My 2 cents

WAhhh!!! I just went to my very first Sonics game! vs the Sacramento Kings. Pretty damn intense game near the end as there was about 30 seconds on the clock with both teams tied at 103! XD Too bad Allen missed the three that would have tied it up at 106. If you didn't see the game... here's a synopsis. Started out pretty bad for both teams. Shooting was very poor on both sides and there were turnovers galore. At the half, the kings were leading 54-41 most likely b/c the Sonics were shooting about 30%... Terrible. Ray Allen was held to about 6 points in the first half. Our reigning savior turned out to be Antonio Daniels this game as he finished the game with 30 points. The Sonics didn't start pumping until the fourth quarter when they finally tied it up about 6 minutes in site of the end at about 90 a piece. From then on it was an exchange of points back and forth until the end when Allen missed the 3 to let the Kings seal it. Allen added 20 points, most of which was in the last quarter. Lewis had 17 and Potapenko has 12. For the Kings, Stojakovic had 29 and Brad Miller had 28. In the end, I didn't really care who won, but since I went to this game, I was rooting for the Sonics. I was hoping for an alley-oop through the game but that didn't happen... I personally want the Kings to go all they way this year. I think they play great basketball and should get to win one. Another thing, I think that Potapenko is the best center we have. Booth has no skill whatsoever He can't even catch a frickin pass! James is overrated IMO... He's got good games but then he's got games worse than a rookie center u_u; Potapenko is a decently smart center, knowing where to be at the right time and how to score. His defense is sub-par but then again the entire Sonics team's defense is pretty poor. At the end, in the last 10 minutes, we let Mike Bibby and Vlade Divac pull of the SAME pick and roll dunk move TWICE!! I'm very disappointed with the Sonics. Another disappointment, the Sonics never dunked at all =/ I dunno, I wanted to see more dunks happen, but then again there aren't really any good dunkers on the team =P O well, can't have everything. It was a great night and an intense game that I was very glad to have gone to. Any other game would have not been as fun to watch; except maybe against the Lakers with their 4 All-Stars. hehehe, well that's a wrap, g'nite~

posted by Jason @ 10:49 PM 0 Comments

Quickie post on a movie I just saw. Fairly new HK flick called "Running on Karma" with Andy Lau and Cecilia Cheung. I'm kinda undecided, but maybe at the end of this review I'll figure out what my real opinion is. So the skinny: Andy Lau is a former, hella-buff monk who decided to not be one anymore after a strange occurance with killing a sparrow on accident. After that incident, he developed a skill to see a person's karma just by looking at them. Cecilia is a rookie cop who is having her tough time trying to be a good cop and happens to run into Dai (Andy L) in a strip joint. Dai took a turn for the worst b/c he could not deal with the consequences of his power to see karma. Now he's an overgrown buff man making a living on doing various buff men activities...(stripping, body building, just having fun with lady friends...) They meet when Cecilia busts the stripping joint for indecent exposure and the movie kinda takes off from there. Throughout the course of the movie, Dai saves Cecilia a few times after seeing a strange image of a Japanese soldier killing many people whenever he looks at her. Eventually Dai figures out that it wasn't that Cecilia needed to save someone from dying, but it was actually Cecilia who would die. Ok, I think I've gone far enough... This movie isn't really a love story (as some may expect from the massive number of them coming out of HK), it's more of a action movie with the religion of Buddhism twisted into it. At the end of the movie, as a viewer, we're are to get a deeper understanding of Buddhism/karma. I guess for the average viewer, they may be left baffled and confused beyond belief since I don't expect them to know anything about Buddhism because that was me when I watched this movie! It took a little bit of explaining from my dad to get why some certain things happened in the film. The movie wasn't really funny at all. The action is fake and Andy Lau's buff suit is even more fake. If you ask me he looked better in his fat suit =X (Love on a Diet was such a good movie XD) Anyway, regardless of the humor and action as most people usually look for, the movie carries itself surprisingly well and delivers its message very nicely. There's a little thinking that needs to be done and you should watch this movie in an understandable language. Don't be like me and watch it in Mandarin w/o subtitles u_u;;; (This was actually my second viewing after being very very confused after the first time; I had to find out what on Earth this was about) I would recommend this movie to anyone who's looking for a movie that isn't just a hollywood fluff and has some actual ideas behind it. Albeit I don't know how many people out there understand Buddhism, but if anyone's got questions about the movie, I'll be more than happy to answer them =D. Thinking about the movie, I think I'll give it a 6.5 / 10 for good deliverance. It was still very hollywood fluff-ish especially in the beginning. No good humor also docks this movie down. Worth it if you're into Andy Lau... and by "into", I mean you're a super-fan or a squirmish girl fan.

posted by Jason @ 11:40 PM 0 Comments

Ooo, I finally remembered what I wanted to write about yesterday. (I randomly remembered in the middle of my math hw, so this will be quick.) So on... Friday, I was going to the Park & Ride to catch my bus like normal. When I got out of my car, I had seen one of those 1 segment bus and figured it was the 205 so I ran to catch it. When I got on, I noticed that there were a lot more people than normal. However, I didn't recognize any of them. So I'm sitting on the bus as it crosses the I-90 bridge and I start looking around. I finally realize, wait, could this be the wrong bus?? So I look at the tiny display above the driver and find that I'm actually on the 216!!! >_<;;; I began to think, crap, where the hell am I going now. So I ask the guy next to me if this bus goes to the underground tunnel. He tells me that it doesn't but it stops by near a station above the tunnel. I was relieved to hear that. I got off at Jackson St, went down to the tunnel at the chinatown station, and got on the 73 to UW. I consider myself somewhat lucky and well prepared since I was going to school about 2 hours earlier. I am reminded of how nice the people are here. Another lady sitting next to me also offered help to get me to the right place. I've been to other big cities and sometimes people are just assholes. But it's never happened to me here, unless it was some random kids... u_u Well anyway, I'm glad to live in this area and I guess I kinda see myself here in the future. I've grown really attached to this area and have come to know it fairly well. Yup, that's that.

Random note; I was in chinatown today again to get some lunch with my dad. We were buying some food from Top Gun to-go, so I just double parked on the street with my emergency lights on. (Yes I was dying of hunger so it was an emergency =P) I noticed on the next block in front of me, there was a lion dance taking place with a large crowd of people around it. It wasn't until the entire group starting moving toward me on this street that I was concerned... @_@; At first I was hoping for the entire group to turn left or right, but they came straight at me. So being as how I didn't want to be overrun and surrounded, I tried to move the car into an alley but there were 3 stupid guys standing in front of me >_< so I couldn't move. I tried to roll forward to move the guys, but it was too late u_u;; In seconds I was surrounded by multiple dancers dressed in colorful polyester jump suits carrying flags and banners galore as well as a couple, very long dragons... Well, seeing as it was pretty much too late to do anything, I just turned off the car and sat to watch... I just had to hope that nothing would happen to my dad's beamer... Earlier I had noticed a guy throwing firecrackers had thrown some underneath a car passing by... I prayed that would not happen to me. So I got a front row seat watching the surprising amount of white people doing the lion dance. It wasn't anything too special, the white dancers weren't doing anything cool like in the movies so yea. I was too scared of a little girl swinging around a 4 foot rod who came awfully close to the car.... After about 15minutes, the crowd started to dissipate and I rolled out, hoping no random kids would decide to start their own dance, running in front of my car. Luckily, my dad wasn't too mad at me, and just told me to try and force a way out next time... "Sure dad, no problem if you can cover my defense attourney, medical insurance of the victum, and a new bumper for your beamer!"

posted by Jason @ 2:50 PM 0 Comments

Hrm, so there was a topic I wanted to blog about... but I can't remember now... I guess I'll just ramble until I remember. So I took my first Soc test yesterday, first of four. I'd have to say that it was surprisingly less intimidating than I expected. It was only 3 short answer, which really justs asks for like 2 sentence answers, and then 2 "essay questions", which are basically a paragraph each. I tried to make my essays detailed, but being as how I usually write big, I dunno how detailed I really was =/ Man, I'm really nervous about it >_< Math is like, starting to kick my butt. Suddenly we jumped into Shell/Disk methods for finding volume and I'm still trying to remember integration rules... I have a feeling 125 is gonna screw me over... Chem is also getting tough. We're getting in to a lot of abstract ideas that even include calculus @_@ Like one of the equations we are using has integration in it... Winter quarter is getting harder fast... I downloaded the anime movie Akira finally and watched it last night. WOW @_@;; this movie went over my head esp since it was so late and I was half asleep. But I still got the whole movie, I think. The skinny: A kid recieves some great power and is wreaking havoc around Neo Tokyo until he cannot even control his own power and his friends try to stop him. The story is fairly dense and deep. Like most other anime movies, philosophy is integrated into the plot like crazy. I'll probably have to rewatch this movie again to try and let it soak in more.. b/c I don't think I've completely grasped everything from it. It was a fairly bloody movie although I have to say there's more bloody out there =X I don't think I can rate it now... but if I had to, I'd say a 7 / 10. It's a classic anime movie so I'd recommend it to any anime fan. I also rewatched Macross Plus... still one of my favorite movies of all time. If you haven't seen it, you HAVE TO NOW. Yes, that good =P

I finally went to the IMA on MLK monday holiday. Went with my cousin, Fred, to play some ball with a couple guys I've met in school. It's really nicely remodeled. I almost didnt recognize it from when I went there last some 2 years ago. Played basketball for about 3 hours straight... that was hella intense and good fun. But I think I may have went a little too far and now my knee is feeling a little sore, as is my left foot. I will definately have to go to the IMA more often to make use of it. I pay $35 a quarter for it anyway so it'd be a waste to not go. Finding the time on the other hand... that's tough since I don't live on campus. Time to eat.

posted by Jason @ 7:01 PM 0 Comments

Woohoo, cable returned yesterday. So 2nd quarter seems to be starting off really shaky... My first chem lab didn't go too great... didn't finish the last part of the lab. =/ But the TA will email me the data I need so that should work out. Math is dull as usual. TA can't speak english so that just sucks. Soc test is in less than a week and I feel like I'm screwed beyond belief b/c I'm not even sure what on earth we're being tested on. I can't say whether or not I recommend the course yet, but from here it doesn't look good. @_@

An unfortunate thing has happened... My church has decided that they are going to charge my group of friends and I, $50 a night to use their gym every Friday night for basketball... The church already rents it to other people at the same rate and I guess they decided that we should probably adhere under that rule too... Although we have been playing there for four years without having to pay, we have still given them donations for using it. So my dad and his friend who kind of are running the whole Friday night-bball tried to make a deal with some of the guys who play with us often. We figured that if we could get $15 a month from at least 15 people, we would have enough and even extra to overlap onto other months. We also had a big attendance problem, because sometimes we would have up to 25 people there to some days when there would only be 7... Starting to have people pay ahead would make them consistantly come, always setting a good number of people to show up. Guests are still welcome though, so please come =D It was very nice of the church to let us use their gym for free (our donations were voluntary) for just about 4 years... I guess all good things must come to an end.

Cousins came over for dinner and a movie. We watched Underworld. Here's the skinny. A long war between Vampires and Lycans (werewolves) has raged on until today and a vampire chick falls for a mysterious guy who's wanted by the Lycans. It's got kinda a cliche story to it so you could potentially guess what happens. In the previews that some of you may have seen, they try to emphasis their special effects like in Blade or Matrix-wannabe. Too bad they failed at that. The actors carry themselves alright although it's nothing special. You're typical Hollywood action movie is to be expected. I would recommend renting it as I have; that is if you're into vampire movies. If you liked Blade, you'll like this. If you're sick of Blade, don't touch it like it's fire. Rating, I would give a 4 / 10. Nothing special here, move on. I watch Iron Chef every now and then when I have the time. Tonight there was a Japanese cook against the French Iron Chef, and the theme ingredient was Lotus Root. There were some interesting dishes that made me hungry again so I had some ice cream, and then later tonight clam chowder XD good food... I wish I had more time to experiment in the kitchen. It takes a lot of patience and a fridge full of groceries. When I do have time though, I usually just cook some simple stir fry or fried rice or bake something. Mmm, fried rice... I had better sleep so I stop thinking about food. g'nite

posted by Jason @ 2:14 AM 0 Comments

aahhh, man, my cable modem has been down for like 6 days now... That's my excuse for not updating like 7 days ago, but hah, whatevs. So now I'm stuck on dial-up now... I feel all the pain back again that all of you current dial-up users feel. I just hope Comcast fixes my bloody line quickly >_< We had problems way back in like September because the line leading to our house was damaged, BUT THEY NEVER DID... either that or they just did a bad job on it. *sigh* I'm sorry I'm acting like a spoiled brat now just b/c I don't have cable, but really I get by quite fine. I didn't use the computer for 4 days and it didn't faze me. But the fact taht Comcast has such horrible service pisses me off. We called on Saturday and they didn't send anyone out until Tuesday... terrible.

So I'll give a quickie update on my current classes... Chem, I have an asian prof... I'm not quite sure if that's a good thing, but at the very least he can speak english very well. I just hope he isn't a toughie... He's also got a decent sense of humor throwing in jokes when he can. He seems like an overall nice guy though that may be very deceptive... My Math prof came off as a very boring guy who seems to have the actual "try to teach us really what it means" mentality. Bleh, just another sleeper class. He stutters like none other and his handwriting is more sketchy than chicken stratch. I don't know how to understand him... OOoo a story, One time I was sitting in the very front row for math class (I had just found out I knew a friend of my friend's sister's so I sat next to her so I would have at least one person I knew in the class) and as usual, I was dozing off not really awake, not quite asleep. So the prof is lecturing and I'm nodding off... Zzzz-_- and the Prof pops a random question I have no clue as to what he's saying. The next moment, I notice him looking at me and asks "Why do you think so?" Now I"m in the "Crap what the hell just happened?! @_@;;;" mode and I am suddenly fully awake. Apparently, I had nodded to his question and he thought I was answering... Well, unaware of anything, I just shrugged and said nevermind... That sure made things uncomfortable for the rest of the class. I will definately try to sit further away to avoid ever that kind of unwary confrontation with the Prof. Moving to Soc... man I thought Phil was boring, >_< this is a real snoozer. I mean although the Prof probably has more enthusiasm than my other two combined, the subject is just disengaging. That's not half of it, I just met my TA for SOC on Tues and he's got to be either A) the laziest guy in the world or B) just doesn't know what the hell he's supposed to do. Rationale? His syllabus consisted of his contact info. He didn't have anything structured for quiz section at all except for "Any questions anyone?" He thinks that his form of class will be most effective for us. @_@ He dresses like one of those goth people with long dark hair and the black trench coat, but when he talks, he talks like a nerd. Dear lord I don't think I can survive with a TA like this >_<;; I'm gonna be sooo screwed. Well I really must be off b/c I have a writing assignment for Soc now u_u; Will update soon again, promise

posted by Jason @ 11:38 PM 0 Comments

Erp, update time... I can't think very descriptively about any stories in Cali so I'll wait on it... So instead, I'll review American Wedding instead! The third American Pie movie that goes into the wedding of Jim and Michelle (guy who gave up sex with Shannon Elizabeth and band camp queen). I saw the first one, not the 2nd one, and now have mixed feelings about the third. I feel immature to be laughing at all the dumb jokes in the movie, but it was really entertaining. There was almost never a dull moment in the movie thanks to Stifler's character. He was all over the place and doing what he did best. Being a dick. And it was funny!! Ok, so maybe not everyone's into it, and yes, it is really immature and dumb, but what's wrong with one movie in a while that you watch not for a deep plot or high tech CGI? I enjoyed this movie purely for the "fun factor", and being a guy, I think I enjoyed it more than girls would =D (Now I wanna have a bachelor party XD) The whole movie, if you didn't know, is pretty much a perverted boy's dream come true so young guys eat your heart out. For the rest, I'd only recommend this movie if you feel like watching something low key and completely mind numbing. I'll give this movie a 6 / 10, b/c I watched it at 1am when my mind couldn't have been any more numb =P Well, that was a quickie, time for bed. Ta ta~

posted by Jason @ 12:06 AM 0 Comments

Waaahh, it's been so long since I've last written. Lets see, after building my computer... I watched a few movies, hung out with friends, and went down to Cali for the holidays! I watched LotR: Return of the King, Cold Mountain, X2, Last half of Bruce Almighty, & LXG (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). ::Skip to next paragraph to read about non-nerd computer stuff:: My computer was running fine and dandy when it suddenly shut down by itself. Now not being a very good computer technician, I wasn't sure what was up, so I just turned it back on. It ran for a while again and then shut down by itself again. When I could, I posted my situation on forums in light that other computer techies may send me help. It turned out my problem could have had many different reasons but eventually I narrowed it down to my heatsink being installed backwards... I know a lot of you people are thinking, it's not physically possible to install a heatsink backwards >_< what are you talking about! Well, I will have to establish first that I did not install my heatsink, but rather my neighbor who had come over to give me a hand. He helped a lot with connecting the power supply to random stuff that I hadn't a clue on how to do. Unfortunately, he wasn't careful, nor was I, when we hastily put the heatsink on. The problem turned out to be that the cpu wasn't being cooled properly and was overheating. Well, after finding this out, I made a call to a local small computer shop (CompuCare in BelRed area, formerly Cutting Edge Computers) They told me to bring it in and they would help me fix it. So I drove all the way to their store with my computer, and luckily they said there was no visible damage on my cpu. I had also caked on my thermal paste u_u;; I had to drive up to Fred Meyer to buy the guy helping me Q-tips to clean my cpu (and yes they help sooo much with cleaning stuff up). I was a bit scared to leave my computer with them, but I found they were really nice people. In the season spirit, I even let them keep the box of Q-tips since they didn't charge me for their help. (I guess I should also note I bought the actual heatsink from them the week before) Now my computer runs beautifully with no flaws up till now =D.

Ok, wow even that was too much nerdiness for me. Now for some quickie reviews on movies... LotR: Return of the King is probably the best movie I've seen in a long time. Seriously, I can't think of another movie that was this good since maybe the 2nd LotR. This whole trilogy was very well done, although I think I'm the only one who didn't like the first one as much. =/ But I agree with others when I say that this is probably one of the best trilogies out there. I am gonna give this movie a 9.5 / 10, just b/c of the ehem, LONG ending and overly gay hobbits, but aside from that, I can't really complain. This movie really stunned me. Moving on to Cold Mountain... Supposedly the "Gone of the Wind" for our time as I hear from others. Maybe to a romantic fan of the genre, but not a classic in my book. Nicole Kidman plays a rich daughter who randomly falls in love with some guy who goes to fight in the Civil War, one Jude Law, and they both dream of going back to each other when they really hardly know each other. Maybe I'm sounding sarcastic and making this movie sound bad, but I really didn't think all to great of it. The cast carried their parts very well. Took me a while to get used to the "suthan" accents. Overall I didn't like the plot, it just seemed too random for me... I'll give it a 6.5 / 10 for good acting and good filming. Moving on to LXG. Ok, so everyone says this movie was crap. I agree to a certain extent, but I thought the movie to be fairly creative. Sure it's like another X-Men, but with Sean Connery! Ok, even he was iffy with his freakish strength I guess. The skinny is a group of British hero's (like the X-Men) are called upon by Britain in a time before WWI to fight a new bad guy selling weapons to countries in strife. Fans of Sean Connery will rejoice, others will just forget this one. A 3/10 for creativity. Now on to X2; The Skinny, old govt agent who has a grudge against mutants comes out to be the villain the XMen are up against. Similiar stuff to the first one. Not as funny, nothing too special. Same song, different verse. You're not missing too much by missing this one. Rated 5 / 10. Now I didn't see all of Bruce Almighty, but where I saw to the end, and the extra clips, it looked pretty funny. I'm going to put it on my to-watch list. Well I think that's enough for me now... I shall get back tomorrow to write about my Cali trip. G'nite

posted by Jason @ 12:20 AM 0 Comments