#112 - the beginning of the end

i got guitar hero.

no more posts for a month.

haha.

#111 - no chance

right. okay, he's good. no one else has got a chance this year. well, none of the guys at least. i thought that the aussie guy might have a shot, but nope. the unilateral vocal fold paralysis guy's got it, hands down.

and good for him too. i like this guy. but then again, only one of my favorite picks actually went on to win the whole thing so far, after seven years of watching american idol. the first year i picked tamyra gray, even though i was glad kelly clarkson won. then i picked (reluctantly) clay aiken. then i didn't like anyone in the third one, so i just voted for jasmine. i actually picked carrie underwood from the beginning, so that was cool. i also picked katharine mcphee from the beginning, but that weirdo taylor hicks won. and last year i picked melinda doolittle as the "hands down" winner from like the second show, but sadly i was very wrong.

so let's hope that doesn't happen again this year, because i really like this guy and i don't mind saying so either... i also may be slightly (and embarrassingly) jealous of him, haha. but let's not get too carried away, he's obviously no amateur, to be that good you not only need natural talent, but you've also had to had experience, and this guy did a lot before american idol, just browse on youtube for a bit and you'll see:


by the way, my favorite part of this vid is the super-haole lady at the end with the fake banter yelling "fantastic!" hahaha! seriously, if you don't even wanna watch it just fast-forward to the end... classic!

#110 - underwater camera

so, i absolutely need to get one of those underwater cases for my digital camera. this weekend brandi came back home for a little bit so we went surfing at white plains, bought an underwater camera along the way for some surf actions shots. well, i need more practice! every picture i took of brandi was completely off-centered. haha, it's weird to have to look through the peephole again after so long only using my digital camera, i guess i'm outta practice. but we did get some cool shots, i keep thinking though, "how awesome would it be to do this with my digital camera?" with zoom and that rapid shutter feature, we'd definately get some great shots. plus then on those off days i can just go snorkeling and take more shots to hang up on my walls. anyway, i've seen cases for sale online, but they're real specific to camera type (gotta be of course) and super expensive... well, it might be a good investment. until then i'll just have off-centered shots like this one!

#109 - day 2

quick post... i thought the girls were kinda crappy. well, it's hard because it's the first time for everything, but no one really made me notice them that much... except for that filipino girl, i think she's HOT! haha, well, cute at least.

but, after all the guys and girls have performed, here's my top picks, in order of who i want to win (my picks, not predictions):

1. david archuleta
2. syesha mercado
3. michael johns
4. brooke white
5. ramiele malubay
6. alaina whitaker

... but we'll see what happens next...

#108 - here we go again

yup, time for american idol again... and i allow myself to be controlled by the american media.

of course, there are times when i feel it necessary to rebel against pop culture, y'know, when things get too ridiculous, like "temptation island" or "real world vs. road rules." but for this show i absolutely allow myself to feel the made-up hype. the way i figure, either i could call the whole show retarded or rigged or biased or whatever, but then where would be the fun in that? it's much more fun to let myself get carried away in the storylines and follow along each week, root for whoever looks good at the moment, and be guilt-ily envious of whoever's getting all the attention, haha.

so here's me, watching american idol, picking my favorites, wishing i could sing good enough to be on the show myself (well, not really, i don't really want to be on the show, but it's hard not to get caught up in the excitement when you see all these dorky "ordinary" people getting tons of play on national tv). so why not get into it? otherwise i'm just depriving myself of a pretty fun experience.

so... my pick this year? well, out of the 12 guys, so far i only care about one of them, the rest can all go, haha, well, i guess we should keep some of them on just for fun. but only that unilateral vocal fold paralysis guy is a real contender. i actually really like him, i'm rooting for this guy. by the way though... how "amateur" do you have to be to be on american idol? i mean, i guess if you really sing that good then you must've had to sing at least somewhere before right? then you're not completely new to singing in front of an audience and whatever (except i think carrie underwood was completely amateur, like she was from that tiny town right? and never been on a plane?). like this unilateral VFP guy has been on like star search and on tv and everything before, yeah, i did a little youtube research, but check out him singing "o holy night." definately my favorite christmas song of all time and just the way i like to hear music, nothing but a voice and a piano, pretty sweet.

#107 - missed connections

so i know i'm going to expose my complete and utter lameness with this post, but i'm already single on valentine's day so what else do i have to lose? i'm sure everyone in the world probably already knows about this, but craigslist is pretty frickin' awesome. haha, well, maybe not quite "awesome," but how about comforting, or cathartic? people have told me about craigslist before for finding couches, or roommates or soulmates, whatever, but i never actually checked it out. so now here's me on national singles' awareness day and the loser in me went and checked it out. first of all... before you do anything, click on the "best of craigslist" link, haha, those are awesome! haha, did you see the guy selling the "pink vagina couch?"

anyway, personal ads can be kinda fun to read, but what really got me was the "missed connections" section. i had no idea there was such a thing! if you've never seen, basically it's a place for people to post ads for that hot girl you were eyeing up at the supermarket and hope that she reads it. there were some gems in there man, but aside from having a good laugh, it was actually kinda comforting to see just how many people are encountering these types of situations. it makes me feel like there's some hope because i'm not the only one missing out on potential somethings. plus it's kinda cool to read through everything hoping to see something that resembles yourself, haha. yeah, i could read through those things all night, it's very interesting to see what people go through, it's actually kinda encouraging.

well, not like i'm gonna go out posting myself all up in the personal ads, but it made a nice vday distraction. heck, maybe i should give it a shot huh? no wait, that's just the desperation kicking in... resist the urge...

#106 - replace one with another

man is this valentine's day gonna suck. usually for valentine's day i try to do something nice for myself. well, since i never ever have a date for the vday i HAVE to do something nice for myself. so i take the money that i would've spent on my vday girl and buy myself something that normally i wouldn't indulge in. one year i bought a damn cool watch for myself. last year i think it was a cross necklace. i don't know what to do this year. i thought that i might actually get to have a valentine's day with a girl to be my valentine, but that didn't work out, vday came a couple of weeks too late.

so what now? hmm... i'm not looking forward to thursday.

i think i've gotta give myself something to dive into... fill everyday with activity and no wasted time. have something to look forward to everyday. well, i've got my workout routine, i can keep that going strong, and even add to it now since i've got so much time, so maybe we can do:

Mon: weight training after work, vball at night
Tues: run the dog or tennis after work, yoga at night
Wed: weight training after work, vball at night
Thurs: either yoga or vball at night
Fri: weight training after work
Sat: surfing and/or tennis
Sun: surfing and/or tennis

i write every active or exercise related thing i do on my calendar in green, so as long as i've got something green on my calendar each day i should be good. make use of all the free time i've got now. see? i can get excited about something.

oh, another thing i'm getting excited about... american idol was good tonight, i actually like some of the people already. i'm gonna root for that unilateral vocal fold paralysis guy 'cause i'm a dork with speech path on the brain. and maybe that ditzy curly haired blond girl.

plus... brandi's got a list of her favorite songs for the moment on the side of her blog, cool idea... i'm gonna steal it! haha, but my current music playlist is absolutely tied in to how i'm feeling at the moment so just in case you were wondering how i'm feeling right now, just take a look at the list and you'll get a real nice idea (because i'm sure you're all sitting at your computer going, "i wonder how matt feels right now?"). right. anyway, they're cool songs, check 'em out.

#105 - goomba

okay, so i've been completely brainwashed by the company called nintendo. it's not my fault, i grew up right along side mario bros. i was too young for atari, but bought the very first issue of nintendo power, with super mario bros. 2 on the cover. posters of zelda, metroid, goombas and koopa troopas on my wall. starman and bob-omb sheets too. everything i learned about the world was through the eyes of nintendo, it was so simple, two-dimensions, you run right as fast as you can and jump over stuff. it was nice.

now video games are too complicated, you can't see anything, you can move absolutely everywhere and you can get stuck walking into a wall (i'm growing old as i write this). what i don't get is graphics are so much more advanced now, but you try playing those zelda games and you can't tell a monster from your big toe. that's why i like wii so much, so simple, intuitive, clean, cartoony graphics, perfect video game playing. plus you can play all the old games with just a control pad and two buttons.

anyway, my point is... i love mushrooms. i've always wanted to live in a place where mushrooms grow, but i've never ever seeen one in my yard until this morning... check it out!!! of course, it was gone by 10am when the sun came out, but how awesome is that? does it make that much of a difference being across the H1 in mauka now? is it that cold? and wet up here?

and to make it even better, after the mushroom went kaput, i went surfing! mushrooms and surfing in the same day, sweet! plus... in the meantime lookie what happened on maui up haleakala:

where else would i live?

#104 - the starting line

anyone heard of the starting line? probably not, although you may have heard "the best of me," it used to play on the radio sometime maybe like when we were seniors in high school (1999)? i think it just might be my favorite song of all time. i don't know a whole lot of other songs they sing... i've heard a bunch, but none really caught my attention all that much. but they're all on my pandora.com that i listen to at work anyway.

but, they're coming to hawai'i! woo hoo! hardly anyone i know ever comes here for concerts. i only found out about it a couple of day ago though, and the concert is in two weeks already. it's at pipeline, so not a sit-down concert, which is cool, but it's also an all-ages show, which is not so ideal... still, could be very fun! i'm still looking for people to go with because it's on a tuesday (feb. 19th) and not a lot of people have even heard of them... it's times like these i wish i wasn't single so i could drag my girl along with me, but i'm an idiot and went and ended that so i'll have to suffer the consequences for that... then again, it's not like she would've come along anyway so i guess i'm not missing out on anything, ha...

well, if anyone out there who reads this (which is like, only brandi, but she's in oregon) and wants to go see them with me, hit me up!

#103 - swept up

let's face it, sometimes you just feel like this. well, like if you were about two inches high and you saw this picture rushing towards you. not much you can do, but hold your breath and pray that you'll come back up above the surface when the water recedes. but the worse part is when you do it to yourself, willingly. when you were a kid you'd plant your feet in the sand in front of the oncoming wave and wait for it to pummel you, then you'd fight to resist the pull of the water rushing back out. the funny thing is, the longer you could withstand the rushing waves the deeper you'd sink into the sand. sometimes doesn't it seem that the events of life smash through you like waves, and the more you withstand them, the deeper you sink? okay, well that was depressing, but...

...for every one of those pictures, luckily, there's one of these as well. the water recedes, taking with it the turbulence it created and leaving behind a smooth new surface. all the whitewater is gone and what's left is just ripples of what had come before. sometimes it's nice to start fresh, but then again, you're not really starting completely fresh are you? nope, you've experienced more, and hopefully learned more as well. so there will be a time when you get back to good... just not quite yet.

so maybe it's because i don't feel that i've had a great deal of experience in a lot of aspects of life that i probably should by now, i feel like kind of a late bloomer in certain areas of life, especially kinda the more social areas (but at the same time i feel like i've grown and matured very nicely in other areas, so there is some give & take, it's not all negative). so i've gotta keep in mind that i can learn and grow from every experience, nothing is worthless and, if nothing else, everything is an opportunity to learn and grow from, hopefully to be more prepared for the next opportunity... and that's exciting right? i should be excited about that. so i will... in theory at least.

ps - random shout out to mtv, they've got a ton of crap out there, but sometimes they get things very very right. example #1 - presidential discussions with ron paul, barak, and hilary. that's the right thing to do. with substance. and the candidate's willingness to not only appear, but spending substantial amounts of time and effort on the program gives me a little more faith about the country in general, to see people willing to put that forth, on mtv, for younger viewers, that's worth doing. example #2 - true life, i love this program, i just think it sends completely all the right messages to anyone watching, not just young mtv viewers. why? because it's extremely candid, personal, and not over-produced. successful tv is very simple i believe, and what better stories than life can be made up? tonight i just watched an episode about stuttering (by the way, really not a fan of the therapy strategies advocated by some of the "speech therapists" on the program... but that's a different story). i like the sincerity of the program and the way that it dives into the lives of young people who need to deal with the realities of life and what exists beyond the status quo. it shows trouble and complication, not all of which can be solved. it shows that people (no age distinctions needed) go through stuff, and really do necessitate having clinics and medical facilities and whatever other buildings and jobs that you'd prefer not to think that people need, but we do. i just think it serves a fantastic purpose in general... and maybe helps me out by providing a little bit of catharsis for me right now, haha.

#102 - ron paul

anyone heard about ron paul? hell i love his platform!

who the crap is this guy? i have no idea. he's a republican, and not one of the front-runners so far. i think they're down to 4 republican candidates. but his ideas about free market, foreign policy (basically, "what the crap are we doing out there when we can't take care of ourselves"), and complete turn-around types of changes for the country. restoring confidence in our constitution and in ourselves, putting the future of america in the lives of it's people, making people responsible for their own lives and not giving the government the job of taking care of EVERYONE in the country.

maybe i'm not the more up-to-date on all the issues and the practicality of the candidate's claims, but i think i like this guy. why can't we vote for either democrat or republican? i think my vote is democrat but i'd like to vote for ron paul i think. politics are retarded. but this guy interests me...

#101 - warning signs

damn is it hard to heed the warnings. it can be so clear, all the evidence staring you straight in the face, yet you ignore it, you try to disprove it, you try to make up for it, anything so that those warning signs don't seem so severe. but they are, of course, because they are warnings, that's the nature of it. yet you think it's okay to dive in anyway, that you can last just a little while, that the good will outweigh the bad.

but you're stupid. if you could last through it, if it was okay, if there was enough good to overcome the bad, then there wouldn't be any warning signs. you wouldn't have to second guess yourself. everything in your gut would be telling you the right thing to do.

things are very simple. that's been my philosophy for a long time now. the right decisions to make in this world are very simple. of course, sometimes they're hard to make, sometimes it takes courage and faith to make those decisions, but they are the simple ones. and you know it too. so it's time to de-complicate things. you've seen the warnings signs and it's time to acknowledge them.