what's there -the set up, the merchandise, the signs. Sketch it in the mind's eye. Observe passers by. Notice their walks, their postures, their rhythms --look for their history on their faces. Observe, observe, observe. And of course there is no better way to observe than to carry a sketch
book with you wherever you go.
Whether your heart is set on the fine arts or on animation, quick sketching is the shortest route to training yourself for capturing those spontaneous gestures and poses that are so essential to good drawing. Break one of your bad habits today.
Which one? The habit of not sketching.
Also relative to drawing is the sharpening of your sense of dramatics and humor and of science and psychology. What are your
reading habits? If they are narrow and limited, make a
determined effort to expand them. Read a book on acting. Read a
mystery; read a book on the life of pissarro. Have a few books
of New Yorker cartoons in your library. Read Van Gogh' s "Dear Theo". Read a few self-improvement books. Call 244-2816 once in
awhile.

Listen to some jazz, some symphony, a string quintet, some country music. Stop everything and just listen. There are some delightful irish and scottish recordings. Feel the leaves of a sycamore tree, a wad of cotton, a piece of sandpaper. Pick up a stone from the beach or from the mountains and fondle it. See if it has a message for you. Notice its color and texture --imagine doing an abstract painting of it, or actually do it. Sharpen your senses in all ways. Life will open up its vistas of adventure and courage and venture someness. Then when you make a sketch you will feel an authoritative confidence flow into it. It will have the rhythms of the music you have heard, the drama of the books you have read, and the tactile influence of all the
things you have touched.
Sounds like a dream? No way! You have been given all these things --these possibilities, and for the small price of a few
new habits ...who knows

From the autobiography "Roses and Buckshot" by illustrator James Montgomery Flagg

ART CAN'T BE TAUGHT
by James Montgomery Flagg
1938

There are no art teachers. Art cannot be taught.

Artists are born that way. They educate themselves, or else they do not become educated.
The pressure of tradition is so strong that young artists succumb automatically to the universal routing of going to art school. The gigantic ignorance of the public- which includes misguided and innocent-minded school boards and schools- is equally absurd. The feverish communistic urge of the moment, which seems to be taken at it's face value, of forcing millions of school children to "study art," fitted or unfitted (overwhelmingly the latter) is a crime against art itself.

The standard of creative art has been so lowered and debased since the "Nude Descending the Staircase" that illogically and inevitably it has become in the alleged mind of the public a minor trade into which hordes of it's offspring can be shoveled with a forlorn hope that they can make a living in that racket if other similar jobs are overcrowded.

I happen to have been born an artist. Ask anyone who doesn't know. I wasted six years of my life in art schools. As far as any benefit accruing to me from them- I was working on the outside all the time, anyway. Nothing but total disability or death could have stopped me. I had to be an artist- I was born that way. Such a pity!

But I heard about art schools- about Paris ateliers- there was propaganda I was too young to resist. So I went. I didn't take them very seriously. When the hired "master" had gotten within two seats of mine, I rose and went out and smoked a cigarette until he had passed my drawing- on an upturned chair. I didn't like to have him ruin my drawing with his silly mechanical marks. I had to teach myself. All artists have to. Egotists? Sure. Not conceited. Entirely different thing.
You can't breed an artist. You can only breed mediocrity. And how they are breeding it! I have weakly acquiesced to demands to be a judge of kid's posters, etc.- believe me, there isn't a potential in the carload! I have no patience with "pretty good" artists- like the curates egg. The artist and the artisan are confused in the world's mind. An artist is a creative monster. Who can have the effrontery to claim to have taught Velasquez, Michelangelo, Phidias, Da Vinci, Rembrant, Correggio, El Greco, Reaburn, Sargent?- to name a few of the "big shots." Or, in other angles of art, who taught Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms? Who? Who taught Homer, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Dickens, Poe, Emerson?

Who?

Saturday morning was A.J.'s high school graduation, so congrats to him on finishing that up and moving on to the next step in life.

I remember feeling that my high school graduation was not really an accomplishment because it was something that everyone had to do. I felt that just graduating wasn't showing that I had gone above and beyond, and I remember resenting the fact that school was easy for me so I never really got a sense of accomplishment out of it.

Looking back now I would say that my attitude was at least slightly unjustified. High school certainly wasn't an accomplishment scholastically, at least not for me, but I think you can't realize until you're older that it definitely is a milestone in your development as a person. And perhaps its not the fact that you graduated that makes it an accomplishment, but rather the experiences that you take from it that make it so momentous. Never underestimate the importance of any experience ... that's what I say.

And as a side note ... I think I should be a graduation speaker, because the boneheads they pick now must have zero understanding of their audience. Of course maybe it's just a curse and all graduation speeches are doomed to boredom.

-- Al G

From an interesting discussion with a co-worker.

Its estimated so far that the Iraq war has cost the US over 100 Billion dollars and of course that number is growing by the second. Now I am all for liberating people, but you do have to wonder if 100+ Billion dollars is worth it. I almost don't want to discuss what else that money could have been used for, but I counter one point I have heard from a number of places.

Many people have commented that the Iraq war was a ploy to obtain and better control access to the oil in the middle east. This is possible, but with 100 Billion dollars the US could have freed itself from the use of fossil fuels forever by simply investing all that money into new research and architecture for the use of hydrogen fuel, or even something else.

So, should the US have gone into Iraq and forced itself to invest so much of its own money for their sake? and if not, what else should the money have been used for?

-- AG

Guess I haven't noted this anywhere yet, but both those last links came from the Artbomb Blog

Cool shit ... classic novels turned into graphic form.

http://www.graphicclassics.com/

... and, what you get when you lookup graphic novels at the yale library

http://www.library.yale.edu/humanities/media/comics.html

One of my co-workers said she had a weird dream last night where she remember something about "A terrorist act being stopped in LAX on an Alaska Airlines flight." Obviously this doesn't mean a single thing, but for some reason she felt it was vivid enough that it might actually come true.

Anyways ... she told me to remember just in case it turned out to be true ... so here's a record of it.

This worked pretty well for last year so we'll see if I can keep things rolling.

1. get out there man! - travel is one of my passions, but it can certainly be tough to schedule. The goal for this year is to go on at least 2 trips to places I have not seen before.

2. sketchmania - this should go without saying, but it can be tough at times. The goal is simple, 1 sketchbook every 2 months, 100 pages, totally full. I should even do more ;)

3. stay in touch - i have problems with this. it's not that i don't think about people, it's more that i am just not good at long distance communication. Anyways, this is just a general one.

4. blog it - another "goes without saying one", but i put it here anyways. gotta keep the blog updated, as well as post plenty of art and photos.

5. stir fry? - With my busy schedule I don't cook much, but I should really fix that. My goal here is to cook at least twice a week, and have at least 10 good meals that I can make by the end of the year.

6. color you ass! - I haven't spent much time working with color in my art because I have been trying to focus on the basics first. Time to move on.

Well that's a start at least. Happy New Year!

Well ... time to see how I did on my 2003 New Years Resolutions and evaluate what I accomplished last year.

Here's last years Resolutions post.

1. New Hours - Well getting a job pretty much assured this one, but I will say that I still like the more normal schedule.

2. Get Outside - Hmm. I definitely did a lot to involve myself in playing soccer and basketball for a while last year, but I feel I can do even better.

3. Moving On - Yup, done. And what a kewl new house it is! :-)

4. 100 Movies - Negative. I was going strong until I moved, then things got hectic and I wavered.

5. 100 Drawings - Ugh. I wish I wouldn't have said they had to be from an idea. Don't think I hit this mark, but I am still drawing and that is something.

6. Budget - Wahoo! I definitely did this one, although I got lazy from time to time.

7. Website - It's still here! I definitely got lazy come the end of the year, but I am working on new features now that will help keep it going :)

8. Music - Well I fuckin' excelled at this one by stepping up the pace to a cd every week!

Overall Score: 88,309

I think I did well :)

The latest edition of Draw! magazine has come out and it contains a rather inspiring article about the "Power of Sketching." This article has reminded me (as I have been reminded before) that a huge part of the joy of drawing is the freedom to just throw things down on paper and watch things unfold before your eyes.

It may sound strange, but one of my biggest problems with drawing so far is my fear of the blank page. All artists know this fear, and it does sound silly, but somehow there is this overwhelming pressure to draw something great each time you put pencil to paper, and that pressure can really mess with your mind. Of course, everyone says that to remedy this situation you have to just draw like crazy, forget about good vs bad drawings, and just focus on having fun and being inspired.

The Goal: Fill 1 entire sketchbook per month starting Dec 01, 2003. I have been extremely poor at filling my sketchbook and thus I am looking forward to this challenge. Besides, its always good to have a variety of simple goals in front of you.

Felt a bit like talking.

I swear that times like this come like clockwork, at least for me they do. What times? well, it's pretty simple really, times where I feel compelled to apply the question "why?" to everything I do and don't do. weird i guess, maybe not. But these are good times to talk and try and get things out of my mind and off my chest so that I can *try* to feel normal again.

I really don't have anything to complain about ... I still have a job, although it was touch and go for a little while, and everything is going well at the house. Drawing class has been a bit of a drag lately, but oh well. Anyways, things are pretty normal, yet I seem to have happened upon a bit of confusion, which is always tough. I'm not sure why it's happened, maybe just bored with the daily grind, but I seem to have lost any and all enthusiasm for life these days. And of course to make it worse I feel as if I have seen more totally idiotic things happen these past weeks than I have all year, and I don't deal well with people being stupid.

well ... i feel surprisingly better now. peace.

I have been eagerly anticipating the windows version of iTunes all year. Finally it came, and i am totally disappointed. A big part of the problem is that i use linux, which *shouldn't* be a problem except that everyone is still trying to control us through proprietary software. I guess i shouldn't say i am disappointed in iTunes per say, but i am disappointed that i can't download from their music store and make any use of what i download. i can't share the files with my roommates. i can't use the files on my primary linux box. and for only a few dollars cheaper than a cd, with worse quality than a cd, i just don't see this as being worth it yet.

Despite my disappointment this process did spark enough excitement about my iPod to actually look around for some more iPod tools. From that search i came accross myPod ... a java based gui for accessing your iPod, and assuming it works well i plan to use it for my music needs now.

I also realized that i no longer want to use winamp/xmms anymore either. I am excited about the ability to have 1 application, myPod, which can manage and play all my music, interact with my iPod, and also support the syncing of vCard contacts & iPod notes. Essentially i just don't want all these damn applications anymore. Who the fuck wants a different application for web, email, calendar, contacts, notes, music, ipod, etc. I am pretty damn happy with the fact that i get web, email, calendar, contacts, and notes all via the web with yahoo. With a little help so that i could sync that stuff to my iPod then i would be in heaven. Now i just want the same thing for managing my music. I don't want xmms, gtkpod, a rip prog, a tagging prog, a burning prog ... bleh.

Anyways ... enough blabbering. What i am getting at is this ... we need consolidation and simplification. Too bad hardly anybody else gets it.

This sat like this, unpublished, for a week ... thats how busy I have been :)

I played my first game of indoor soccer last night when I played as a guest on a team. Man what a different experience it was ... a lot of the dynamics of the game change from playing outdoor. I was totally shocked at how tired I got ... I mean I'm not exactly in great shape, but it only took a matter of minutes before I was spent. It seems that frequent substitutions are the norm with indoor.

The game was a good close match. We went up 5-2 pretty easily in the start of the game, but then we started to get a little disorganized and had a couple mishaps where we self scored. Coming into the last 2 minutes of the game we were down by 1, and just like in the movies we tied up the game in the last few seconds. We really should have won since we missed a couple easy goals, but oh well, it was fun anyways. Hopefully I'll get a chance to play some more and possibly make it on the team.

hmmm ... a new governor, and Schwarzeneggar at that. I am actually a bit excited to see what he can do. Some would say that his lack of experience is a problem, but sometimes it takes a total outsider to bring fresh perspective ... I think he'll do some good stuff for California.

Oh shit ... but wtf is up with the voting system? I had forgotten the fact that you can get your ballot and cast your vote without showing *any* form of identification! wtb!? The helper at my polling place simply asked for my address then name, then I just signed and was given my ballot. Why are they not asking for a valid ID? I am at a loss about this one.

Anyways ... I'm glad Davis is out and Arnie is in ... change is good.

First off ... a milestone ... 100th post and definitely not going as strong as I could in terms of posting frequency, but oh well.

Now ... I feel like I need to echo my "Rhythem of Life" post from a short while ago, because I feel as if I am a bit beyond a good rhythem right now and practically on the verge of resonating. I could go into a list of event details, but bleh, that's not really what's on my mind. Maybe this should have been called "Pie" weekend? as I'm sure that's how I'll always think of it. Too much fun for words. really.

You know the kind of sleep you have when you are too anxious or excited about something and so you become restless? Yeah ... that's me right now. And it sucks because I don't deal too well with lack of sleep :( Oh well, I'll get it back some time.

Oh yeah, gotta mention the election today as well. In fact, I should check up on election coverage right now! Anways, fuck Davis, yes on recall! Its not so much that I even have any kind of first hand experience with California's problems, but after all the campaigning and talk it seems obvious that we need some change. Plus I love it when things change! Now, who is better? I am going with the Terminator, and not because I think he is perfect, but I like his mixture of policies and don't feel too good about most of the other choices. We'll see what happens.

Anyways ... Joy, that's all that needs to be said.

-- Al G

Bah ... I must have tried adding an entry about 10 times last week, but zee server was down! oh well.

I am troubled. I feel as if I can do good drawings, but that I do not draw well consistently or confidently. So I am trying to evaluate my artistic shortcomings and work towards improving, but it sure is frustrating. Of course this all has to do with figure drawing which is by far the most complex and difficult subject in drawing, but still, I feel a bit lost. I feel like I can see my problems yet am without the guidance to solve them, and that is not typical for me so I have started to get frustrated. Anyways, just something I needed to vent.

This weekend ... pretty eventful. I dropped some serious bones on friday to pickup Madden 2004, .hack//Mutation, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Tactics Advance. Yeah, that cost a pretty penny. Then we were up late playing KotOR, very kewl game.

Saturday was great. Watched Premier League Football during the day, some more games. That night we got the gang together to relax and celebrate the phase 1 completion of Will's thesis with some pizza and a dvd. We watched Boondock Saints, a very cool movie. Then Steph came over and we all went out of a drink. We wanted to check out Bj's, so thats where we went first, but just like Rock Bottom it turned out to be a bit too empty, so some ppl went home and a few of us went to los gatos ... uh, Carrey Nations I believe. hah. we saw this guy sitting at the table behind us look like he was going to cry because of a fight with his girlfriend or something. laff. bottoms up! liquor down! So, we had to taxi it home ... we are oh so responsible. The night was then punctuated with many hours of drunken conversation ... those are always fun :)

Sunday was a bit sad. "The restaurant" as I know it, may be closing down and it to me it feels like the end of a dynasty. I am certainly one who sees these kinds of things as blessings in disguise, but still, it is sad. So we ate and were merry at what could be the last brunch ever at "The restaurant". That night the festivites continued with a dinner celebration at Mike's house, which was just a good family celebration and a proper closure to a fine weekend.

Ahhhh life :)

So Friday was suprisingly one of the first attempts at breaking in the new house with a little get together. Nothing big, nothing fancy, just friends getting together. Of course I didn't know anyone who came over, but thats part of the fun isn't it. So we fired up the grill, which seems to be common place at the house, and threw some meat on it. Can't say that I partook in the meat eating as I'm not much of a steak eater, but it was a good time having the house full and bustling. After dinner we decided to try going to Katie Blooms in campbell, but that place was a bust. There was a rather weak crowd for a Friday night :/

Saturday I hit up the mall with a couple of my roomies and enjoyed some tasty meat on a stick. And holy shit, I had to pay $11 for 2 corn dogs, fry's, and a lemonade. I love corn dogs just as much as the next bloke, but why the fuck is it so expensive? never again! After lunch we say the worst movie of the year, Once Upon a Time in Mexico. I just love how I haven't seen a movie in a month or so and I end up seeing that piece of shit film ... lame.

The rest of the weekend is rather boring really ... mostly just relaxing at home and trying to catch up on all the sleep I am losing during the week. Honestly I do not know how everyone else manages. I feel like I have almost NO time to just relax anymore, except on the weekends :)

Oh yeah ... and on a down note my Madden 2004 Eagles franchise lost their first game this weekend :( That damn computer really turns things up a notch once you pass mid season. I am also staring down 2 tough games in a row against my 2 roomies ... eek.

So ... another week here we go ...

well ... it's about time for a reflection on things past, present, and future.

It was just a year ago now that I was returning from my 3 month expedition through Europe and most likely my last feeling at complete and utter freedom. I don't think I lead a particularly repressed life, but its not exactly easy to achieve the sense of freedom you feel after traveling for 3 months straight.

This past year at home has had more humps than a radioactive camel. There were lots of ups and downs, and all of them were important in getting me to today. So where am I today? Well now that I take a deep breath and gather myself I can't help but think, "damn, not much could be better." I'm living in a house full of new and exciting people including my best friend. I'm back playing futbol again and loving it, not to mention the fact that I just got back from an amazing weekend of fun in Italy where we returned Sun world cup soccer champions. I haven't had a lot of time for drawing, but I am back in class and still working at it. I've got a kick ass job. And of course the Eagles are off to a fine 4-0 start so far this season! whoot.

Of course 6 months ago you wouldn't have heard me singing this tune, and so I wanted to sit back and take a moment to appreciate the rhythem of life. It has its high notes and its low notes, but when you listen to it all together I'm sure you'll be smiling just like me.

Peace and Stay Cool.

-- Al G

Well ... what a bloody mess Friday was ... literally. I took a whopping blow in a head on head collision and sliced a pretty fatty gash above my right eye. It happened in the middle of our noon time soccer game while i was going for a header, and out of nowhere ... BAM! I spun around without falling down, grabbed my eye, then looked at who hit me. A second later I pulled my hand down and started moving again as if I was going to keep playing. It took another second before I saw my hand covered in blood and ppl rushing towards me, then I realized something was a bit wrong.

We got everything under control at the fitness center, then my parents came and picked me up to get me off to the hospital so I could get stitched up ... about 12 stitches total, not a bad number. The most annoying part is that I am going to have to worry about it during the Italy trip. Of course it won't keep me from playing, but it will have to be a consideration.

So ... after that happened on friday I pretty much spent the rest of the weekend just thinking about recovery and relaxing. It really hasn't been a big deal, and about 4 hours after I left the hospital the pain was almost gone.

I'll try and get a good picture of it ... with the stitches and all. Its always good to have a wound from time to time ... cuz a man's gotta have scars.

Once again its the "everything at once" syndrome and i have been super busy lately. This time is some pretty big stuff though. First, I have a super big project at work that I am the only engineer on and I am gearing up for a good 8 weeks straight of development time, which is still pushing it =0

There there is the fact that I am moving this friday, which always takes a lot of effort. But of course I am totally excited to be moving into a kewl house with my oldest friend and 5 brand new friends :)

Add to that all the soccer stuff I have now. There is the Babsl league which starts this week. And there is the Italy tournament which is less than a month away, so I am trying to get ready for that.

And then I don't even want to talk about how little time I have had for drawing. Once the move is all settled I think that will improve a bit. However I am glad that I have finally commited to having my sketchbook with me everywhere and at all times. Now I just need to be a little better about filling it up!

Oh shit, and then there is Panos' project idea, which is extremely viable. We are trying to go through the process of making sure we wouldn't be wasting our time on it, and if all goes well then there will be serious work involved for that as well. sheesh!

Anyways ... thats life at the moment, and I couldn't be happier. Personally I would like things a little bit slower, mainly so i had a more reasonable amount of time to relax and work on my drawing and stuff, but its also nice to have the excitement. I'll try to keep this thing more updated.

peace.

Yeah ... so I've been quite out-of-it lately after the past two totally *insane* weekends. Its been soooo rewarding reconnecting with jonfu and I am certain I won't let us drift as far apart this time. Anways ... lots of cool stuff going on so i'll just be doing a flurry of small posts as I think of stuff, but for now I am going to get back to the drawing I am just finishing before I color it =)

I've been totally busy trying to keep up with work and a strict regimen of drawing daily. On top of that I had a blast of a weekend hangin' out with old friends in SF.

Well ... I hate to make things long, especially when I am just posting news, so here's the abbreviated version. Friday I cut out of work early to meet up with Jonfu at my place. From there we shot up to the city and immediately hit up the W for some drinks. We stayed there until we met up with another one of our good HS friends, Kat, and of course continued to have a few drinks. Once we hit the road we wandered for a bit then ended up at this spooky Owl bar that had pictures of owls everywhere ... krazy. Eventually, and I'm not sure at all when, we met up with Kat's b/f and we all went out to North Beach to grab some dinner and hit up some other bars. Eventually the bars closed and we were forced to vacate :( So it was back to the car and back to San Jo.

Saturday we started off a bit slow and Jonfu and I ended up in the city around 4ish. At that point we were just chillin' for a bit walkin' around and waiting to meet up with Kat again. We decided to be lazy that day and so we went to see Bad Boys II, and dammit, we had to sit in the second row! I hate that! Anyways ... it was okay. After the movie Kat had to split and Jonfu and I returned to our goto location ... the W. Once again we lounged there for the better part of the evening as we met up with other old friends ... Reido and Bhaj. Some time late we left to go to North Beach and find some food and a new bar, and we ended up at a pretty nice place that offered cigars :) So ... there we were, 4 old HS buddies reunited with drinks in one hand and a nice cigar in the other ... man, life just doesn't get any better than that. Once the bar closed we eventually scattered and went our ways, but that night certainly goes in the history books. fo' sho.

And now I won't even talk about Sunday after all that goodness ... :)

I woke up this morning feeling more tired then when I went to bed, it was one of those strange nights where you have an exhausting dream that lasts the whole night. I don't remember the specifics of the dream as usual, but I do know it was one of those escape from your own nightmare type dreams. The ones where you feel like you are constantly pursued by something and always pressured to run or escape. I hate those, makes me feel uneasy. Just wanted to share.

So friday night was Hulk night, and pretty much everyone hated except for a couple of us ... punks! The film itself was a bit odd now that I am thinking about it. I liked it, but nothing in the film seems all that memorable. I think part of the problem was that we didn't eat until after the movie, and I was starving the whole time! Coco's fish and chips ... eh ... and damnit I want more chips! I hate it when you get 6 fries on the side ... fuck that ... I want a mountain of food. Anways ... dissatisfying meal after the movie.

Saturday was fanime, and I was a bit worried that this was going to turn out like wondercon and be totally lame ... you know, just a bunch of geeky comic/anime lovers dressed up obsessing about how totally hot so and so character is while drewling over issue blah blah of some crapy book. There certainly were a lot of terrifyingly dedicated anime fans, but this had a much more enjoyable atmosphere than wondercon. There were tons of people around, which was kewl, and I was totally overwhelmed by the number of people dressed up ... serious cosplayers there. The music videos were sweet, and there was kewl artwork all around. I was especially excited that the dealer room wasn't so lame and I actually picked up the FLCL disc 3 w/ box over a month before its due to be released! yay! Not to mention that I got a free shot glass with it. I also managed to catch a few of the live sessions, some were interesting, some not. Next year my goal is to have some artwork that I can try to sell there.

Sunday was prime because all I did was draw all day and go to my soccer game. Sun 6, Spaniards 3. This was a good game for us though because we had our defense challenged quite a bit more, and that was a good learning experience for us. After this week we will lose some of our really good players until the tournament, which is a bummer.

There is other stuff to post, but those'll get their own topics.

So late into last night I finally got mythtv running properly on my xbox ... oh the joy! This is one headache that I am very glad to finally be rid of. Its not totally setup yet as I have some minor issues to address like getting the remote control working, but at least the videos playback fine. Now the final piece of the puzzle will be to drop my PVR-250 hardware mpeg2 encoding card into an old pII-400 system and just let that do the recordings. What a happy day =)

Well ... the soccer team had its second scrimmage today and it was unfortunately not all that competative. Despite the lack of competition it was a fun game and we continued to learn more about how we play as a team. I am really excited about the tournament because I am starting to feel like we certainly have a chance of winning, especially if we play consitently well.

mmm ... lotsa stuff going on this past weekend. Lets see ... Friday I finally got some new soccer gear including a brand spankin' new ball, very nice! That night was just me and dad chillin' and relaxing. We had an enormous Thai dinner and then kicked back to watch a dvd.

Saturday was the bbq get together. I spent all morning making up some salads and getting stuff together before we met up around lunch time. The whole plan was messed up because the park was full and there weren't any grills available, but luckily we could just go to Gun's place and there was a perfect spot there. I thought the barbaque was fab-u-lus and couldn't have been better. We lounged around all day eating and playing in the sun and boy was it relaxing ... just like those great summer days you had when you were 7 years old and got to go to Raging Waters ... the best!

Sunday was sweet too! Met up with the Reids for a Sunday brunch then spent the rest of the day hanging out, playing games, and watching anime. I even got out to see Bruce Almighty ... I'll post about that separately. We pigged out on candy and ice cream then rented some video games and played Fusion Frenzy all night.

To top it all off ... Monday was "Sit on your ass cuz its your day off" day. I pretty much watched anime and played video games ALL day, doesn't get much better than that.

Hmm ... and somehow after all that I was quite happy to be returning to work today :)

-- AG

Wahoo ... all my hard work becomes useful as of late last night. Today was pretty exciting monitoring all the updates we made and trying to get a handle on all the last minute fixes necessary. I am happy to say that so far nothing from my code has gone wrong ... *phew*. I also found out that I get a 3 day weekend ... kewl :D

Happy Days!

Well ... after about a month or more of having my dvdlib out of commission on the site I finally decided to fix it. As it turns out I had put "/movies/dvdlib/" when it really should have been "/movies/dvdlib" ... gah!

Oh the lameness :P

C'mon ... just a book or 5. Its good for you! Fantagraphics.com

Now Go!

A little touch up to the 'ol blog and *poof* ... now I am using categories more effectively. I need to spend a little time setting up the archive pages and then i'll have links to the archive for each category.

In general I've been doing some thinking about the site and I have come to some decisions. Coming not so soon.

came accross a blog called "Ipse Dixit" today. Its actually an expression meaning "An unsupported assertion" ... heh. clever.

to find this out i used a handy new mozilla extension i found called "search this!" It lets you highlight text on a webpage then right click and select "search xxx" where xxx is a variety of websites. Right now its a bit limited because it only includes Amazon.com, Imdb, and Dictionary.com ... but the premise is very sound.

I should have known my xbox would turn out to be a POS since it is Microsoft of course. I fiddled with it a bit more last night trying to get it to just playback mpeg2 recordings with mythtv, but even that didn't go very well, so now I'm about ready to trash the thing. I am getting very tired of this project ... I think Its time to give it a rest for a bit. Bleh.

Okay ... so on friday I was out seeing The Italian Job, which turned out to be a pretty cool caper flick. Anyways, the theater was pretty crowded so unlike some people I don't mind shifting all the way in and sitting directly next to a stranger. I think its an american thing, most americans need a good couple feet of totally free space around them to feel comfortable. I find it amusing to see who you end up sitting next to, for instance the guy I sat next to on this occasion only knew how to say two things ... "Big Time!" and "Definitely." And its not as if he only said it a couple times ... it seemed as if every 10 minutes or so his buddy would make a comment during the film and this guy would always reply "Big Time!" After the fifth time or so I began to start laughing each time he said it, then would start to combo like "Definitely Big Time!" At that point I was practically about to explode.

I think its funny to notice how everyone has such different patterns. I wonder if I have a "Big Time" phrase and what it is?

Well ... it was a fun beach filled weekend. Saturday I was at the beach in Aptos for a meeting with the new soccer team I just joined. I am extremely excited about joining the team and the next few months of practicing and playing together, and then to put the cherry on top of it all, we are going to a tournament in Italy! :) Anways ... so at the the beach we a good time romping about playing a game of about 7v7 beach soccer. Its so nice to finally play with skilled players, which are not so easy to come by here in the U.S. After messing around for a bit we had a meeting about team info and specifics and such, followed by a few rounds at the bar ;) That made for a quite relaxing evening at home.

Sunday morning I returned to the beach for a bit of surfing. Unfortunately I had a pretty piss-poor day of surfing and basically never really found my rythem, but I was happy enough with the final ride of the day and it was such a beautiful day that you certainly didn't hear me complaining. After freezing my ass off for a couple hours, man was the water cold on Sunday, we decided to stop at the good old Ideal Bar and warm up on the deck with some lunch and beer.

Now ... Sunday night I finally saw Matrix Reloaded, and to put it bluntly, I thought it failed miserably. The whole time I was waiting to be wowed by something as unique and creative as the first film, but I regret to say that moment never came. Anways, I'll gather my comments into a review very soon.

The other tragedy of the weekend was my xbox. First off, it doesn't seem to be fast enough to do the mpeg4 playback I want to do ... so that is lame. Then after that it decided to commit suicide or something and now my gentoox linux install seems to be screwed, so i'll have to start that over again :/

anyways ... good times.

I was kind of MIA this weekend down in the basement working on crazy inventions and such. It took me Friday and Saturday to finally get my xbox modded and working with the new bios. Then unfortunately I had some problems doing the gentoox install. At this point everything is working except I don't have a working connector so I can attach a keyboard to my xbox ... once that works I should be all set to compile mythtv and have my frontend all up and running correctly.

There was also a fiasco with my ipod ... somehow I fucked it up by disconnecting it while it said "do not disconnect." Like sure, I need to listen to that ... right? Anyways ... it fucked up my ipod partition and left me with only 8.6 GB of space to use on my 15 GB ipod. To reformat it I plugged it in to my mom's laptop which has windows and that was just a stupid thing to do. I turned on her laptop and it reported that my ipod partition had errors and started scandisk. Yeah, so I thought that was a good thing at first, but then it ended up running scandisk for 12 hours and then not even fixing the problem, stupid windows. I tried again ... just this time I plugged in the ipod after windows booted. After that I was able to reformat the partition and fix the problem ... so now my ipod is indeed working perfectly =)

I played ball on Saturday, but man it wasn't my day. I played like sheeite ... bleh. I'm looking forward to a chance to improve on that performance. Saturday I saw L'Auberge Espagnole which was pretty neat reflection on traveling. On Monday I went to see the US vs. Whales soccer exhibition match. The game was totally brutal with penalties practically every few minutes. The US came out on top after one good goal and a penalty kick which came with a red card.

I have been sadly neglecting updates to the website and writing reviews lately. I've been trying to make some changes to the site that will give me a chance to make updates easier. Hopefully once thats all in place I will have a bit more to show.

Well ... thats whats up for now.

-- AG

Who's driving this crazy thing anyways?

I've been a bit tired from staying up late playing with new toys the past week, but I guess I should start by talking about the weekend first. Saturday started of great with a long custom version of Saturday morning cartoons ... basically I caught up a lot of my recordings :) After that I went out to play basketball and ended up playing for a good 3 hours ... full court! I came home from that totally zapped ... bzzzd, nuuhhh. Luckily I had the perfect topping for such a day, Winged Migration ... and hour and a half of just watching birds. It was easily the most enjoyable film I've seen so far this year. Sunday was recovery day, since I was sore and still tired, plus I had some drawings to organize and finish for my final portfolio.

Monday was the day of days because I finally got my new iPod ... spiffy! Once the box was in hand I tore it open frantically yearning for the musical bliss contained inside. Box open, packaging discarded, setup complete, and guck! It no worky ... yet :| The frustration quickly mounted as I tried accessing my iPod from my computer, linux of course. After a short battle with the firewire drivers, me being victorious of course, I got a sinking suspicion that the error message "unknown partition table" meant that my iPod had not been correctly formatted with Fat32 yet. So I had to jump through some hoops and rearrange some hardware to get firewire on a different machine with windows, but it worked and the iPod was reformatted for windows. After that it was a piece of cake and I was able to access my iPod from linux, despite some lame firewire drivers that would hang every other time I loaded them, thus causing me to need to reboot. ugh. But once again I claimed victory the next day by compiling some new drivers. Swigga-sweet! iPod on linux!

I figured .. why stop there? So then on Wednesday I went out and finally got the Xbox I have been planning to get and mod for quite a while. This story not so good though. I ripped the thing open just fine, but right before I installed the chip I remembered I have to program it first ... duh! So i whipped out the programmer and tried programming it real quick ... thunk! Yeah, that was a brick wall I just hit. I battled hard for a number of hours trying a wide variety of tactics, but obviously my modchip kung-fu is lacking and thus far I have only met defeat ... *whimper* :( Hopefully this weekend will provide better fortune.

Man this has been an eventful week ... and I'm not even done yet. geez! The other big news is that my life drawing class met for the final critique last night and the class is now over. I am pleased to say that I got an A, but I suspect so did everyone else. This is of course a sad moment, but I'll now have a bit more free time and a chance to try some more stuff on my own. And of course next semester isn't that far away.

So ... huh. Well thats where I'm at on this fine friday morning anticipating the long memorial day weekend. Now if I could just get some sleep!

-- AG

It seems as if days have been coming and going like minutes lately. The best part though is the fact that I am finally drawing on a more and more regular basis, so that is a good thing. I am on the verge of getting the whole gallery software system going so that I can actually have galleries to use on the site, and that will mean I can start adding sketches to a gallery. I like drawing on 18x24 newsprint, so it may be a bit of a challenge getting the sketches scanned, but I'll figure it out.

I am extremely stoked that I finally ordered my iPod earlier this week, but I am bummed that it still hasn't even shipped yet. Hopefully it won't be long 'til I have that baby in my hand and the tunes will never stop :)

Now after waiting a little extra while for the XBox price cut it turns out the price drop was basically negligable, so I probably still get a refurbished one. Hopefully I'll have time for that project this weekend amidst all the preperations I will be making for my final art portfolio.

Should be an eventful weekend.

-- AG

This weekend came and went in a strange and inexplicable way.

Friday was a nothing night. I had some good Indian food for dinner, but everything else was just poking around with things at home. Saturday morning I spent watching cartoons ... no, I won't let the legacy die!! I then hit the drawing board for a while before heading out for some afternoon hoops. That night it was Dan's bday, so we all got together for dinner and celebration.

On Mothers Day I went with Mom and Dad up to a fancy brunch in Santa Cruz. We got home early afternoon and hung out a bit before going to see The Dancer Upstairs at night.

I feel cheated out of a weekend somehow. hmmm.

So Friday was night out with the gang, its always so much fun grouping with your friends. We met up for another CPK dinner before going to see the midnightish showing of X2. I thought the sequel was pretty good, and of course I loved the fact that it was much darker in nature. Review when I get to it :/

Saturday I put together all the brand spankin' new hardware for my dads cad workstation. He's got some pretty crazy modeling software for designing houses, so he needed a bit more than a pII 400. Strangely, this was a zero problem install really. I just hooked everything up right off the bat, then booted the Windows XP cd and let my dad take over with software install. The only hitch was that stupid Windows mistook the zip drive for a hard drive and labeled the zip as drive C and the HDD as drive E :| rofl. So we had to unplug the zip and install over again, but that was the only prob.

After about an hour building the new comp I retreated to my room to hibernate with my new game. yipee. I logged a very respectable 9 hours on Saturday, including some breaks for computer stuff and anime. Sunday was a repeat of Saturday, bringing the weekend .hack usage time to a wopping 18 hrs. *clap* I even managed to go out to dinner and a movie as well. We saw Raising Victor Vargas, which was an uber sweet movie.

game on!

-- AG

Not much free time lately ... I guess thats a good thing.

Its funny that when you have nothing but free time, all you can think of is "I wish I had something important to do." Then that something comes along and takes up all your free time and you find yourself thinking, "Gawd, what I wouldn't do for some of that free time back." Oh the irony.

I went to the Giants game at Pacbell Park on Wednesday with my parents and my aunt. It was a really great time ... the weather was nice, Bonds hit 2 HR ... 1 splash hit, it was my first time in the park ... so i took the grand tour, and of course ... beer, nuts, and sausages :) Unfortunately the game went rather quick since the Giants shutout the Cubs, but any later and I would have ended up sleep walking at work the next day.

I also had an excellent week in drawing class ... I just love the feeling when I am able to actually completely shed my fear and inhabitions and really dive into my art freely. This was especially relieving because I had been having a bit more of a tough time the past couple weeks, and so I needed a good run to rebuild some confidence.

Now I just can't wait for Friday to end and the weekend to start ... X2 baby!!

So, this weekend saw pretty much the whole spectrum of me.

Friday I split work after a half day so that I could go with Panos and Tim to check the Wondercon convention in SF. I thought it pretty much sucked. There was practically nobody there, most of the booths were just retail stores that brought most of their store, the anime is fine, but why go to a convention to sit in a dark room and watch anime? The only truly worthwhile event was the Azzarello talk, which was funny because he seemed like a grumpy asshole to me, but that is probably why he writes a book called 100 Bullets, heh. He did make a few interesting comments about writing, so it was worth it. After the convention we poked around the Metreon for a little bit before heading out of the city and back to get some food.

I surfed Saturday, which was sweet. I was pretty bummed cuz I hadn't been in a few weeks cuz of the bad weather, but Saturday was perfect. I got a number of great rides, including a left! Oh I am so proud of myself :) I also had some pretty funny bails from getting caught up in the kelp, man can that stuff grab hold of your board. The rest of Saturday was chill day ... I spent some time searching for all the parts I'm going to need for my dads new pc, then went out to see The Core that night. I'm not sure why that film seemed to be hated on so bad, I thought it was at least decent.

Sunday was engineering day. I went to Fry's to get a new tv card and some games then spent quite a while messing with mythtv. Friday I got mythtv setup to playback recordings on a different box hooked up to my tv, so that was kewl. Sunday I went through a few loops patching the kernel and compiling this ivtv driver so that I can use a hardware encoding tv card with mythtv. Its not done yet, but I think the driver is working now ... so I just need to make a couple mods to mythtv, then I'll be set. We also decided to see Identity Sunday night, which was a very kewl suspense flick.

so ... pretty well rounded I'd say.

-- AG

I like to think about how people communicate, its one of my favorite topics. Recently I have come to realize that almost all modern forms of communication require some form of interface. This means that you don't interact directly with whomever you are communicating, instead you speak to the interface and the interface speaks to the recipient. Phone, fax, email, IM, chat, video conference, letters, blogs, and on ... so who cares?

Well, this has a great bearing on interpretation. What is the single greatest problem with all forms of human interaction? ambiguity. Nobody can ever say for certain what someone else really means, and thus is the limit of communication. What I find strange is the fact that instead of trying to narrow the gap to make communication less ambiguous, instead we are making things worse. Each new interface presents its own new layer of ambiguity.

How are we ever supposed to really know what people are saying where communication is only becoming more and more uncertain. When someone IM's you saying "I like you", how can you possibly start to understand in what way the person is refering. It could mean a mild mannored, "I guess your okay", or an enthusiastic "lets hang out more often", or even "I really hate your ass, but I don't want to say that." I think this is troubling. I don't feel like I really know people unless I have spent countless hours with them personally, to me ... nothing else counts.

But 'tis the fate of this world ... so what can you do. Back to interfacing ...

-- AG

So this week has been both good and bad. I started playing in some soccer pickup games at work this week, so I am now playing soccer and basketball during the week and hopefully surfing weekends. It feels great to be back on the field again. Then on top of playing soccer I went out on Saturday to see the Cyberrays and Earthquakes play a soccer double header. I am going to really try and stay up on mls this season.

What sucks is that my pvr has inexplicably started having image quality issues. I saw this problem when I first started playing around with it, but not since. So I am pretty flaming pissed about than ... and maybe now I'll go ahead and get some hardware for a pvr only box.

I've been continually browsing random blogs from time to time and I must say ... some people must make blogging their full time job. For example this person seems to post something every 30 minutes. What is that? And they aren't all short posts either. weird.

Lesson: be wary of out-of-control bloggers ... they must have an agenda.

I remember about a month ago when I was totally fed up with having no job and no money, just laying around the house all day. Now I'm just thinking I wish I could have some of that time back. Of course I like my job, but you really don't realize how little time you have outside a full work week.

My question is do we really get compensated enough for the amount of time we devote to our work? Here in the Bay Area lots of people give 90% of their time to work, and still barely get by. That seems pretty rough to me.

Taking a break, passing a bit of time and went off reading a random blog. I like the concept of using a blog as a place to just vent your mind, theraputic if you ask me, and I dont' do it enough.

I think I have become krazed over anime once again. Seems to come in spells like an addiction and I can't think of anything else but anime. So now that I have a job and some money I am buying like mad. Last order got me Escaflowne box set, Slayers box set, and a handful of Miyazaki films on their way too. I am heading over to the Wherehouse today cuz their closing down and dumping everything at 50% off, so that'll be fun :)

Its also not healthy that my mythtv pvr is working fucking awesome, and I am now recording Samurai Jack, Justice League, X-Men: Evolution, Reign: The Conqueror, and .hack//SIGN whenever they come on. I saw my first episode .hack//SIGN yesterday and was totally amazed ... sweet series ... I'll be picking that up on dvd now. With a little more drive space I can add even more shows like Kenshin, G Gundam, and maybe Inu-Yasha as well. Lots to watch ... so little time.

I just read a pretty good article about video game violence and the topic seems pretty relevant with the recent war. Basically, video games don't kill people, people kill people ... I think the real debate here is responsiblity.

It seems so often nowadays that people are unwilling to shoulder the burdens of responsibility and instead look for anything at all to scapegoat. Video games, tv, film, music, books, internet, it seems as if the only option is to just lock kids in the closet to protect them these days right? God forbid we actually take the time to educate them about the world they participate in. Its almost tragic that we have so little faith in our children that we feel we need to turn to censorship to hide the world from them.

I am a very strong opposer of cencership in any form. I think it is demeaning and infantile to think that people need to have their eyes covered for them. If you ask me the world is quickly becoming too large and complex for humans to manage anymore and we are headed right for major social breakdown.

Anyways ... enough about apocaliptic earth, the problem is still the same. Cencorship is like dealing with a broken leg by saying, "I know ... I just won't walk anymore." That doesn't work, people need to walk, and instead of censorship people need to be educated.

I am not usually one to dive into political topics because I feel that for the most part political discussions are about as productive as mosh pits ... its really just a lot of jumping around and head jerking. Anyways ... every now and then I'll make a comment.

I was privy to a short yet interesting conversation the other day and the topic was the prospect of anti-war idealism. Idealizing a non-violent world free of war is great, but failing to acknowledge the reality of violence is just plain naive. I find it totally inconceivable that so many people have managed to convince themselves that all problems solve themselves and that violence and war is never an option. There is no need to debate this topic, because these people are delusional. War sucks, no doubt, but some fires will burn until you extinguish them. period.

That same discussion led to the more fundamental topic of mortality. Many of these same anti-war advocates claim that any loss of human life is unacceptable, and I would reply to them by saying, "if you believe that, then you have no concept of mortality." People seem stuck on the idea that dying is a bad thing and the purpose of life is to prolong it for as long as possible. How stupid is that. Death is tragic, but its a natural part of life.

Anyways ... think on it.

-- AG

So the week was pretty busy, but standard as far as a work week goes. I am now totally setup at work and busy coding away.

This Saturday was a real treat since I got to go up and visit my aunt "Sugie" and cousin Annie, and I must admit that they are a couple of the most fun people to be around. So I drove up and met up with them on Saturday and we had a good time relaxing and doing little chores around the ranch. We also got to watch the the turkey's flock to roost for the night, which is a pretty amazing spectacle. We had prime seats too, so the turkey's actually flew right over our heads ... wow 8-)

Michael also came and joined us for some dinner and surprisingly a little karaoke. Singing has never really interested me that much, but I must say that we ended up having a really fun time. Then somehow Annie and I got into a heated debate over the whole Iraq issue, which was really good because she is much better educated about it than I am, so I got some good info.

Today I dropped Annie off at the airport for her flight home and have just been doing some stuff around the house and making sure that everything is ready for my trip to Chicago on Tuesday. I am really juiced about the trip. Its gunna be a blast. Next entry will be from the windy city.

-- AG

I feel like a rabid dog. Its pretty exciting since it is my first week at work, but then to compound my newly demanding work schedule I have to take care of everything while my parents are in Cabo this week. And then of course adding more fuel to the fire is the fact that nothing has been setup for me at work, so I don't have an actual badge or account to login and use a system and email. So this means that I have to be chaufered around by someone anytime I want to leave the building, yay!

Then whats funny is that on only my second day I pretty much sat in meetings all day. I quickly began to wonder how people manage to get anything done when so many people seem to be in meetings all the time. Eh, who cares, I write code, meetings are for other ppl :)

I am also a little stressed about my project, because I found out that the timeframe for my portion of the overall project is due to be completed by mid to late April. So with my being gone in Chicago for almost a week, that is going to give me a grand total of about 3 weeks to implement a rather important project. No fear though. heh.

Well, this should be fun.

-- AG

I have been working on lots of programming stuff for the web site lately, but finally this weekend I began to step back away from that and work toward spending a little more time reading, writing, and drawing. I like doing all the technical work, but its good to have a balance. Besides, I'll be starting work on my new contract this week and so I'll be spending plenty of time programming all day long.

I've also found that I have gotten a bit better with my drawings, mostly in the sense that I can now achieve results that are closer to my intended image. This is enormously gratifying, because the single greatest deterant to learning how to draw is seeing exactly how bad you suck. Maybe this is why most artists start as children and only make it if they draw their whole life, that way when they suck the most they are just kids and don't really give a shit. As adults it is much harder to stay motivated when you have lackluster performance and improvement takes so long. Anyways, I have stuck with it off and on for a while now, and I am happy to notice some positive changes.

I'll rest with that thought for tonight.

-- AG

I was thinking today. yeah.

What the hell am I really supposed to be doing with all my time? I really try not to be the lazy ass unemployed bum who sits around all day watching tv, or whatever useless activity you can think of. Luckily I have had different projects for my website that I have been working on, but during the times I am off my computer I almost feel lost. This is complete and utter tyranny for me. I feel like my computer almost commands me.

Now, that being said, despite the ruthless rule of my computer I do try and participate in other activities. Reading and drawing being the most noteable, followed up by movie watching, which I enjoy most but try not to make too habitual. This weekend, Ralph Bakshi may have sparked the flame that will lead me beyond this oppression. He said, "It doesn't matter if the animation is good, just get your ideas out there." He was talking directly about cartooning, but the motto holds, "don't let a little think like drawing skill get in the way of getting your ideas down." I think this is extremely pertinent.

I do not fear failure as much as I fear lack of trying, but fear of either can be paralyzing.

-- AG

The weekend was pretty packed with events including: City of God, Coonskin and Bakshi Maverick Spirit Award, Dinner and Bowling, and paintball.

Friday night I went to go see City of God, which was unnerving in a good way. Review is up. Then on Saturday I went with my dad to see a special screening of Coonskin followed by an interview with Ralph Bakshi. I must say that the film was pretty incredible and Bakshi himself was very interesting. He truly was revolutionary when it came to animation.

We began Gun's birthday celebrations Saturday night with dinner at Pedro's followed by some late night bowling. It was fun to see everyone together having fun, and Gun, Heather, and I sure had our share of drinks. I ended up spending the night at Gun's place and then getting up to go paintballing with everyone the next morning. I liked the last paintball course we went to a little better because it was more interesting, this course was just too simple. But of course we had fun, and I am just proud I of the round I made it on the fire truck and Panos rushed everyone and surrendered 3 or 4 people.

good times.

-- AG

Fortune forsake me this afternoon when I had a problem with my monitor and thought it had gone bad. So I hooked up a different monitor and everything was working fine again. Eventually I decided to give my normal monitor one more try to see if it was just a fluke, and behold, it worked again, but at a costly price. For some lame reason switching the monitors froze my computer and I was forced to, oh dare I say it ... *whisper* reboot */wisper*

It is certainly good that my monitor still works, but there goes my 80 days of uptime.

I finished up the portrait I had as homework for my life drawing class and decided to post a 3 pic series of the progression of the drawing. All the info about it is available in the "art" section, which has been pretty dead for a while now.

Saturday night I was over at Justin's new place for a little welcoming party. Nothing fancy or formal, just a relaxing get together amongst friends. The place is pretty much perfect, especially for the rent they pay. After drinks and food we were all just relaxing and conversing until we decided to play "Battle of the Sexes." The game was pretty fun most of the way, until the end when everyone started getting tired and the game seemed to drag on a bit. Unfortunately, the game is rather crappy and really provides little more than supposedly sexist trivia questions.

Sunday started out pretty slow after getting home around 3 and then waking up around 12. I spent a while working on a drawing assignment for my class then met up with Justin, Tim, and Adam to see Cradle 2 tha Grave.

As of right now I am just waiting for some paperwork to go through before I begin my new job. Then I'll finally be able to pick up some of the toys I have been thinking about getting lately as well as some nice new anime to watch.

So I gave the site the 'ol once over and dabbed some content here and there. Slowly but surely its coming around and things are starting to fill up. I added a bunch of cool stuff about my system over on the engineering page, as well as putting up some bare bones versions of the stub galleries. I think I will increase the resolution on the stub picture size though ... right now they are a little to small to see clearly.

Next I'll be reformatting the Journal and simplifying it a little. I also need to start adding stuff for the art galleries, which I will hopefully get around to trying out this weekend. I would also like to do a bunch of little graphic work all over the place, just to add the nice little details that really brighten up the place, but right now its just not a priority. Anyways ... there is obviously still lots to do.

Well I got lucky and a good friend was able to line up a possible contract job for me. Its still just a possibility so far, but I think I am considered a good candidate for the job and hopefully it will work out and I'll have a job. Its not a full-time gig, so thats a bit of a bum, but work is work. The project itself sounds pretty interesting and I think it'll be a fun job to work on.

In other accomplishments of the week ... I changed my wiper blades. Oohhhh. Hardly an accomplishment really, but I will say that the stupid attempt at picture only instructions that came with the replacements were of no help at all, so I had to figure it out myself. I now know how to do about 3 things with my car, add gas, add oil, and change wiper blades. Wow. Of course if I just hang out with Panos when he works on his cars I could learn everything I would ever need to know about cars. We'll see though.

Oh yeah, the cd addiction grows. I went to drop off a video and decided to stop by Tower because it was close by, then I end up spending over an hour listening to cds. I have always liked music, but I seem to go in and out of phases where it is actually integrated into daily life. Right now it is definitely phased in. And as I have said before, somewhere on this thing, I am no longer willing to blatently support music piracy. Of course the music industry execs are all a bunch of brainless goats who don't seem to know what to do about the changes in their market, so they deserve a little piracy as punishment for being such twits. Problem now is that I just can't stand to listen to the crap people put up on the p2p networks. Actual CD quality is sooo much better than mp3.

Nuff said. I'm done.

Well, the hunt is on these days. I have spent enough time on my ass and I am ready to have a job now. So I have flooded the internet with my resume and began the process of locating head hunters. I am actually really excited about the prospect of relocation and the opportunity to live somewhere else for a while. The only discouraging thing so far is that there seems to be a total lack of jobs for more entry level candidates like myself. I am not a total newb, and luckily have a fair amount of experience under my belt from my couple of internships, but I have no idea what others would do in this situation.

I have recieved a definite prospect for a 3 - 6 month contract ... hopefully it comes through. Its not a full time position which makes me a little less enthusiastic, but I am really not too picky right now, plus it would give me some funds that I could use to try relocating :)

Well, I have been meaning to write this entry for the past couple days.

Black Friday the 14th of February. The guys got together to share our lonliness with dinner at CPK and a showing of Daredevil. To start the evening off as it should, we had a nice dinner complemented by the fact that Justin was able to get some digits from the cute waitress we had. Then it was off to Mercado where we waited a nice couple hours for the movie. I must say, I was astonished at how incredibly excellent this film turned out. A couple parts were cheezy, but for the most part the movie was just plain old fashioned bad ass. The rest of the weekend was a big fat bust as I worked on the website, yay it has a new home page design, and also worked on a self portrait I had to complete for my life drawing class.

Its strange, Friday seemed so much more fun and eventful than I just described. I guess you would have to have been there anyways.

Finally my first double feature day of the year!

So, I saw The Recruit and Shanghai Knights yesterday ... reviews should be up fairly soon. I'm still really trying to "find my voice" or some other form of inspirational crap like that, so that I can start putting out reviews like I want. Lately I feel like I've had my foot in my mouth and just haven't been able to say what I want. But of course, with practice I'm sure I'll get to where I want to be.

Unfortunately, movie reviews have been the only part of the website I've been good about so far. Except for this journal, but this is pretty easy. I am getting the whole dvd database thing going though, so that should be coming soon enough. And I think I'll also turn that project into an open source project as well ... make the database available to lots of people ... should be fun.

yay.

Well, things are continually get more exciting. I have a whole slew of projects in the works, so that is more than enough to keep me busy. On top of that I am fighting feverishly to keep my movie reviews current. I am thinking I should just give up on editing them at all, as it doesn't seem to help that much, and just to sit down and write them in one sitting given only about 30 mins. we'll see.

I also got a chance to hookup with a few old friends this week. On wednesday I met up Vishal and talked a bunch of different geeky stuff ... modding Xbox's (I think I will start this soon), cell phone mobile internet access, and a variety of programming projects and technologies. So that was a good visit. Then the next day I met up with Will and the guys for lunch. Unfortunately he couldn't say "Yeah, I got a job for you ... here" but that's okay because there is plenty of other stuff to do.

Most exciting is the fact that I had the best life drawing class of my life on Thursday when I really think I have started to figure out my personal technique for mapping out the major masses of the body. I can't wait to get some of my portfolio on the web.

Well, until then ... Cheers.

So this weekend was pretty cool when Gun organized a huge paintball extravaganza. He was able to get over 20 people to go so that we had the field to ourselves. Overall about 25 people showed up including all of Panos' brothers, cousin, and friends as well as Gun's brothers, friends, and some co-workers. This was a more interesting field then our last trip because this field actually had some natural obstacles and cover. There were a total of 5 maps that we rotated between, each played fairly differently.

Highlights would have to be sneaking up behind gun and his brother and taking out 4 people that round, as well as the last round when Hrag and I rushed balls out in the last couple minutes. Of course the whole day was good, but those moments I remember best. Once I got home I realized how out of shape I am when I started feeling extremely tired and sore.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day when I spent a little time trying to catch up on my movie reviews, I am still a couple behind unfortunately. The big accomplishment was starting to scan in all my old movie ticket stubs ... I was able to scan all my 2000 stubs, which took about 3 hours to get them scanned and cut into their individual files. Now I just need to figure out how I want to setup the stub gallery for the website.

The website is coming along ... slow as it may be.

Well, its been an eventful past couple of weeks.

Last week, the concept of Nifto came into existance the ball began to roll and from there its been all down hill. This week I have been gone all day, every day, trying to get things off the ground and rolling with my partner. It is almost surprising just how newbie we really are, but we are making a good go of it and learning quickly. We are extremely excited to be working on our first legitimate contract. With some luck and a lot more work we will be a well oiled business machine in no time.

As for the rest of my life ... its been pretty much on hold. I saw a few movies over last week, but I have been so swamped that I haven't gotten my reviews done and posted. I have also been neglecting the website a bit and this blog has been a bit empty as well. I think I am most disappointed in my lack of time spent on artwork. If it wasn't for my life drawing class I might not be doing any at all. I guess thats just the brakes though ... there is only so much time in a day. Hopefully I will get on a more manageable schedule and be able to work out my schedule to fit everything in.

As much as I hate being overly busy ... I must admit that it feels good to have something meaningful to do each day.

-- AG

Well, it has been a pretty eventful past few days. First, and most important, is the launch of nifto.com, my first buisness. Why try fighting the economy and finding a job when you can just create one for yourself? While starting a business is never easy, I think we have a decent chance, and at least we are taking the initiative.

Second, is Chicago. Surprising that I just saw the movie Chicago and loved it, and now I am going to be on my way there. Yup, thanks to Gun I'll be spending a bit of time in Chicago some time in the next couple months. I am really stoked about it and looking forward to the adventures I know I'll have, plus I'll get to visit my friends the Vesper's :)

Third is Perl Milk Ice Tea. Its a pretty strange drink that I was subjected to by my friends the other night after we got some sushi. Basically it's a flavored iced tea with milk and tapioca balls. Most of the flavors come from some kind of fruit, like strawberry, mango, or guava. Anyways ... It's always fun to try new stuff and even better when its good stuff.

Welp ... things seem to be looking up a bit. At least I am more focused and optimistic about things right now. I am starting my own business, taking a drawing class, and will be going to Chicago. can't ask for much more than that.

It may not be envy so much as a feeling of disarray about how much blogging is going on out there. I was just checking out the Moveable Type homepage and browsing the different blogs people have setup. Then it struck me. People aren't just exchanging information on the internet anymore ... they are sharing themselves. As I browsed around and read some of the quarky things that people put in their blogs I couldn't help but want to make comments everywhere. Not to be a joker, or a menace, but to participate, somehow, in their life. To think that they will come back to their computer some time, read my comment, and get the funny feeling you get when you meet someone new. I could become a frequent visitor of any blog I want ... know that persons life ... correspond with them ... and all because they were willing to put their thoughts and their life out there for people to find. The thought of millions of people making the intimate details of their lives available for others to share in is a pretty powerful thing.

I hope when people find my blog they are willing to make a comment.

The first week of class is over now and we had our first drawing session last night. I was quite glad to find that I had not totally forgotten how to draw, but I think it helped that I am using a larger drawing pad for this class. In drawing, bigger is easier. I'm unfortunately sceptical of how much instruction and help I am going to get from our teacher. She seems to know how to draw very well, but that doesn't make you a good art teacher, so we'll see.

I have been trying to work on my resume and getting a job, but without a working word processor on my system it has been tough. I really love linux and find that almost everything I need works under linux, but sometimes there are issues that pretty much drive me up the wall. I have a really bad bug showing up in Open Office and I have no idea how or why it is happening. It seems that linux starts to have more of its problems when you look for more complex programs. Finding a program to login to AIM is easy, but getting a fully functional and feature rich desktop publishing suite is more difficult. I am sure Open Office will do the trick, if I can figure out what the hell is wrong with it.

Anyway ... I think I'll try tackling the Open Office problem today, as well as catching up on my reviews and working on the website some more.

Alright, so I wanted to get this up for myself as an attempt to make good on this years resolutions. So rather than just let them linger in my head only to be forgotten come February, this time we do it right and put it in writing.

1. New Hours - I have decided that the whole 11PM-3AM schedule isn't good for me, and so I am changing my hours to a more normal schedule of around 8AM-10PM. I figure its better to spend more time awake while the sun is up :)

2. Get Outside - Engineers are like gophers, we live in holes. Unfortunately I think this is unhealthy and so I will be trying to get my ass outside for some fresh air and natural excercise on a regular basis.

3. Moving On - I know the economy is rough and jobs are scarce, but living at home just isn't for me. Its nice not paying rent, but there comes a time when you must move on, and that time will come in 2003.

4. 100 Movies - This is a pretty tall order for anyone who actually keeps track of how many movies they watch. This roughly translates to about 2 movies per week, but have no fear, I have done this before =)

5. 100 Drawings - I am putting this here to coincide with the 100 movies resolution, and as a way to keep my ass drawing. Now what this means is 100 decent drawings, not just crappy 5 min sketches. And they can't be from class, they need to be something I actually tried to create from an idea.

6. Budget - Its not that I spend too much, its that I just don't keep track of what I spend. Its too easy to let things go when mom and dad share the bill, but this year we change that and keep track of every expense.

7. Website - This is a given, but needs to be here. I plan to keep updating the website throughout the entire year, and hopefully it will be reasonably current the whole time. If I can keep to it that should mean and art section with at least 100 new drawings ... at least 100 new movie reviews ... and of course the oh so inspiring blog entries ;)

8. Musically Challenged - I think the world has become musically challenged with the onset of mp3's and file sharing. While its great to lash out against the music industry and steal 500 cds online, really this gets us nowhere. I like music, and I think it should be purchased, so I plan to buy a new cd every 2 weeks throughout the year.

Well, that should be good for this year. If I think of anything else that really must be here then I'll edit it in. I would have put finish Star Trek dvds, but that one is so ingraned into my head that it would be pointless to add. Anyways ... if you know me then help out by holding me to my resolutions. If you agree with any of these resolutions then feel free to add them to your list, I am not copyrighting them, although maybe I should since its a damn fine list :)

Cheers and Happy New Year 2003
-- AG

Alright. Well, I'm finally feeling better. Man do I hate getting a cold.

I saw "Gangs of New York" last night with my folks and found myself stuck to my seat at the end. hmm. Anyways, the movie was pretty damn good and I am contemplating another viewing, I'm sure Panos will be up for that. I'm going to try and get caught up on my reviews tonight which will include the Gangs review.

Today I went over to Mission College to enroll myself in a life drawing class. The class will be meeting Tues and Thurs from 7:00-10:00 ... its a bit more than I really wanted (one night a week is enough), but I'm sure the practice will be good for me. Anyways ... it was a major ordeal getting into the class since it requires some other drawing prereqs that I obviously didn't have since I just became a Mission student today. So, the short story is that I waited in lots of lines and finally ended up in the class, yay.

Well, I got back from Maui on Thursday and unfortunately haven't been feeling too well since then. My dad got sick during the trip and managed to get the rest of the family sick along the way. Luckily I caught it on the last day of the trip as we were leaving, so it didn't really spoil anything. Since being back I have just been resting and watching football all weekend. Come next week I will be regathering myself and planning my attack on the new year, should be fun. Other than that I look forward to the two and a half seasons of Star Trek I have left to watch :)

As for the trip itself, well, there really wasn't much too it. I always love getting away from home, so in that sense it was a good break. It was a rather odd time to go on vacation though, and the island seemed pretty dead. Most of the time I was hanging out and doing some surfing with my dad and my sister, who is just learning. Most notable on the trip was the food. We had a number of great meals including Duck Confit at Gerard's ... yum. Overall its a pretty boring trip to talk about, but definitely an enjoyable trip.

I haven't posted my "New Year's Resolutions" journal entry since we left so soon after new years. Once I get it organized that'll go up.

-- AG

Well, its a new year.

I had a good time going up to SF for New Years and strolling around the Embarcadero with my friends. The fireworks were really nice, and it was kewl to ride bart for the first time.

So, now I am actually going to Maui tomorrow. My sister had been trying to get my parents to take this trip to Hawaii after new years, and finally yesterday they were able to book a place and get some decent airfare. So we leave tomorrow. Should be a good chance to get away from home for a while and relax and maybe get some surfing in.

Hopefully I'll have a chance to post an entry or two while I'm gone, otherwise I'll have to post it all when I get back.

-- AG

So, I have been spending quite a bit of time at the theater lately. In the past few days I have seen, Two Weeks Notice, Treasure Planet, Adaptation, and Two Towers again. I am trying hard to keep up with writing my movie reviews, but not that it matters too much right now because I can't ftp to the site to upload them. Gotta get Panos to fix that.

Its strange how a couple movies just sucks the time out of each day. I haven't been doing too much lately, relaxing a bit, but its about time to get back to working more on the site. I have been working on coloring the graphic I am going to use for the front page and its coming along pretty well. Its slow work, but I'm getting there. Once thats all set then it will be time for a change on the site.

Anyhow, that's it for now.

-- AG

Ok, god fucking damn it when the lame things just won't die. My sister rents a dvd the other day, Unfaithful, and we pop it in and start it up and the first screen in the movie is "this film has been altered to fit this tv ..." and I almost flipped a nut. FFFFFUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK!!!!

Why in god's name would idiots want the fucking pan & scan version of a film? The only answer can possibly be because they are ignorant and don't know that they have a hacked up version of the film. Ok, ignorance is acceptable, lame, but acceptable. What I am totally unwilling to forgive is that fact that these movie companies are forcing pan & scan onto dvds for the sole reason of making more money, and with blatent disregard for their films. In fact, I am really at a loss as to how pan & scan even started, but thats a separate rant. Why do these companies have to continue to confuse consumers into buying a film that they don't even want. Tvs are going to widescreen, digital tv will be widescreen, film is already widescreen, WE DON'T NEED A SINGLE FUCKING FULL FRAME ANYTHING!!!!

Gawd what I wouldn't give to strangle the people who authorized these dvds with my bare hands. This is one of those times where I realize exaclty how degenerative of a species we really are because so many fucking assholes in the world are willing to fuck over everyone for a little bit of god damn money. Sure, this is an example that has little ramifications on anything, but the example serves. Humans are just too prone to fucking each other over to really make real progress in this world.

Think about it. If we really wanted to achieve a million times more than we do, then we would, but we really don't, we'd rather just bite and gnaw at each others' heels trying to get the freshest cut of meat. I believe that for that reason among many our species will fail miserably in this world and our extinction is eminent. I wish for nothing more in my life than to laugh at all the fucking idiots too dense to realize their faults. Fuck, I hate it here.

-- AG

Well, its technically Christmas now, so "Merry Christmas Everyone" :)

If this holiday really has one redeaming aspect it's that it really does bring people together. Gifts aside, it is truely fun to get together with the family and enjoy some good dinners together and some time when everyone just forgets about jobs and appointments and instead focuses on each other. I think we can all benefit from some good quality time together with our good friends and family.

I wish I could be there in person to say Merry Christmas to all my good friends, but this will have to suffice.

Wishing everyone the best,

-- AG

Well, its been a bit strange preparing for Christmas this year. I really haven't done much in the way of gifts, but everyone seems to be saying "Oh, I don't want anything." So I say, "fine, you get nothing then :p" hehe. But really I am trying to change my gifts from unneccessary and expensive gifts to something more simple and heartfelt. I think I am doing pretty well with it. I did get actual stuff for my friends, but it is good stuff that I really want people to have, not just the same old lameness. And for my parents I have 1 simple thing. My sister and I will be working together to do portraits of each other on a single drawing, then getting finishing it up together and framing it. Unfortunately, inspiration hit a bit late and we won't have it for Christmas Day, but I say that this is better, cuz now once the holidy of "mass consumption" is over my sister and I will find the time to get together and put our time in a real gift.

Item 2 is the little video game that I am working on with my friend Jason and his brother. Started in a kind of strange way, we were playing this little nothing game of archaic 2D volleyball that is simiple as can be, then we decided to try changing it to be basketball. We took the code, began changing and enhancing it, and by now we are basically re-writing everything. Its not much of a game, a simple Java Applet with 2 semi-circle characters, a ball, and 2 hoops, but its a start. We just kind of got the idea and started right away, worked 'til about 5 am the first day, and now we actually got something going. Anyway, that has been a black hole for my time the past couple nights, and now Christmas is upon us.

Games & Gifts at Christmas time.

-- AG

Panos said he was going to write a paper that explained the world and this intrigues me. I find this interesting because I wonder what relevance his final paper could have to anyone else but himself. No, not because what he writes isn't true, but more because no two people EVER understand the same thing in the same way. I feel this alone is the greatest problem facing the world today, nobody, or at least few, grasp the concept that understanding is not posible for humans, and therefore we are incapable of really achieving what we want.

going to have to continue this one below :)

So why is understanding impossible you would consider? Simple, because the experiences of your lifetime, combined with your unique sequence of DNA and biological composition make you as you are now. Since nobody else in the world could have the exact same composition as you, then you are intrinsically different from everyone else on the planet, you are a LONE you, distinct. And therefore only you can ever feel, think, experience, and understand the way you do.

Example. "2 + 2 = 4", the cliche representing the most simple of mathmatical understanding. Everyone understands that right? Sure they do, but we all understand it differently. A mathmatician may understand it through a concept of matricies and how they combine together. Someone else may be thinking of what you have when you take 2 apples from here and combine it with 2 apples from there. Who knows? The point is that conceptually we cannot understand things the same exact way. When I say "love." Everyone brings forth a different assortment of experiences which become their perception of love, but no two people ever have the same two experiences.

I see this problem constantly, the problem of communication. Is it even possible to convey to someone the experience you have? No matter how hard you try you could never do that, the best you can do is to create an environment where someone MAY have a similar experience, but not the same.

I say it all the time, "I just don't understand ... " It could possibly be my most frequent phrase aside from the jargon of day to day conversation. The fact is that constantly I am plagued with the realization that people just CANNOT understand things as I do, no matter how I try, and to me, that is a very scary thought. But I guess you can't understand.

-- AG

Yup, saw Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers yesterday with Tim and Panos. I am not 100% sure how I really feel about it, but I did my review and I will probably hold on to it until after I see the film a second time this weekend or so. I will be glad when I have a chance to get a good discussion going with Dan about this one, although I fear he loves these films too much to ever criticize them.

I also inked a couple more drawings that were only up as sketches, this should provide a nice chance to work on my coloring skills some more, or should I say to actually develop those skills as they are non-existant right now.

I also happened to watch Vanilla Sky for the second time last night since my sister rented it, and it really brought back to life a discussion I have had with my self many a times. The problem is understanding, why does nobody get it?

This topic is going to get its own entry.

-- AG

Wahoo! Got my first comment ... thanks Vrej :)

Anyways ... my fingers are fucking numb from the cold breeze blowing in through the window about a foot away. But thats not what I wanted to say. Oh yeah, I'm really starting to enjoy the digital aspects of art. I've been playing around with gimp quite a bit lately, and man is it kewl, I am so juiced I probably wouldn't stop, except from the numb fingers thing :/

So, I have a graphic I am planning to use for the main page of the website, but I am still penciling it right now. Once that is done I will start making some more graphic and layout contributions all around. I am also a bit giddy because Two Towers is only about a day away, at least for me, so that is kewl.

Well, time for Bebop.

-- AG

Alright ... time to reflect a minute on Christmas. I see basically no greater irony in the world than the fact that this holiday is purely a reason to consume massive amounts of shit you don't need. The entire holiday is pure propoganda, they hype it up so much and force into your brain the idea that you MUST buy things for people. And this all has something to do with Jesus and God almighty and our faith right? In fact this holiday is the exact opposite, nobody cares about Jesus, they only care about the great new gifts they are supposed to recieve.

And then once you have been snared into their trap you must confront the dilema of gift buying. This brings into question the notion of a gift. Maybe a gift can technically just be giving something to someone, but lets use the connotation. Its showing appreciation by offering some tribute. So there are really 2 factors that go into a gift, there must be the tribute (your present) and there must be some form of appreciation. This is the one that always gets me. Does it really show appreciation to ask someone what they want and then give them that? Not in my bood it doesn't. In fact, I actually dislike it when ppl give me stuff I had to explicitly tell them I wanted. On the other hand, I am extremely touched by gifts that people actually found themselves, regardless of what they are. I recently god a great book about ink drawing from a friend for my birthday, and I was blown away. Not only did this person recognize my interest in ink drawing, but they made the effort to go out in search of a good book on the subject.

Now, talk without meaning is shit, so here's the point. Its Christmas, and while it is rather strange to feel forced into buying gifts for people on this specific day, so chances are you will buy gifts. So lets lay down some rules.

1. Actual Appreciation for the gift reciever is your motivation, search accordingly. don't get crap, think about it.

2. Don't ever get people stuff you asked them about. never, never, never.

3. If you don't really care that much about someone, then don't get them a gift!!! We all know the economy is shitty, so why not save a few bucks?

4. More expensive only means more spoiled. Others may not see it so, but it is generally the truth.

5. Don't think about what THEY would want, think about what YOU want to give them. Who cares if they want it, your are searching for a way to show appreciation.

-- AG

I started another blog a couple days ago, just a little freewriting log so that I have somewhere to just go crazy anytime I want to write something. The neat feature really is that I can use it from any computer on the web, so I don't necessarily have to add to it from home. Anyways ... I plan to use it as often as I can.

Even more exciting is the couple ideas I have for the design of my site. I messed around with a number of ideas this weekend, and I have something that I think will work pretty well. I'm still working on the art work, but it will be coming as soon as I finish the main drawing and ink it. That should give the website some new life.

Also, I have yet another review to catch up on ... Star Trek: Nemesis, which I saw on friday with the guys, was actually pretty good overall. It was a bit mishy-moshy at points, but overall it was good, fun, Star Trek. Review coming when it comes.

I have lapsed into a state where I sit down at my computer constantly, and don't know what to do with it. I check some websites, read the email, etc, but there is very little intrigue to sitting at my computer nowadays. Maybe I just need a new background? Anyways, funny thing these damn computers. The make good tools, but I often sit down in front of it and think, "Do something damnit!" As if my computer should hear my cry and somehow conjure up my every desire. It would be nice. Think on it.

-- AG

I have been a whirlwind of emotions lately. I am in an epic battle to define my life, and while I'd like to think I am doing well my pessimism prevents it. 22, jobless, living at home. wow. Granted, the economy is shit right now, and I am living in the worst possible place for my job market, but still.

Down. I am starting to pity myself. You know something is wrong when you pity yourself. I have many things going for me, yet I feel like I am failing to achieve. Negative thoughts are bad, but that has always been my fate.

Up. While my existence right now may be pitiful, I am trying to embark on new journey's to discover places I have never been before. I am really trying to make myself an artist, at least by hobby, and I am also trying hard to write ... this journal, movie reviews, and a comic. I am also proud of the things I have achieved in the building of our new house. While my contributions have been reasonably small they are nonetheless helpful.

Down. Trying is not doing, and I am constantly questioning my aptitude for writing. I want to write a comic, to tell stories, to express, yet my creativity is not well trained for this kind of venture. I am a technical person and now I am paying the price for that.

Up. I'm only 22 :) I have a long life ahead of me, and this is only the beginning. Plus, I just watched Fellowship of the Ring: Extended Edition with all my good friends last night and it was really great ... both hanging out and the movie. Maybe life is as sweet as we want it to be.

tomorrow will come.

-- AG

So ... I'm feeling pretty good right now. I've been getting a somewhat steady amount of art work done and added to the website, and what's more impressive is that I feel good about that work. Now I just need to get the creative juices totally gushing so that I can do some writing, but I figure one step at a time is enough.

As for this weekend ... I had a good time going over to gun's place Saturday and hanging out with the guys and watching the fights. Its a bummer that after leaving college we are not hanging out all that often even when we live pretty close to each other. But I guess thats just the way things are ... eveyone has their own schedule.

Work on the house is coming along ... slowly. Its fun working with tools and building stuff, but it seems to go too slow for me. That is probably just the silicon valley smog that I breathe everyday clouding up my brain and turning me into a berzerker, fun.

Oh shit ... and I saw Bowling for Columbine finally. Pretty good documentary, although I don't have much to judge on because I haven't seen many documentaries. The film was pretty much what I expected, and it gave out some good information, but in the end I doubt that much will come of it other than talk. I am trying to get my reviews up as soon as possible, but I am already behind. Hopefully the review will come shortly.

Enough for now.

-- AG

You know what I hate about life? time. What an evil invention. There are far too many things to do in life to forced to choose. But oh well, guess thats how it is. Right now I am just trying to keep up with doing this website, doing some art, and reviewing movies. Then I am trying to find time to watch anime, read comics, and everything else, what a mess.

Anyways ... I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend and getting some things done. I just came accross the thought of doing a story about a TCK young man and his experience fitting in ... could be good. Well, hopefully soon I will have some form of comic going.

-- AG

Well, I finally made it out to see the Chamber of Secrets tonight. I was actually pleased with the film ... now if I can just manage to get a review done some time soon.

I feel like this weekend has gone on forever, and I like it :) Its given me a really great chance to just sit back and work on the website, draw, and catch up on some reading. I've also had a good chance to catch up on some sleep, which is important as always, so I feel a bit refreshed and ready to continue working on my projects.

The website got a couple updates today when I opened up the art section with a single drawing, as well as getting the Ararat review up. I really need to get a decent design going, but I feel that content is most important, so it comes first. Anyways ... simple entry.

-- AG

Well, Thanksgiving has come and passed now, and the house has withstood the test. We had 20 people over for dinner and it was a really fun night. We had lots of good food and friends, including some new ones, friends that is. Anyways, a fun holiday, who can ask for more?

So now I am trying to focus on the mission at hand, to get some good art work done, to work on the website, finish my damn movie reviews, basically to get focused. A good sign is that I spent all day today just reading comics and doing a little bit of drawing, and the day isn't even over yet. Right now I am going to put some work in on the website, mostly the movie section, since that is quite do-able.

Anyhow, feeling good, staying focused.

-- AG

Yup. Thats how I feel right now, a mixed bag. I hate it when things get too complicated and you start to overwhelm yourself, then you realize it and just keep doing the same thing. wtf. I feel like I am trying to be and do a hundred things at once, and then my head starts to hurt when I am not even doing anything. ouch. Anyways ... I say keep it simple ... find one thing ... do it. Thats what I am shooting for right now.

So, I finally made it up to Davis this weekend, although only for a day. I am really glad too, I needed a weekend away from the house. All this work and pressure is just not for me. I really just hung out and played some Metroid Prime, but it was damn relaxing. Other than that things have been pretty standard. The house is almost done now and stuff is constantly being moved in. I am trying to get constant practice with my drawing as well as catching up on my comics. I am really set on creating a comic, so we'll see how it goes.

No more writing.

-- AG

Well ... I wasn't feeling too good on monday when I woke up, so I began fasting immediately. I am happy to say that it has been almost 72 hours now, and I am feeling much better. It also hasn't been too hard staying away from food, granted that I pretty much locked myself in my room. Anyways, I am happy to report that I am feeling well again and looking forward to starting up my normal routines again tomorrow.

I am also pretty excited right now since I finally got mythtv, my home brewed pvr, to work on my workstation. I'm not sure why it wouldn't work correctly on my athalon machine, but oh well, another excuse to get a new computer. Anyways ... mythtv works pretty damn well, so I am glad.

Finally, I am starting to gear up to do the artistic work we need done on "the game." And of course, I am finding out just how hard creative drawing can be, but I will not be discouraged, I will prevail. Well, now seems like a good time to do some drawing.

-- AG

So, the weekend has come and gone, and it was a good weekend if I do say so myself. Friday I went and saw Auto-Focus, which will have a review up some time soon. Then Saturday I went to spend the rest of the weekend with Panos at his house and work on the development of our game.

While our production was probably less than efficient, I think we accomplished a lot, and most importantly ... we got the process started. We've played with ideas and talked about concepts, and we are now pretty set on what the game is going to be about. Now the real design begins with creating all our characters, maps, items, menus, etc. Should be fun :)

On a side note ... we are also planning on doing some work with comics. I am probably even more excited about this because it is much more reasonable of a project, and I know we will get this going. Anyways, it was a great weekend playing video games (research of course ;) and relaxing while working on defining our game. We also had a good time watching the niner game, but they lost. suck.

All in all ... I am extremely excited at this moment. I can feel my fingers starting to grasp onto some of my dreams, and if feels really good. Good things are happening, and not by chance, but because I am making them happen. There really is nothing quite as gratifying as the realization of a dream, and so I am back to work to continue making mine a reality.

cheers.

-- AG

I am finally here to write my entry for today ... and now all my ideas are come and gone. lame.

It is interesting to think of the billions of ideas that course through our minds every day, but of course we forget about them or let them go. Too bad I can't integrate this journal into my brain so that I could record directly out of my brain whenever I wanted ... I guess I'll have to settle for typing it up for now.

Anyways ... not many details to submit for today. Worked on the house with dad 'til about 2:30, then headed over to Panos' house to chill. Gotta little bit of conversation going about the game, but the real work will begin this weekend.

I had a billion other ideas of things to say ... but now I can't remember 'em. shit.

-- AG

So ... finally got this thing working.

Ahhh ... the beginning of a journal ... now where to start. Lets start with the reasoning for this little tool. Its simple really ... a journal is a great idea, but keeping a written one is a pain in the ass, so instead we will do it on a computer. Now ... my life ...

Well, I now stuck in the pit of life, just trying to find out what to do with my life while constantly relishing the reality that I am not doing what I should/could be doing. Anyway ... mumbo jumbo. I'm working for dad on the house right now, which is actually becoming quite cool now that I am learning useful stuff and feeling like I am actually doing some work. I am also trying to get this website of mine started and functional to serve as inspiration to organize the efforts of my life. There there's the HTPC project, what a bitch that has become. And finally "The Game" which hopefully will become a serious project very soon. All-in-all, it could be worse, but it could be better too.

I feel like I am in a strange transitional period in my life where I need to find ways to assert my ability to function as an adult member of society. I also feel some pressure to try and radically change my life through some bold actions. I dunno ... but I feel like there is something i just must do ... and that thing will lead me to the next stage in my life. Wonder what it is I am supposed to do?

--AG