#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!

#286 - back to basics

whew, it's been a busy month and a half about, lots of things going on at work and at home, but this weekend i had a little bit of time off from tennis and special events and what-not so i finally got to go surfing again for the first time in like two months probably! geez, that's a long time, and it's been so freakin' hot that it took me two months to get my ass out to the beach? sad.

but it was great out there. for some reason, ali'i was way empty, and i went on saturday. don't know why there wasn't anyone out there, i mean, the waves were small sure, but the surf report said it'd be on the rise and sure enough, waited around a bit and caught some sweet clean sets. super fun for sure, plus, kua'aina avocado burger after that = yummy!

so it was a refreshing little weekend, got some cleaning in, some tennis, surf, church, piano, reading... and now it's time to go back to work. well, i'm not hsta, but if they approve those furlough days and kids get 17 three-day weekends this year? whoa, that's 1) a lot of missed time for them, 2) a lot of time-off (or psuedo-time off since i'll probably still be at work, but with an enticingly-quiet campus) for me, and 3) probably gonna push my union negotiations to furloughs as well. which i'm not SO against, merely because if you don't work, you don't get paid right? what's the big deal about that? sure, you're annual income is gonna dip because that's like so many days without working, but doesn't that beat taking a regular pay cut and working the same amount for less money? blah, politics. after reading "the godfather" i see the skepticism in mainstream society and politics. people wanna believe that society is so unbiased but that really ain't the case at all is it? haha, it was a good book.

anyway, time also to start getting excited about tv again... namely: DOLLHOUSE!

i mean, c'mon, everything about this show is just sexy. including everything from the lighting to the architecture dude. i know last year i was super bummed about those idiots at fox cancelling "terminator: the sarah conner chronicles," but i just read that summer glau (y'know, cameron, the terminator) is gonna have a recurring role on dollhouse! plus, alexis denisof (wesley from buffy/angel) is gonna have a guest role too. and amy acker is back as dr. saunders/whiskey so we'll have a whole angel reunion with the three of them. plus, if they bring back wash (from "firefly") as alpha then we'll have even more joss whedon tie-ins, which i love, since he's the only writer/creator who's name i actually even care to know. plus, i just bought the season 1 dvd so i'll be catching up on last season's episodes while the new season starts on friday, woo hoo!

okay, i'm over my daily dorkiness... time for a big sleep.

#285 - lay off the snooze

6:15 am - my dino buddy wakes up (remember him? i bought him an electrical timer so his light turns on and off automatically to give me some wake-up-with-the-sunrise-i-ness in the mornings)... i stay in bed

6:30 am - radio turns on... i stay in bed

6:40 am - cell phone alarm goes off... i stumble to the living room, turn off the phone, turn on the ipod, collapse again on the couch

6:45 am - more annoying cell phone alarm goes off... i get off the couch and turn off the phone... from here my morning diverges into one of two possible paths:

#1 - i force myself into the shower, actually wake up, clean up, make/eat breakfast, get dressed and get out the door early enough to beat the retarded mauka traffic and make it to work in time

or

#2 - i crumple up on the carpet beside my phone and snooze. when i wake up i berate myself for falling asleep again and rush through the rest of the morning routine, get stuck in traffic, not find parking at work, and go through the rest of the day grumpy

i gotta lay off the snooze. this saturday i had a tennis match at 10:30 am. okay, so i thought, no problem right? who needs to set an alarm? of course i'll get up by 10:00 at least. well, i did get up at 8:00 am... then i looked around, said to myself, "self, what are we gonna do until 10:00?" then decided the best course of action was to go back to sleep. i only woke up at 10:45 am because my team captain called, asking if i was planning to make it to the match. how embarrassing. i actually got ready and made it down there by 11:00 am, but it was way too late and i had to default (and it's only a 2 out of 3 matches kinda thing so i probably ruined it for my team, grr). so embarrassing! plus i was really excited to play that day too, ugh, i'm such an idiot!

anyway, let's learn from our mistakes (just like serena at the us open huh? haha, man, she's scary, i might've gone running to the chair umpire too if serena was yelling at me like that, haha)... so no more missing those tennis matches, and no more being late in the morning and getting stuck in traffic and getting caught without parking. no, from here on out it's time to...

SAY NO TO SNOOZE!

#284 - weekly updates

thanks to my new and pretty awesome "having of a life" situation right now, i haven't had a lot of time to update the blog, which is pretty sweet because that means i'm out actually doing some cool stuff. like going hiking! these pics were not taken by me, but by a pretty awesome new photographer that i met, she's got a great eye for the pics right? and a pretty sweet camera as well, i gotta get myself a new camera so i can get back to taking some of my own pictures, everything i take with my current camera comes out blurry, grr..
anyway, these pics are from the judd/nu'uanu trail. i like that one, it's not too long, but still tough enough for a good workout. plus lots of variety, you go from bamboo forest to tall pine (or something) trees to the ridge up on top adn there's lots to see along the way. although i think the thing i like best about hiking is the workout part of it, i mean, i love the scenery and all, but i like that you can combine the scenery with the "getting a workout" part. mostly because i get so bored going running or working out on a treadmill or something. i can't do it. i get ultra bored. so if i can go on a hike and see all that and get a good hiking workout out of that, that's perfect!
anyway, in other updates this weekend:

- up open! whoa, what a year for the us open, upsets abound on the women's side, which makes for some pretty un-appealing match-ups in the second week of the tournament, but there are still some fun players around. maria's out, but she was taken out my melanie oudin, complete cinderella story for sure, she's pretty fun to watch though, so i'm gonna root for her to actually get to the final, she's only got one more seed to get through (she already took out three others). serena's still in of course, and she plays kim clijsters! yep, that's right, kim clijsters who is (thankfully) out of retirement and playing awesomely (she already took out venus). but that's a semifinal match so we can still hope that oudin gets to the final against either clijsters or serena and that'd be pretty awesome. on the men's side it's a little more straight-forward. unfortunately, roddick is out, but that just means that federer has a little nicer path to the finals (he's still got novak in the way... i hate it when those two guys are in the same half because i always want both of them to get to the final). i'm actually not that hating on nadal this year, and i'm pretty sure it's because he got rid of those damn sleeveless shirts (but not the pre-serve wedgie pull, which is still annoying). but andy murray's out so i'm gonna have to pull for to get to the finals in the bottom half of the draw

- wahine volleyball! DOH! two loses this week, one was okay, texas (and their 6'4" setter) is national championship material (along with penn state), but the loss to california was awful! oh man, so depressing! hopefully they can pull it back together after such a great (4-0) start to the year to win the next two matches against a couple of weaker opponents and get ready for no. 10 stanford next weekend

- good food. oh man, i ate so good this week. dim sum. korean country bbq. sushi. so yummy. on top of that i skipped my weekend workouts 'cause i was out so much so i'm gonna have to get back to it, start up those workouts again.

- tennis. hey, that's a great way to get my workouts in. this ekolu league that just started last week is pretty fun, i mean, my teammates are fun of course (and going drinking after matches is always fun of course), but beyond that the actual playing of tennis is pretty fun too. one, because so far no one we've played have been complete jerks (which is actually a rarity i've noticed from playing league tennis for the past year or two), and two, because perhaps i'm actually playing well amazing! that is, well enough to not make a ga-zillion errors and more often make pretty solid contact on my strokes, so that's pretty cool.

- beach! man, i haven't been to the beach or surfing in about a month, yikes! i gotta get back out there, i've been waiting for better weather or some surf, but man my weekends have been packed (which is great! so NOT complaining about that), so i gotta find some time to get out there for sure.
that's about it for now, cool picture huh? hopefully much more to come...

#283 - 100,000 miles

well it finally happened, good ole JYM at last reached 100,000 miles. that's a pretty damn remarkable car. it's a 1990 honda accord and my grandfather bought it new (those are his initials, not my nick-name or my car's name, as many people thing... in fact, we never even call it "jym" like "jim," we always spell it out "J-Y-M"). it was living on maui for about 12 years in hot & dry kahului, but my uncle kept it spotless and kept the inside uphosltery oiled and everything, so when i got the car in like 2001 or 2002 in college, it was immaculate!
over the past eight years i've tried to keep it just as clean... of course i do take it to the beach a lot so that's kind of difficult, but man, once you have a clean car, it's so motivating to try and keep it clean. so man i'm washing, waxing, rain-x-ing, and armor-all-ing that car all the damn time. i'm completely in love with waxing that car though, man when you see the rain beading off that windshield so that you don't even have to put on the wipers, that's an awesome thing.
this car has been through an awful lot over these years. it wasn't driven very much in the beginning (my grandma pretty much only went from home to church to ah fook's supermarket so when i got it, it only had like 31,000 miles), but i put on a whole crap-load of miles when i was commuting everyday to UH during grad school. still, it took awhile to get to 100,000 miles. of course, now it's got a new battery and new transmission and all new tires and a whole bunch of other work done on it so it was an investment definately, but one that i don't want to give up anytime soon. as much as new cars are pretty great, this old car is awesome! i hope it holds up just as long as it can, and i will stick by until the bitter end!