#296 - NOOO!!! DOLLHOUSE!!! CANCELED!!!

how sad am i that those idiots at fox are gonna cancel dollhouse? so sad that i couldn't even write about it for four days. so sad that in my haste to find a picture of dollhouse to put on this blog all i could find was this heavily-airbrushed promo picture that completely undermines the intelligence of the actual show itself. so sad that i pulled a "kathleen" and actually wrote a letter of complaint to the fox network like a weird old man writing an angry letter to the noisy bar across the street from his home.

now, this isn't my finest piece of work, i admit, but in the heat of the moment i scribbled this email out on my computer and sent it in without editing, purposefully, because i believe that bad grammar and "twitter"-type punctuation further conveys my anger at the fox network stupidity. but anywhere here's what i wrote:

dammit fox, can't you recognize a good thing when you've got it? here you've got Joss Whedon creating a wonderously clever show in Dollhouse, then you condemn it to friday nights and wonder why it's not getting the ratings you were hoping for? no shit, sherlock. did you notice the dvr ratings, or more specifically, did you notice the huge boost in ratings that Dollhouse got from viewers who record the show to watch it back (over and over again) when they get home from their friday nights out? of course you probably did, but i guess none of that matters when you've got crappy re-runs to air in the friday night death spot instead huh?

nevermind that this has happened to Joss Whedon before with Firefly, but I thought that this time fox would realize what a gem of writing, casting, and intelligence they've got with Dollhouse. perhaps it is not the kind of show that any random viewer can just pick up and watch. but why penalize those of us viewers who actually FOLLOW a show? a show that has a start and an ending point to each season. one with a story-arc that actually makes sense. well, i guess the ironic thing is that now we will have a definate END to the storyline, at least we can be thankful that fox has given Joss enough time to tweek-out an actual series finale. but still, how many times does it have to be reinforced in me that network television does not care about a quality product? it's depressing. who's going to have the guts to stand by a quality show?

here's what they wrote back:

ALL 13 episodes in the 2nd Season will air as promised

DOLLHOUSE will air 2-Hour episodes on FRI 12/4, 12/11 & 12/18 (8-10pm ET/PT) - then return after the holidays on FRI 1/8, 1/15 & 1/22 - to complete the full Season 2 order of 13 episodes!!

We have given the producers enough time to bring closure in the 13th episode.

ASKFOX

obviously that was a bot... and automatic reply message. but it's better than nothing. and that's what i now have to believe. "it's better than nothing."

december will be dollhouse month, with two new episodes each friday and joss whedon will have time to craft out a semi-series ending in the last two episodes (that aren't shot yet) in january. still, i can't help thinking that someone still dropped the ball on this one. sure, dollhouse got a lot of promotion from fox, with their dollhouse/terminator lead-ups, but it all seems kinda empty when you still stick dollhouse in the friday death spot, then pull it completely from november sweeps so it doesn't even get a chance to boost your ratings. i mean, i don't think i've ever seen a dollhouse re-run, wouldn't that help solve all fox's reported problems of people not being able to follow the storyline/characters? i mean, how many reruns of bones have they shown in the last two months? seriously people...

grrr... i'm going to be upset with fox for a LONG time about this one. first firefly, then terminator, now dollhouse. at least i get to watch dollhouse until it's abbreviated ending. plus we still get to see summer glau in her dollhouse episodes, and if watching joss whedon shows has taught me anything, it's that love = pain, and just when the viewers start loving a character, that means it's time to kill them off! haha, so i guess it was a fitting end for dollhouse after all...


(but really not!)

#295 - when a good joke becomes an even greater reality

last april thinkgeek.com put this item up for sale as one of it's april fool's jokes. so many people actually tried to order it (thinking that it was a real product) that thinkgeek.com wrote to george lucas trying to get the rights to make it. and seven months later one nerdy joke becomes a beautiful reality...

#294 - go bows!

i don't think i've posted about uh wahine volleyball yet this year, which is surprising to me because they are pretty fricken' awesome this year. i guess i've been kinda down the past few years because the team has been kinda of mediocre (of course, "mediocre" for UH vball is still stellar for pretty much all of the rest of the country). i really started watching vball in the 90's... i don't think i've ever watched a game in klum gym (in person), but i've been to the stan sherrif center from the beginning (when it was called the special events arena). the first team i really remember following was the 1995 team (i think they lost in the NCAA regional finals to florida) and was really into it when the 1996 team went to the final four (losing to stanford in the championship match). i watched the 1998 team beat BYU in the record setting longest women's volleyball match ever (a little over 3 and a half hours) in the WAC championship. i was crushed when the 1999 team (with heather bown) fell to texas a&m in the NCAA regionals in hawaii (i was there) when the final four was gonna be played in hawaii (that was also my first year as a student at UH). i coasted through all the great times during 2000-2003 with kim willoughby, lily kahumoku, maya gustin, jennifer carey, lauren duggins, etc, and went to all the "big" matches every year (those were the good ole days, 3 final four appearances in 4 years). i kept the faith through good regular seasons but disappointing "big match" loses during the kamana'o years 2004-2006 (except for that AWESOME win in the NCAA regionals at the stan sherrif over USC on my birthday!). i suffered through 2007 with the loss to utah state and middle tennesse to end the season in only the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament. i rebounded last year with kanani danielson, the spectacular 5-set win over washington, and the return of the famous hawaii ball-control. and this year i revel in the awesome-ness that is again rainbow wahine volleyball.

okay, well if that didn't sound creepy-obsessed enough yet, here's why i think this year's team is (finally!) another final four national championship contender:

1. serving - this year's team has got serving coming from all directions, aneli cubi-otineru's blistering jump serve, tough floaters from stephanie brant, amber kaufman, dani mafua, and jayme lee. on top of the tough serving, it's also very consistent, and when they're not getting aces they're forcing bad passes (also, UH's net play on overpasses has been stellar, i can only remember seeing one net violation on an overpass all year).

2. passing - with danielson, cubi-otineru, and liz ka'aihue returning hawai'i's ball control to hawai'i standards, they can finally run an offense...

3. quick tempo offense - whatever mafua lacks in creativity or decision-making (or whatever dave shoji lacks there), she makes up in setting a GREAT quick tempo offense. while i'd love to see more tandem plays, like the double-quick or the x-play, you gotta give mafua credit for pushing the tempo and getting her hitters one-on-one blockers a great percentage of the time. while i'd love to see more variety in the sets (why not include the d-set? where's the 31-set been all year?) and defiantely more involvement from the middles, you can't fault an offense that's plus-.300 and 3rd in the nation in hitting percentage.

4. blocking - with the addition of brittany hewitt (and even forsythe) it just seems like all of hawai'i's blocking has gotten better, which is probably why their digs don't show up in the national stats... they're getting a lot of touches off the block, that's a great thing.

5. all-court attack - one thing definately different from the last few years to this one is the all-court attack. remember 2002 & 2003? remember the diversity? remember getting four or five players in double digit kills? well, the games are shorter now (and the wahine are getting points in all kinds of ways), but still they are spreading the wealth. and what's even more impressive is that they're banging away from every corner of the court. the opponents are under constant fire. hawai'i players are more ready to take a rip at any time, from anywhere on court and that's an intimidating thing to see on the other side of the net.

so yeah, i know you've still got penn state up there, undefeated (for like, two years) in the top spot, but i still think UH has a great shot this year. of course, any of those top PAC-10 teams can pull an upset, and texas (although they just lost to iowa state) has destinee hooker and ashley engle so even if they get in passing trouble, heck they just throw it high and outside and hooker goes up and over everyone to put the ball down. but this year's team is the first one since the kim & lily days that i really think they can grab that national championship in december. a little ways to go before then, first of all, sunday is senior night, and i really think that this year's seniors will be hard to replace to have a great team again next year:

amber kaufman - she's my favorite. cause she gets angry! haha, plus you can't tell from tv, but man she skies! well, she's also a high jumper, even went to the US olympic trials (she placed 12th). i feel kinda bad for her because she was supposed to redshirt her freshman year, but there were so many injuries that year that she had to be "activated" halfway through the year and even then didn't get that much playing time. just imagine if she had one more year to play, woo, she'd be all-american i'm sure! heck, i'd put her on my all-american team this year just for that jump, man, tv doesn't do some things justice.

i remember hearing about cubi-otineru out of high school and i was thinking she was gonna be great from the start. then she didn't go straight to UH and i kinda forgot about her, i thought it was a big loss (like how jennifer saleamua ended up going to all-american status at nebraska after pulling out of UH), but what do you know she came back again and the hype was for real. finally UH has an ACTUAL right-side attack! plus the ball-handling skills and general smart play, she was a good one for sure. again, it's just too bad she didn't have a full career at UH, but that's how sports go right?

just take a look at stephanie brant. transfered from UC santa barbara where she made conference all-freshman, got thrust into that tough 2007 season, but still played pretty great, now is a spectacular server & defensive player. i love players who can dig, and she does it a great job right-side digging.

she's cute right? haha, okay well she's good too. it's just too bad she's so short, i'm sure she would've been the starting libero, but that's just the darn thing with sports, sometimes even if you're skilled, you can't beat another half-a-foot in height. even though she's backrow, a taller player just covers more ground. it's too bad, but as a sub she's still a great defender.

i always wonder if players who were starters for their old teams (like fowler for arkansas) regret transfering to a back-up role for a better team. then again, now she gets to be on a national championship contender team, so i guess that answers that question huh?

great group of seniors i think. even though there's a lot of talent coming back next year, i really think with these seniors hawai'i has a great shot at the national championship... only time will tell though... and i'll be watching!

go bows!

#293 - halloween

little mac is back!

so, halloween turned out pretty good after all. it started pretty darn good actually, our team had our last tennis match saturday morning... i dressed up for the halloween match as a confident man (not a wuss, like usual) and finally won my first match, woo hoo! it was pretty tight though, we (my mixed doubles partner and i) were playing well in the first set, won that 6-4, then we were pretty even in the second set, but broke the lady's serve to go up 6-5 and then it was up to me to serve it out... i remember having at least one match point, but man then we cracked! we lost that game and i think were so bummed at ourselves that we tanked in the tie-break also, losing 4-7. but my partner is super competitive and that kinda parter really helps me because i fold sometimes, but she's fiesty so that helped me pick up my confidence again and we totally rebounded in the 3rd set tie-break (we play a super-tiebreak to 10 points in place of a full 3rd set) and blew them away 10-2 for my first win! the other team was nice though (which you don't get all the time, unfortunately), we had some good rallies and they didn't cheat too much, haha, anyway, it was a fun match and a great way to start a halloween that i kinda just wanted to get through.

so after post-match lunch and drinks i was feeling much better about the rest of the night. got home, took a shower, made dinner, then went to listen to the UH vball game on the radio and completely fell asleep on the couch! man, i must be getting old, a little sun and beer at lunch and i konk-out. anyway, but dinner was good and we played some wii punch-out (insert action shot:and i even got some trick-or-treaters this year. well, maybe about 12-15, but that's like 3x as many as last year, i almost gave out a whole bowl of candy (of course, i was grabbing the candy by the handful, but almost a whole bowl...).

ended up not going out to chinatown afterwards, i was feeling pretty beat from the long day (damn, i must be getting old), so i plopped down on the couch to watch a bit of ghost adventures (live!) on dvr and fell asleep. oh well, it was a pretty fun halloween anyway...

#292 - motivation

i have none. this is a problem. what happened? i was on such a roll, but somehow at the end of this year i find myself very lacking in motivation.

halloween is my favorite holiday of the year (with christmas very close, but it's kind of depressing sometimes, whereas halloween is supposed to be kinda gruesome it's easy to make it fun), usually every year i get kinda into finding a costume and even decorating (and playing halloween games and using creepy vocabulary, etc with my clients)... but this year i've hardly done anything. i'm completely not motivated to do anything either. i've got a costume already (actually, it's a pretty awesome costume i think, but i got the idea a few months ago so that was before this loss of motivation), i've been on an old school nintendo kick this year and since they've been doing a great job of bringing back the orginal nintendo games i played as a kid on wii, i thought i'd embrace that... so i'm going to be... little mac!


but for some reason i don't really feel like going out anywhere. i think it'd be fine just staying home and passing out candy to the maybe 5 trick-or-treaters that come to my house (that's how many there were last year, at least). maybe i'll change my mind by this weekend, but i think i'd be just fine staying home and watching the 7-hour ghost adventurers lockdown instead (actually, i am getting pretty excited about that, at least). still... last time i went down to chinatown and had a pretty good time, blah, it's gonna have to be a last minute decision i think. see? that's how my motivation goes (or doesn't go) now days, so sad, how do i get out of this funk? i thought halloween would do it, it usually does, but not this year.

not to harp too much on an already over-used movie quote... but, rule #32: enjoy the little things.

so, after switching to t-mobile and getting my first flip phone four years ago (and suffering through it's inevitable slow death for the past year), i have finally found a phone that i want to get! for a long time i stayed away from new phones because 1) i thought they were all crap (except for the iphone, and i was super close to getting a iphone, except that i can't stand at&t and their plans... although if i did get an iphone, how awesome would this bamboo case be?)
and 2) because with any new GOOD phone i'd also have to get a data plan, and i didn't want to pay any more a month for that. but, t-mobile is finally coming out with some reasonable talk/text/data plans and the motorola cliq, finally a phone i can get on board with. it's got both a touch screen and a keyboard (duh, why did it take so long for that to happen) and it's specifically designed to keep me up to date with all the messages and social networking whatever so i can finally be a good friend and keep up with people, haha. now the only thing i have to decide on is which one to get... titanium or winter white? that's a hard decision, my instincts tell me get the black one... but something about that white just looks cool...

so, at least i can get motivated about SOMETHING... even if it is just a phone. rule no. 32 - enjoy the little things.
[sidenote: zombieland was an awesome movie for several reasons:
1. comedy - horror shows that make fun of not only the genre but the idea of horror in real life itself are my favorite, i don't like the over-dramatic-type shows, i like when people respond in very real (aka casual/comedic) ways to absolutely ridiculous situations (e.g. buffy the vampire slayer, firefly)
2. the main character was pretty OCD-like - i can relate
3. running gags - this movie was full of them, i think it's such a waste to let a good joke be forgotten, i think running gags are the smartest form of comedy (you gotta be able to both encode and recall)
4. they killed bill murray... and then laughed about it - not macabre, just funny]

so, zombies, cell phones, maybe there ARE things that can motivate me. life is more that just work, schedules, working out, driving from place to place, avoiding the toxic people of the world (which for some reason it seems there are TONS of all over the place recently, we just need people to be nicer to each other sometimes). anyway, i was talking to some of the actually NICE people at work and they were telling me a lot of ghost stories about where i work. huh? i mean, i assume pretty much everywhere in hawai'i has got to be haunted since it's all islands and there aren't really a lot of places to bury people (plus, ancient hawaiians didn't mark their graves, they thought it wasn't good for your enemies to know where your body is buried), so there've got to be ghosts all over the place right? but i've never even felt the slightest bit of the creeps around my work place (besides the toxic people i try to avoid, that is). i've never even thought i saw something weird, yet it seems like everyone i talk to has SOME kind of weird experience. maybe i'm just skeptical, actually, i KNOW i'm skeptical, but i'm definately open to the possibilities. i mean, if you just take a look at some of the issues in theoretical physics you'll see that theories about parallel universes and time/space anomolies can easily explain some of the paranormal events that some people define as ghosts or portals or whatever.

i mean, i don't really believe ALL that much in ghosts, i just like to want to be proven wrong (although i never am... in most things, haha). that's why i love watching ghost adventurers and all those kinds of shows. i love the "science" of it all. they use devices like electromagnetic field detectors, emf pulse beacons, static energy producers, all devices to measure and manipulate energy to determine the presence of spirits (sound like physics anyone?). there was even a class at KCC a while ago about the science of ghost hunting, i was so close to enrolling. anyway, i've never had an ACTUAL paranormal experience, but all through college i listened to glen grant's radio show every sunday night, i loved it. i even went to that store he opened in puck's alley "the haunt," and luckily got to go on his walking ghost tour of the state capitol before he died. he was a great storyteller, really. i'm sad to say i haven't read any of his books though... i'm gonna have to try and pick me up a copy of one of them after i finish the mafia book sam let me borrow.

well, after writing this blog i guess i've discovered a few more things that motivate me. still, i gotta find a more permanent way out of this funk. i guess it starts with the little things... then sleep... then tomorrow. but you can't worry about tomorrow when you've still got today in front of you.

Matthew 6:34

so... here's my enjoyment for tonight. i was watching psych, then at the commercial break this masterpiece came on, at first i thought my dvr was skipping, but i kept watching in astonishment, for the entire 3 minutes at 17 seconds. and even when it was over, they played the original (non-rap version of the) commercial just to make sure you got the message. then psych came back on.

#291 - mori e no pasupooto

the weather today was awesome, right?

after furlough friday yesterday, today was completely free. absolutely nothing to do. i mean, usually i play tennis on saturdays but our tennis team had a bye this week. if no tennis i go to the beach, but since i didn't work yesterday i went surfing instead (man, it was crowded... you'd think if all these parents are so concerned about their kids missing one day of school they'd do something school-related with them instead of just shove them all off to the beach... not that i think there's something wrong with sending kids to the beach, who needs more school? let them be kids). plus there was a surf contest going on at ali'i today so i didn't want to join the crowd. i went to the gym yesterday too so today was my off day as well. so what is there to do, i asked myself. well, first of all i woke up at 11:15 so it wasn't like i had an ENTIRE day to fill... so i decided to go to pearlridge. here's some things i learned:

1. i'm in a weird age gap were i'm too old for the trendy clothes (skinny jeans, deep v-neck shirts), still too young for the old-man clothes (macy's, sears), but still not ready to succumb to the generic stuff (gap). i can't wear funny t-shirts to work, and it's too hot to wear nice clothes to work either. conclusion = i bought nothing. and i will continue to wear clothes over 3 years old until fashion catches up to me, or me to it. ha.

2. filipinos are taking over the planet... or at least that mall.

3. stink people hang out in that "book-off" bookstore.

4. stink people hang out in borders.

5. mall food fails me. i used to be uber-excited about going to pearlridge to get arby's... and i actually do like the roastburger, but i don't like curly fries (they got rid of regular fries and only have curly ones now) and fast-food is still fast-food = nausea and possible stroke.

6. i'm a loner. well, i mean, usually when i go to the mall (or anywhere for that matter) i'm all business. go in, get whatever you need, get out, as efficently as possible. i prize efficiency much-ly. but today, since it was a free day and i really had nothing else to be doing, i decided to take it easy, stroll around intentionally "hang" at the mall. it didn't work out so well. first of all, i don't like crowds, and no matter how much i try to convince myself that tolerating crowded places and even enjoying going places where there are lots of people makes me a better person socially... i don't like crowds. secondly, i can't dwaddle. it's that efficiency thing again, if i have something to do, i do it as efficiently as possible, if i have nothing to do, i stand and do nothing. i tried to browse through books at the two above mentioned bookstores, but i just couldn't do it. i make quick decisions about what books i do and do not want to read and pretty much stick by them, i have no interest in what does not interest me. so me trying to browse around the mall to kill time just wasn't working out at all. however, i did have a great time by myself buying some birthday gifts, grabbing lunch, almost being interested in a couple stores, i even contemplated going to see a movie by MYSELF! i would have been the first time ever, but it turned out that all i really wanted was the popcorn and then i probably wouldn't have felt so great after fast-food AND movie popcorn so i decided to go home instead.

on the way home, i decided to take an extended ride through mauka. a few days ago i decided that i wasn't going to take the short (and most efficient) way to and from my place anymore. along that way there's just too much stuff... people, cars, buildings, parking lots, ugh. i decided i needed a more pleasant ride leaving my place and coming back home. a greener ride. people need greenery, don't let anyone tell you different. psychologically, people get to be in better moods when they see greenery, plants, trees, y'know? makes sense right? and everyone's experienced it first hand too. and mauka is the perfect place for that... well, upper mauka at least. so i drove all the way up to the top and man there are some huge houses up there, but even more impressive were the trees and folliage on the side of the roads. nice job mililani. and at the very top, at the end of some of the last roads is the prettiest looking dirt road entrance to somewhere. it's fenced off, but there's a mailbox and address so i'm thinking taking that dirt road through a beautiful looking canopy of tress might lead to a house. i want to live in that house. maybe it's like a totoro house. maybe it's got huge windows looking out onto the mountain-side. that would be awesome.

as much as i love the beach, i want to live in the mountains. always have wanted to. i was so happy when i first moved into this place and saw mushrooms growing in my yard, how awesome is that? remember that movie "mononke hime?" that's where i want to live (except, without that disgusting shishigami, gross). like that picture up there that brandi took in mexico. sweetness. that's why i loved the weather today (okay, took me awhile to get back to the original point of this post, but i'm there). maybe not so much the humidity, but the misty-ness, and the big-fat raindrops and the cold wind. it's that almost-halloween type weather and i love it.

of course, i wouldn't love it so much if this weather stuck around when i want to go surfing, or play tennis or something, but this is probably as much seasonal change as we'd get in hawaii so i like it. i'd imagine i could probably move somewhere like on the mainland where it's this kinda weather all the time, but then i probably wouldn't like it so much. we need change right? we fear change. (remember wayne's world? garth said "we fear change" and then he smashed a robotic hand with a hammer. for some reason i remember that a lot).

one more week 'til halloween, i haven't decorated this year, haven't even planned what i'm gonna do on halloween night. but i have been watching a lot of ghost adventures (they're gonna do a live televized 7-hour lock-down, that should be good). i haven't really gotten excited about it like i usually do, maybe because the weather hasn't been very cooperative until now. gotta go watch me some halloween tv...

#290 - happy house-i-versary to me...

BLARGH! today was supposed to be my wonderful 2nd house-i-versay and how does it start off? well...

1. woke up late
2. car wouldn't start
3. had to call my MOM for a ride to work (how embarrassing)
4. bad bad meeting at work (if only all i had to do was work with the kids my life would be great)
5. had to call my DAD for a ride home from work (how embarrassing)
6. found out i might get an even bigger pay cut with the furloughs
7. thought i had enough frozen chicken for my curry... but didn't!
8. too discombobulated to go to yoga

ugh. but, things looking up...

1. found some pork to substitute for the chicken
2. the office is on tonight
3. no yoga means i have time for a nap
4. thinkgeek.com order got delivered today

haha. how's that for my 2nd house-i-versay. gonna finish the night off with some curry and beer in my awesome self-owned home, look on the bright side and enjoy my solitude for a bit. then have a big sleep and a better tomorrow.

#289 - forget and not slow down

1. Forget And Not Slow Down
2. I don't Need A Soul
3. Candlelight
5. Part of It
7. Therapy
8. Over it
9. Sahara
11. Savannah
13. If you believe me
14. This Is The End
15. (If You Want it)

if you've been reading my blog for awhile you'll know that relient k is my favorite band of all time. somehow it just seems like they make songs that speak to me, very specifically, at all the different points of my life. well, okay, i only started listening to them in college, but somehow pretty much each one of their songs seems personally written to my life, y'know how that is sometimes? i mean, it happens with individual songs here and there, but something about these relient k guys... it seems like every song is written for me. like, if i didn't know any better i'd swear they were following my life as a reality show and writing up my soundtrack. i could pick one of their songs for how i've felt in pretty much every period of my life since college to now. maybe i'm just lucky that coincidentally their musical ideas have come to reflect what's going on in my life, but then again, why should i be so special? i'm sure tons of people feel exactly the same way, we're all humans, we all live on earth, we're not so different. who am i to assume that i'm the only one going through what i'm going through? that should be a comforting thought. and it is.

additionally, this band makes use of their notes... one of my biggest pet peeves is how musicians stretch out words over notes, nevermind beyonce and her rifts, i like musicians who make use of every note, have something important to say. that's how relient k is, they don't stretch phrases, but they don't just add in filler words either, their lyrics are very well written. and good writing is very important to me.

and so how coincidental is it that i pre-ordered their newest CD a little over a month ago and it just came in the mail on FRIDAY? perfect timing. how does it happen? (the short answer is, "the Lord works in mysterious ways," but i won't get into faith on this blog) i do have to thank someone though, because man was i in need of this album this weekend. i was gonna write down some lyrics here that really struck me, but man i'd have to write out each song, seriously. how do these guys capture so well these life events and subsequent feelings... and how does it seem to correlate with my own life so perfectly?

well, gotta thank the man upstairs for that probably. he knows so much more than i do.

anyway, just in case anyone out there (or anyone you know) is going through or have just gone through a break-up (don't know if you could call what i had a "break-up" though... that's perhaps being a little over-dramatic), tell them to give this cd a listen.

and on that note, it's time to find the silver lining:took this picture at the beach today, lying on a picnic table, no clouds in the sky today to find the silver lining.. but i call this photo "the triforce" and perhaps the gold lining is better than the silver lining, so now i try to take a step back and take away some good from all of this... here we go:

1. "i've been convicing myself that i'm worthwhile, cause i'm worth what i'll convince myself to be" - (If You Want It), track 15

confidence. i have none. i need some. somehow i've got it in my head that it has to come from others, that someone else has to see what i see in myself in order to believe that what i see is true. but i don't need validation from someone else to think i'm worth something... and if i don't get that validation, that doesn't mean i'm worth nothing. heck, if you don't have confidence in yourself then how can others have confidence in you? now, deep down i know i have confidence, but would it kill me to show it sometime? (i'm talking about confidence in a very specific area of my life, of course, in other areas i probably have altogether TOO much confidence, haha.)

2. "cause i could spend my life just trying to sift through, what i could've done better but what good do what ifs do" - forget and not slow down, track 1

go for what you want. who cares if you look like an idiot doing it? one good thing i can say about myself through this is that i didn't hold back (well, maybe temporarily i did, old habits die hard, but i didn't hold back forever). if you know me (and more importantly, know my family), you'll know that me and my family are major repress-ers... that's how i was raised and that's what i've grown accustomed to. we don't talk about a lot of things. it's not that we don't care about each others' lives, it's just that there are things we don't talk about. dating is definately one of them. (we would have made pretty great mormons, i think) as far as my parents and i are concerned, my sisters never dated ever (well, except for their husbands). i wasn't so good at keeping things under wraps, but you get the idea, dating is not a topic of conversation during my family dinners. and so perhaps i'm not the greatest when it comes to trying to express myself and most times i let things slide, i go with the flow, even if the flow is where i don't want to go. but i'm getting better, and this time when the flow was not where i wanted to be, i spoke up, and (even though it didn't help much) and i can at least say that i didn't hold back just because i was afraid of consequences. i mean, like look at the 2016 olympics... why are people criticizing obama? thank goodness we have a president who stands up for something he believes in and wants. some people say he shouldn't be messing with this olympics stuff while the are more pressing government matters and that is was an "embarrassment" that he went to personally advocate for the chicago olympics, bullshit, good for him, he saw something he wanted to accomplish and he threw himself into trying to make it happen. why the hell should we be "embarrassed" about that? that the person we have representing the united states is willing to go before others for something he believes in and wants no matter what the critics will think of it? good for us, for once i feel patriotic (that doesn't happen much).

3. "and if a nightmare ever does unfold, perspective is a lovely hand to hold" - Part of It, track 5

life is still beautiful. okay, i know how corny that sounds. but even after all that's happened this weekend, i went surfing today and guess what? the ocean was still beautiful. the weather was still envigorating. even the heavy rains that fell last night were comforting and the cold air was so inviting. i love this time of the year for the weather, right before halloween and into christmas (although christmas can kind of be depressing, the weather is oh so comforting). the nights get colder, the air gets crisper, the sun still shines but not so harshly, it shines warmly. the moon and stars at night are gorgeous. when the wind whips up and the rains come down it makes everything feel alive, don't you think? so today (even though the water was super gross... because of the rain yesterday and all the gunk that the river washed out), surfing was great. just as great as it was before this past week. and so, yes, i know, life goes on, but it goes on amazingly well, and all i have to do is open my eyes to see it.

blisters on my feet i crawled back home
frozen from the sleet burned sand and stones
nourished back to life by life alone
with one shake of the mane regain the throne
(If You Want It) - track 15

#288 - just how fricken' awesome is dollhouse?

question: how awesome is dollhouse?

answer: totally fricken' awesome

one season gone, one episode into season 2 and already dollhouse is placing itself in my very exclusive list of best tv shows ever. it has already passed firefly (unfortunately for firefly, it was an easy decision because firefly only had one season... but it did have movie, a pretty good one at that in "serenity"), and steadily working it's way up over angel (buffy, of course, is at the top). there aren't a lot of tv shows that i'd watch over and over again (especially hour long shows, i can always take a 30-minute roseanne or that 70's show, but to devote an entire hour of my precious and valuable time to something i've already seen means it's gotta be quality), and there are even less tv shows that i'll actually by the dvd for (in fact, right now i've only got five series, the four mentioned above plus terminator), but i'd watch this show everyday if i could. i'd live in the dollhouse if i could, but perhaps that's just because of the cool furniture and ultra-sexy lighting, haha.

anyway, so my comments on the new season? allow me to indulge in my seldom-used tv/actor/actress/name-dropping dorky side for a bit and let's start off with how quality are joss whedon actors? seriously, i don't know why they don't get their due with the media or awards or whatever (wait, actually, that's probably a good thing that they don't get that kind of hollywood "recognition"), but actors in joss whedon shows are spectacular. let's start off with amy acker up there in the clip. in angel she was just cute and funny at first, i'm not sure if the people at angel even knew what kind of talent they had in her at first, but her character grew so completely that they had to invent storylines to fully utilize her skills. and even in that the show was cancelled before they could put all their plans to use (if you've watched angel, after she gets killed in the last season and comes back as a demon, if the show wasn't gonna be cancelled, they were saying that she would've come back again in the next season playing both herself and the demon that killed her). and now in dollhouse... oh man is she creepily hot right? i absolutely love the direction her "whiskey" storyline took at the end of last season and it looks like it'll be developed even more this season, it's absolutely captivating when she plays those tortured characters, i can't wait. and how about alexis denisof with the guest appearance huh? sans british accent? haha, weird. plus, summer glau (from firefly and terminator) is gonna be on sometime this season too, woo hoo! and hopefully "alpha" will be back again sometime this season, they gotta keep alan tudyk around...

okay, but besides the past whedon actors, i'm really liking the newbies on this show too. i've already posted about that tibetian-australian girl and i'm hoping that "november" comes back too, there aren't any characters that i wouldn't want sticking around on this show (but, as joss whedon knows, the best thing you can do with great characters is to get rid of them right?).

but seriously now, three points of criticism...

1. what happened to the opening credits? c'mon, the imagery with eliza dushku and that haunting theme song last year was mesmerizing, i never fast-forwarded through it. this year the song is the same (good), but the spliced scenes seem so ingenuine... bring back last year's credits

2. what happened to dewitt's hair? she looks awful with the short hair. she had really nice older lady hair too, shame

3. now that the show is getting all these excellent actors, it's time for eliza dushku to step it up a little bit. i mean, she really doesn't have to act, she does one character to perfection (herself, i guess), and really she just needs to be someone on camera and everything'll be all good, but these other actors are way overshadowing her in the acting department... oh well, for her it doesn't need to matter does it!

can't wait 'till next friday

#287 - killer stress

i was watching a national geographic show on pbs called stress: portrait of a killer. it was pretty interesting, i'm a total sucker for biological research, especially neurophysiology, and this one was all about how stress takes more than just a psychological toll on the body, but a physical one as well. one of the experiments that they showcased was some weird hippie guy (at least, he looked like a hippie, all long hair and bearded, traveling to africa to tranquilize baboons with blowdarts and all) who studied the bloodwork and tissues of some baboons who lived in a high-stress society. not natural stress, like running from lions or whatever, but societal stress... these monkeys lived in a protected environment and had ample food, so therefore did not need to spend a lot of time finding food or hiding. so, they had TONS of time to torment each other for pleasure and did so with abandon. anyway, he found that the most stressed baboons (the ones on the bottom of the societal totem pole, the subordinates) indeed had more stress and resulting higher blood pressure, more arthrosclerosis, more fat centered around the abdomen, generally unhealthier. makes sense right? just like people, more stress = worse health.

but we could have guessed that right? what was more impressive is that in one baboon colony, some accident happened so that all the alpha males died, and the troop was left with the more docile males and a majority of females. what ended up happening is that the troop was less aggressive in general, more passive, more socially linked, spent more time grooming each other rather than causing trouble to each other. when other baboons would come in, they would try to act cocky and make trouble, but they would soon learn that this society was not like that and they eventually assimilated into the gentler society. the interesting thing is that in this society all those markers of bad health were absent. without that stress of the baboon's aggressive behaviors to themselves, the baboons were healthier. additionally, they found that dopamine receptors were more active, suggesting that sensations were felt more vividly (they propose that quality of life is higher, "the sun is sunnier," etc.).

monkeys are super gross through. barf.

anyway... in an experiment i was most interested in because it involved neuro-imaging... rats with the most stress showed reduced dentridic formation in the brain, more specifically in the hippocampus. meaning that stress affects memory and learning, the more stress you get, the less you are able to remember things and function effeciently.

but it's cool to see it in nature as well as in our society (i say "our society" because for some reason we don't often view ourselves as part of nature, even though how can we not be? we're not above nature, we're still part of the eco-system and still creatures of the earth).

meanwhile, i've been having stress of my own. parents are mean. we all know that. they think that when it comes to THEIR child, they are totally justified in doing whatever the hell they please because it's for the good of THEIR child. bullshit. there's no excuse for being mean and treating people like crap. perhaps you have a logical reason for doing it, but that does not vidicate you from your rude/bad/bitchy/manelovent behavior.

luckily, i'm a damn smart guy, good at my job, and a very professional person (and humble too, haha) to boot so i got through it with help from some co-workers and now that the situation is over and dealt with i can move on. yup, so after watching this show i'm taking a day-off today. i need to get more sleep. it all starts there. gotta give the body time to recover, so i will watch volleyball tonight, have a great dinner, and get to bed early, ready to rise early and raring to go tomorrow... perhaps.

PS - did anyone watch man vs. wild this week? geez, here i thought bear grylls was the crazy one, but man his camera crew is plain NUTS! they follow him all over the place with all their equipment... but at least they think he's insane for all the stuff that he eats!