#70 - the story ends with me putting him in the wall

i don't know much about nascar, except that people think it's a sport and that's retarded. nascar is a much of a sport as wrestling, figure skating, or chess (re: it's not a sport at all). but, this is a damn funny commercial:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWgpGVGeL_g

here's the first one:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3of10ksI8kg

#69 - US Open: First Round

ahh... first round of play at the us open. what could be better? i've gotta argue that wimbledon is THE tournament of all tournaments, but the us open brings so much more excitement and action, it's a better sports event. i mean, even though maria looks hot in all white, take a look at her in all RED! woo hoo! love that game face.
and as hot as she looks her game is just as hot. as is ana ivanovic, her forehand is looking sweet!
on the men's side, djokovic and roddick are both starting out playing well, if only andy didn't have to face federer in the quarters (if they both make it there), but actually, it might be better for him to face roger in something other than a final, given roger's immaculate record in finals. as far a djokovic goes, he's the man to beat in the bottom half of the draw in my opinion, forget nadal, who likes nadal? no one. and on hard courts that's for good reason. still, whoever picked hewitt in my little poll on the right, good for you! woo hoo! now we're getting some debate going! even though i think hewitt can beat djokovic, right now i'd say hewitt is still second best in the bottom half of that draw and so i'm sticking with my prediction for djokovic in his first grand slam final.
how can you bet against roger? geez, in all black his game is monster right now. he'll still have to mow down john isner (a rookie american, like 8 feet tall), richard gasquet, roddick, and james blake and then djokovic to win it all, but c'mon, that sounds like another day at the office for roger.,
and here's what i didn't expect on the women's side... venus williams is looking sharp as a very sharp thing. serve is crackin' (i think she got up to 129 mph in her first round), groundstrokes are lasers, and her footwork is impeccable. unfortunately she's got a REAL tough road if she wants to win, gotta go through (should all seed hold) ivanovic, jankovic, justine henin/sister serena, and then maria in the finals. geez, can't get harder than that... but she is venus williams...

#68 - quick question

here's a rare opportunity to directly affect my life... are you ready? don't get too excited, it ain't that big.

next week thursday the next semester of taiko classes begins. having taken the summer session class at kcc, i think i got a pretty good feel for how the thing works. while i don't feel that i learned a whole lot about taiko or really got that much of an opportunity to play all that much (they, of course, encourage practicing outside of class, but 1) i have no drum, 2) i'm too lazy/not motivated enough to make my own practice drum, and 3) pretty much i joined the class as a "go and do and come home" kind of thing, not really wanting to make it my new lifestyle). i was hoping to meet some new friends and begin to make it a new hobby that i could carry for at least a few years, but even though i felt like the most out-going person there (which, marvel at that fact for awhile, means that i think i tried to talk to everyone in the class at least once and got about zero feedback from pretty much everyone), i didn't really meet any new friends and i don't think that going to one class a week and having that be the extent of my taiko playing would fill that hobby void. as far as taiko playing itself goes... i like it well enough, but i don't think that my interest in playing is great enough to justify driving to kcc every thursday in rush hour traffic (both going and coming home since the class is from 5:30-6:30) without the prospect of the class also being beneficial socially.

so, the decision is... do i sign up for another taiko class and hope that i get to meet more engaging people the next time around? or do i sign up for another taiko class and hope that i have so much fun playing taiko that i'll want to continue the hobby even longer? or... do i not sign up for the class, go to yoga at 24 hour instead (like i used to do on thursdays, and which is something i actually really like doing and is very good for my mental and physical well-being) and search for other venues to explore new hobby/friend possibilities?

right now i'm leaning toward the last option. any suggestions?

#67 - back to it

phew... after about a week and a half of feeling like a flattened dead toad baking on the asphalt i'm finally back to feeling alright. sickness sucks, no wonder people try to stay away from it.

anyway, it's time to get back to living now, i think my 24 hour membership might've expired while i was sick... i sent in my renewal payment, but i used to prepay everything and this time i want them to take out my monthly from my checking, so i hope it went through, i didn't get anything back yet. oh well, i guess i'll find out when i go in on monday and they reject me at the front desk.

oh, and volleyball. sigh. how can they be so crappy already? i mean, obviously you look to kamana`o first (or the absence of kamana`o), and even though the sets ARE misplaced and predictable, it really should be good enough to get some decent hits out of the already experienced players. at first i was like, okay, opening match jitters, gotta work out all the kinks and whatever, but after tonight's 0-3 lost or oregon state? i mean, oregon state? sure they're a different team from last year, but i watched each of their games the past two nights and they ain't the greatest... oh well, at least it'll make for an exciting season (one way or the other).

on a brighter note, US OPEN STARTS TOMORROW!!!! woo hoo! my picks, you ask? federer and i'm going out on a limb... taking a risk... and going for ana ivanovic! why? well, just take a look... she's hot! haha, nah, but okay really she's not a total dark horse, she's #4/5 in the world and she's been in the semis of the french open and won a bunch of titles (including a big one in LA just a few weeks ago). of course, i also gotta go with my girl maria sharapova, defending champion... but her game has been a little suspect (especially the serve) recently. still she's got a good draw on the bottom half of the women so i'll pit her up against ivanovic for the finals (even though ivanovic has gotta get through jelena jankovic and then possibly serena/justine in the semis). i'd call venus williams my dark horse for the big upsets this major around. serena of course is always in there, but i think her injuries are still hampering her a little too much to be able to get past henin.
on the men's side... well, who would you take? my man roger federer or the field? haha, i'm going with roger. how can you not? i'll tell you why not... novak djokovic! this guy's my new favorite (aside from roger), winning two huge hard court titles this year (beating, along the way, roddick, nadal 2x, and roger in the final of the big one a few weeks ago) and i think he'll push roger in the final, maybe take off a set, but roger will come up big in the end to win his fourth consecutive US Open title. i'd really like to push for roddick, because i like the guy and really want him to do well (especially at the US Open), but he's gotta get through both roger (in the quarters) and then djokovic (supposing he gets to the finals) and i don't think he can get both done in the same tourney, still, he's got the skills so if he catches one of them on a bad day (especially since he'll be facing federer early on in the tournament and heck, he's the last guy besides roger to win the US Open anyway!). my dark horse i'm gonna pick lleyton hewitt, he's been showing some sweet game lately, but he's gotta play djokovic early and i'm liking djokovic for the finals so....
well, opening matches start tomorrow... 10 hours of tennis every day, woo hoo! by the way, if you know any girls who look like miss ivanovic up there... 1) find out if she's single, 2) tell her what a great guy i am, and 3) introduce me. especially if she can pound forehands (ala steffi graf) like ana, i'm all in. ha.

#66 - sick day

i'm sick. sucks. i like to consider myself a very healthy person and i admire myself (yes, i do practice narscicsm regularly) for not getting sick very often due to good nutrition, exercise, hygiene and whatever. but, i'm sick. i think it happened because i haven't been sleeping well. i'm noticed that if i go through a whole work week of getting less than 8 hours of sleep everynight then i'm get sick by the end of the week. but if i can somehow manage to get the full 8 hours at least one night during the week then i can stave off sickness (i might feel kinda crappy, but not be sick at least). anyway, that didn't happen last week and into the weekend as well (which is usually when i can catch up on sleep, although that's not such a good thing to bank on) and now i'm sick.

looking back, this is the very first sick day i've taken since i've started work. wow, i can't believe it took me 2+ years to take my first sick day... i'm trying to remember other times when i probably should have taken a sick day... but really i can't think of any when i was just dying and needed to stay home. i've luckily been a very health boy until today, ha.

it kind of kills me that i still had to wake up early to call in sick though... seems like they should let me sleep. hah, oh well, luckily i was able to get back to sleep from about 8:30-10:30 on the couch, that was cool. oh and luckily again there was tennis on tv the whole day so it was a good day to be a sickly couch potato. i also got a chance to consistently throw rocks at those damn noisy dove bastards in my yard all day. pet the a-dawg too... can dogs get sick from people germs? i did clean the bathroom, which was a pretty productive thing for sickly me to do ay?

well, now that i've got a taste of what life can be like when you're sick i might have to take sick days more often eh? well, luckily today was a non-babysitting day for my mom and then she was out on errands the whole day so i had the house to myself (FOR ONCE!) so it was a lot different than it usually is, y'know, when there's PEOPLE EVERYWHERE AND YOU CAN'T ESCAPE FROM ANYONE IN THIS HOUSE!!!

i guess i'll have to wait until i move out to take another sick day.

#65 - drain

man did i ever need a weekend. the past week or so has been such and emotionally draining stretch of days. but luckily, it was one of those emotionally draining weeks when you can still look back and see that things have still turned out alright. still, when you go through rough times and look back at the events and the eventual outcomes and see that, like, on paper, it doesn't really amount to much, it's kinda sad because you feel like you've been through so much more.

and the sadder thing is that nothing really happened to me, haha. i mean, the actual events happened to other people around me, but of course i'm involved with them so i get involved in the reprecussions of the events. okay, yeah, vague, sorry. but i don't wanna spell it all out because these things didn't really happen to me, so it's not my story to tell. anyway, i know that i in no way had the worst of any of it, but i was still pulled along with their stresses and emotions and i guess a combination of a bunch of that plus bad timing has left me completely spent and it's not even friday yet.

but, i can share two things that i've learned through these various trials:
1. all people are just people... and people can be dickwads - it's really easy to define people by their professions and the positions that they hold, but i've gotta remember that they're still just people, and no matter how much schooling or years of experience a person has about how human beings operate and how they can deviate from that "normal/accepted" operation, they still have the innate potential to be dickwads. also, it has become my belief that people don't grow up. they learn how to be "grown ups" but it is a conscious decision on their part to act as such. therefore, i should not be surprised when adults in positions of supposed respect conduct him/herselves in a manner that is consistent with the behavior of total dickwads.

2. i guess there's a reason why i'm not working rehab - yesterday i was playing caretaker with my grandpa while the rest of the family was out and there was an accident and although i believe i handled it to the best of my ability, i do not believe that i'd be cut-out for dealing with these kinds of situations on a daily basis. all i could think was, "man, if a simple accident with an elderly person gets me so worked up like this, how am i ever gonna handle when i have kids?" yeah, well, thinking WAY far into the future i know, but then again i work with parents who are my age and have like three or four kids already so i know it's not my age, but my own personal lifepath that has not drawn me down the "kids" road yet. but then again, i mean, if a baby fell down i could just pick them right up and carry them or whatever, but you can't do that so easily with a grown man huh?

anyway, lots of stuff running through my brain and such this week. boy i'm gonna enjoy this weekend... i'm a-gonna grab myself some sand and surf and take it easy.

#64 - papa'iloa

man i was feeling so lazy today... well, after my first full week back to work, i kinda just wanted to sit on my ass all day catching up on dvr recordings (especially the quarters and semis of the acura classic with maria... hot hot... sharapova). but taking a glance outside how could i possibly let this bee-u-ti-ful summer day go to waste on anytime tv? alas, called the surf report and it was flat all over. blah. so i decided to take a tourist day and head up to the north shore for some snorkeling/sand-lying-on activities somewhere beyond pupukea. for some reason though traffic was backed up way past kawailoa so i took an early exit and went to papa'iloa instead. k
man, i'm completely jealous at the houses lining the beach... what does it take to get to live in one of those houses and see this every morning?
i think i was a good decision to stop off at papa'iloa, hardly anyone there... which is exactly what i was looking for after being trapped in this house with people frickin' everywhere i turn! ghaa! i gotta move out... only two more months... hopefully.
turtles were out in force too... didn't get any pictures though, because they actually look pretty gross, especially when they're out of the water, at least in the water they look kinda shiny, but not that nice. OH, and i also saw a seal taking a sun break down the beach. i tried to take a pic but it was too far away and then it took off right after that so oh well.
anyway, it was fun day out at the beach, just me and mr. sun-baked crab being out in the sun and (lack of) surf. actually, after taking these pics, i drove on back to ali'i beach for some snorkeling (i saw some stickfish, a couple wrasses, several puffa-fish, another turtle, some fat weke, and even a little papio) and laying around on the sand, by the way i finally got around to reading a little bit of that carl sagan book that i started about two years ago and never got even halfway through. so, all in all, good day.

#63 - duh dun... duh dun...

did you realize that shark week is half over already? damn stinkin' calendar schedule, who moved work up to august? remember when school started in september hello? damn the man, now i'm working during the summertime and have no time for shark week.

remember when you were like 8 years old and took your real life shark jaw to the living room in a box marked "fragile: do not touch" to watch hours and hours of non-stop shark shows on the discovery channel? i don't get to do that anymore. sigh... don't they realize that i'm a guy and i need to watch tv shows about sharks? duh. ok, so maybe i've already learned a lot about sharks, the shows that i have watched actually seem a bit lame, maybe shark appeal has kind of lost a bit of it's edge so many years as jaws: the revenge. still, check out the pic of this tiger shark taken on the north shore. holy crap!

i've only seen sharks in real life (minus aquariums) in the ocean twice... once when i was snorkeling in waimea bay when i was a kid, there was actually a school of small hammerheads (very small, probably babies), but i was so freaked, i bolted for shore... but then of course, i still wanted to go back out and see them again. i've caught sharks at waimea bay too... one was a two foot long hammerhead and the other was maybe a 3.5 foot silky shark. the only other time i saw sharks in the ocean was when i was surfing a few years ago at white plains, they were way out pretty far from me though, i saw splashing and a bunch of birds circling overhead, and then i saw some white tipped fins flashing in and out of the water and i bolted again! haha, looked like they were feeding on something so that time i did NOT get back in the water.
cool pic yeah? what is it? a barracuda about to chomp down on some akule or something? as a kid i was probably more scared of barracudas than sharks, because with sharks, man you know what you're getting and you know that if a shark's gonna come at you, well then it's gonna come at you and you'll see it and then perhaps you're screwed, but those damn barracuda can be anywhere, and i've swam with them in HUGE schools (like in waimea bay) and they just look nasty and disgruntled. bleh. sharks, on the other hand, are way cool. they do kickboxing too, see?
oh, by the way, new poll... if a shark bit off any one of your body parts, which one would you sacrifice? of course, "none" is not an option during shark week... so i'd probably pick "a single leg" because i'd say legs are more easily replaced than arms or hands (you could get a pretty good prosthetic leg nowdays and wouldn't have to worry too much about fine motor control), and since we come with two feet, i'd like to keep at least one of them intact, and surgeons could probably make a stump look presentable, but i'm thinking that trying to reconstruct your ass would be pretty nasty looking. what do you think?