#168 - olympics day #3

quick post because after i got home from mike's wedding i had to fast-forward through 5-hours of dvr-ed olympics because i wanted to know what happened before i read the paper the next day... then women's volleyball was on so i had to watch that and so i went to sleep very late, yadda yadda yadda... i'm very tired today.

haha, well, no "yadda yadda yadda," but i couldn't pass up the chance to use it. although i realize that i can't put in stress emphasis marks whilst typing so you probably wouldn't get the phrasing that george used when he said that on seinfeld... still.

anyway, quick thoughts on day 3 of the olympics:

swimming - another reason why i don't like swimming... granted, people with a greater height advantage will most often have an edge in any athletic activity, but when gold medals are decided by tenths of a second (as in swimming), the difference between 5'10" and 6'3" is so drastic. of course michael phelps is gonna have a huge advantage in swimming, he's like half the length of the pool already!

volleyball - US women lost in straights to cuba... well, cuba destroyed them. wow. their serving is insane. but, it's still pool play so US is not out of it. and kim willoughby started again (which is pretty remarkable considering she just joined the team this year), didn't play that well, but none of the US women played very well so... on to the next game.

gymnastics - even though gymnastics is a bit creepy (all that face glitter), it's kind of exciting that the two top US women are both gold medal favorites. as for the routines, i like watching the uneven bars (all that swinging is crazy) and the balance beam (cause that's so tension-filled). but why can't the women do six events like the men do? weak. and lame. and why don't the chinese just win everything outright? i mean, look at all those crazy chinese street gymnasts and contortionists, they should have the monopoly on gymnastics right?

that's all i remember from today...

#167 - olympics day #2

first off... ABSOLUTELY I WILL GO TO VANCOUVER 2010! let's do it brandi, i'm all in! i'll start saving up my money right now.

okay, on to the post... here's what i think about some of the games i've been watching so far:
soccer - i watched the US women against japan late last night, even though natasha kai only played a bit at the end (after starting the first game), i had a lot of fun watching. usually i think soccer is not a great sport to watch because even though they're all professionals, the rules of the game make them all look pretty lame. i mean, ball control is really kind of elusive, players lose the ball a lot. and unless you're REALLY good, there aren't a lot of shots on goal and most of the shots are pretty lame looking (i'm sure they're NOT lame, but they look that way in two-dimensional tv). BUT... that makes it exciting also because you know the chances are few and far between so you have to pay attention ALL the time. i guess that's why it's the most popular sport in the world?
equestrian dressage - you gotta be kidding me. this was on tv for like, hours last night. if you want a laugh (not a good laugh, but a, oh my gosh THIS is what people spend millions of dollars on? kinda laugh), just tune in... it'll be on for like 4 days.
volleyball - awesome, of course. US won 3-1 over japan. kim willoughby was spectacular, but the real star was heather bown, wow, domintation. something weird though... they changed the ball. why do you need to change the volleyball? i mean, i understand technology is technology and i guess they want to make improvements, but that's like tennis saying "we don't want to put felt on the ball anymore," or baseball saying "let's ditch the stitches." now it's this weird, spiral ball with little divets on the surface... weird. here's an old guy holding one:
swimming - speaking of new technology... one "sport" that i don't really care for is swimming. they just introduced a new kind of wetsuit (which, by the way, makes people look even worse than speedos... if that's even possible) which is supposed to make you swim faster, and now all these world records are being broken. it's just dumb. it's all so artificial, y'know? i'm more about naturalistic atheletics. like an open ocean swim, or just a very long distance swim maybe. the fact is, modern swimming requires jumping off the starter (not swimming), then there's all those rules about dolphin kicks underwater (not part of the stroke being contested), then all the turns at the end of the lane (push offs, not swimming), and at the end it all comes down to tenths and hundreths of a second? not worth it. it's an artificial way to measure a legitimate athletic event. of course, they can't really make 400m length pools or eliminate starting blocks so i don't know how you would fix it. don't mean i gotta like it though.
gymnastics - another "sport" that i don't get. well, this one really isn't a sport at all, in my opinion, because it's judged. that means it's subjective, that means it's a performance art. but since these are the olympic GAMES and not the olympic SPORTS it's okay. still, it's so artificial, again. some things are pretty neat, like the high bar, but some are completely lame, like the pommel horse. seriously, it's ridiculous. it would be one thing if it were lame but very unique or something really only gymnasts could do, but watch a b-boy competition anywhere and you'll see all of them doing things way cooler than the pommel horse.
handball - more ridiculousness! have you ever seen this game? it looks like it wants to be basketball, but can't. haha, maybe it's basketball for short people. anyway, there's a goal like soccer but a melon-sized ball that you bounce and throw into the goal. it's pretty lame because they almost dribble the ball, but it looks like they're traveling all the time so i'm not sure if you need to bounce the ball to move or what. then there's the semi-circle around that goal that i guess you can't enter (except for the goalie) and all the defenders just stand around in an arch around the edge of the circle while the offensive players try and slash through to get a clear throw at the goal. i just can't figure out the rules, and i've been watching it all day!
tonight is US men's volleyball (with clay stanley) and tennis and tomorrow is women's volleyball vs. cuba, can't wait!

#166 - catching up... and the olympics

i haven't posted in a long time, that means one of two things:

1. i'm having a super exciting life and have absolutely no time to post

or

2. life is passing pretty well and i've got no gripes with the world

right now it's number 2. not that i'm not having any problems or nothing exciting is going on, but right now i'm just having an okay time going with the flow of life, taking things as they come, not attaching too many of my own opinions on what's going on, and letting myself just experience life as it flows by. this goes back a little ways to that post about expectations and keeping a pretty meticulous calendar. i've stopped writing every single daily activity on my calendar (more specifically, i've stopped guilting myself into feeling like i need something written everyday to feel that i've living my life in a worthwhile manner), and it's done wonders for my stress and anxiety levels. somedays i come home and take a nap (actually, pretty much everyday this week), but that's turning into a problem because it's not relaxing sleep, it's like, holy crap i can't keep my eyes open sleep, which is a little worrying.

but the point is that i'm taking life as it comes and being flexible and giving myself freedom from the pressure of self-expectations. and it's working out pretty well. crappy things happen, but i keep my focus on where my head should be (i.e. matthew 6:25-34) and things are alright.

still, i do have some opinions on what's been going on (mostly on tv) so let's go through it:

1. majide - i love this show. i want to do every single challenge game they've got, awesome. i love the ridiculous-ness of the japanese people in the audience. they're retards. wonderful retards. everyone learn the new picture pose, hai.... MA-JI-DE!

2. so you think you can dance - i thought will would win, but i wanted twitch to win, once mark and chelsie got out (they were my favorite couple) i thought katie was gonna win, and then after that final performance show i WANTED katie to win. but joshua won. i didn't like him from the beginning. oh well, not like we'll ever see them again... until next year's so you think you can dance, that is. still, i think this show is getting better and better. i remember before i would only really like maybe one performance per show (or even per season), but this year there were several that stood out to me... the hip-hop ones, of course, i like that one to "bleeding love" the best i think.

3. federer vs. nadal - what a wimbledon final. i agree, the best match ever (of course, i was too young to see mcenroe and all those, the only one i can compare it to was sampras vs. agassi in that us open match that went 4 tiebreakers, and this one was better than that match). i was completely distraught for like a week after federer lost that, and then when he lost early in the us open series and nadal was assured to take over #1 i was even more distraught. i just can't see nadal as #1. he needs to cut his hair... and shave... maybe take a shower... wear sleeves... ditch the girlie capri pants... and stop digging out wedgies before every serve. ugh. if anyone, i wanted djokovic to overtake federer, he's got a game i can get behind, not nadal's. anyway, federer better beef it up for the olympics and us open coming up in the next three weeks.

4. olympics - i'm opposite of brandi... i never like the olympics, thought they were completely dullsville. now i love every single second of it. what changed? COVERAGE. probably around sydney 2000 they started showing olympics on tons of channels all throughout the day, then i was in college so i'd walk down to the front desk and watch on the big screen in the lobby. i can't stand watching all the prime time stuff (just like brandi, i think it's all way over-produced and marketed), the commentators bug the crap outta me, but i love watching all the littler, obscurer sports. the ones with REAL amateurs who would never dream of getting any kind of fame or tv time outside of the olympics. like badminton, or like curling in the winter games. because now there's coverage of, like, EVERYTHING i love immersing in all that the olympics has to offer. and so i will be doing this year. i think i'm most excited about tennis (i'm rooting for federer, djokovic, ivanovic, and sharapova) and...

volleyball (ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! i've been waiting five years to see kim willoughby play again! plus robyn ah-mow and heather bown and logan tom too). i already watched natasha kai in that soccer match US lost... ugh, but there's tons of hawaii athletes this year so that makes things even more exciting. anyway, i'm not a big USA fan, i'm unpatriotic (didn't even care about barack today), i go for the story and root for the underdogs, the countries that no one has even heard of until the olympics. that's why i watch that long-ass opening ceremony and parade of nations, this is like the only chance they get some of those countries, but it's awesome, i love it. just finished watching the torch lighting at the opening ceremonies... did you see that old guy fly-run around the top of the stadium? that was scary as crap! but way cool, best lighting i remember since when they had that archer shot the flaming arrow! go flaming arrows!

#165 - lars and the real girl

well, i think i may have found my movie niche. because of netflix i've been watching a lot of movies this summer (well, some movies and mostly all of reno 911 and bones), but now that summer's over i'm think i'm gonna cancel netflix, number one because i've got no more movies in my queue and number two because i just can't watch so many movies all the time! then sometimes i find myself feeling burdened by all the movies that i've gotta watch and some nights i spent just trying to get through all the dvds on the table just so i could finally mail them out again. my parents have the blockbuster movie pass and i swear they get new movies almost daily, by mail or in the store. at last count they were well past 600 movies (they keep a list, haha). but i can't do that... it's too much. i need real life.

anyway, so i saw "lars and the real girl." i really liked it, and it got me realizing that while i find most mainstream movies extremely boring (i find myself fast-forwarding through a ton of horror/adventure movies, i can't stand heavy over-dramatic dramas, and can't find enough worth in most comedies or romance or whatever else types of movies there are to actually sit down and watch two hours of it), i am completely intrigued by movies like this one... simple, character-driven, with some weird disorder. i think i like the quiet movies, i dunno, i feel like i can relate somehow, even though some of the premises seem completely wacked.

in this one, a painfully introverted guy experiences delusions with a fake girlfriend, but that's just what moves the plot along, it's not really about the doll. the real great stuff (like any good movies) was in the protrayal of pain! haha, don't mean to sound like a masochist, but c'mon, all the best storylines showcase pain. and how hard life is. but not in a depressing way, in a cathartic way. in a "wow, watch how these people work through their pain" kinda way. right? look at that those other movies that i've blogged about recently... "year of the dog" and especially that TBI one... "the lookout." showcasing the contrast between pain and happiness makes for great stories. i really like shows by joss whedon (buffy, angel, firefly), and one thing that he's a fan of is giving his audience just a glimmer of happiness and then slamming them with pain. it's a great story device. of course, it's good to try and get back to happiness at some point, but i think a lot more people can relate to pain/sorrow in movies than they can to happiness (just because somehow painful or sad experiences become so much more memorable in perception).

anyway, i thought it was a cool movie.

#164 - seal!

quick post:

today i went surfing at laniakea on north shore, it was super tiny but that was kinda good because that made it less crowded (plus the weather was super nice so it was just great to be out there on the water), had to wait a LONG ass time for the sets but when they came in it was a good head-high on the biggest ones (well, head-high for me, which is a lot less on some other people). anyway, so there were just maybe three or four of us out there and it was pretty chill, just sitting and waiting for the waves to come. i started seeing some splashing and a couple of schools of fish running, but didn't think too much of it because i always see a lot of turtles there (and they scare the crap outta me when they pop up outta nowhere). i remember catching one wave though and as i looked back into it there was a whole school of fish (pretty good sized fish, big enough to pan fry whatever it was) riding the wave, looking like they're running from something. so that freaked me out and i ate it on the wave, ha.

but so there's like 3-4 of us sitting out there and all of a sudden there's a big mound of brown came up in the water like 20 yards in front of us. it looked like a big turtle coming up for air but my new russian surfing buddy (haha, i keep running into this guy out surfing over here) said it was something else, but he didn't know the word... and finally i'm like, "what? a seal?!" and he said "SEAL!" then the other guy out there was like "you saw a seal here? are you sure?" and ruskie says "trust me, i saw face."

whoa. that was cool.

#163 - i caved

ok. it's over. i give.

today i bought an ipod.

why have i been putting this off for so long? for several reasons:

1. i don't like apple - it seems like they want to put everything under their singular control (which is what good businesses do) and i don't like it. i want freedom. plus, i like buttons, and they want to rid the world of all buttons.

2. i don't like the apple store - all white and empty. all young salespeople with brightly colored t-shirts "happily" greeting you at every turn. makes me sick. haha, okay, not really, but it is a little much when i just wanna browse. plus, they all think i'm a punk or something and they don't want to help me buy stuff because they think i have no money. haha, okay, that's way overexaggerated, but i was in there today and first of all there's like 18,000 people all over the place, then they've got people having computer lessons and people wanting to buy things and salespeople talking to people and kids playing computer games and nerds doing computer speak all over the place. serenity now! and where are the checkout counters?! no, they're too good for checkout counters. they just carry around smug little credit card swippers in their pockets. all i wanna do is pick up an ipod box (which they don't even have), take it up to the counter, pay, and be on my merry way.

3. i need to be connected to the planet - and not disconnected from it, which is what i fear i will be if i've got music playing in my ears all the time. i like silence, and listening to the sounds of the world.

4. accessories - it's no good just to buy the ipod, you've gotta buy a docking stereo, and a car adapter, and a case, and whatever else. it's just buying a product, it's buying into a concept.

but, there are some very good reasons for finally buying one as well:

1. itunes - i started using itunes because they've just got tons of songs, old, new, instrumental, japanese, whatever. so when i started buying songs off of itunes, i knew it would just be a matter of time before i'd have to give in and get an ipod.

2. i worked for it - the money is not a big factor because i worked some extra days this summer so that'll pay for it, but the bigger concept here is that i need something to make the work week better. i think this might do it.

3. breakfasts - i make breakfast every morning before work and i can't see the tv from the kitchen, and my stereo is in the bedroom. so this little ipod and speaker dock will sit on my kitchen counter playing wonderfully motivating music while i'm making and eating breakfast before i have to hike it out to work.

well, the numbers don't quite work out... but i've still got one. so far, i like it. the big test will be when work starts in a couple days, but now i'm thinking i've got something to look forward to right?

#162 - does posting this make me crazy?

check out this video... yeah, i know american idol is over, but i think this group of people really do have a future, and, more importantly, i am actually interested in what these people do after the show is over (which demonstrates the true success of the show huh?).

anyway, this is a clip of david archuleta singing "crazy" by gnarls barkley. what's funny is that this is his first audition song from the hollywood round and all the judges and producers thought this was one of the best auditions, but they couldn't get the clearance for the song in time for the television show, so no one ever saw it. but now, jason castro is singing this song on the american idol tour... i youtube-ed his performance and, yup, it's pretty crappy, haha. but i love archuleta's version of it. if you listen past "crazy" on the clip, he also sings "heaven" again, and then at the very end he tries to talk to the audience and ends up sounding like a total dork. but in a funny way, so it's all good.

it's too bad they weren't allowed to sing songs like this on the show. i mean, the main critizism of a lot of the contestants is that they sing all old, generic songs and don't sound contemporary enough. but look at archuleta here, i think that's a pretty darn good re-take on a current song, but no one got to see it. oh well, i hope this is more of the direction that these people go in after the show, i mean, first they use archuleta's imagine on "so you think you can dance" and now this, the boy's going through a revival eh? haha.

ps - i'm getting closer and closer to buying an ipod for the first time ever. i've been anti-apple for the longest time, but i've been buying music on itunes (i just found a whole crapload of piano music from japanese composers that i can't find anywhere else, so that increased the temptation) and work is starting up again next week so... it might come down to this: surrendering to apple. buying an ipod. hmm...

#161 - slave to schedule

i know i've been over this subject before... but i guess it takes a few times going over it to sink into my brain. i'm a slave to my schedule. and it's gonna take some time to get over it. i was doing pretty well (see my other posts about guilt and over-adherance to my self-imposed routines) these past few weeks but you take a few steps forward and still slip back sometimes. but, yesterday was an especially great day because i didn't let my intention to carry out set plans interfere with actually carrying them out. see, i went surfing, but was disappointed when i got to the beach because it was cold and cloudy and the water was flat, so i drove up and down north shore from haleiwa to a little past sunset just looking around, being a tourist for an hour or so and ended up at lani's. it was still cold, no sun out and little waves, but i let myself forget about my original plans and went in anyway. and it was a nice day out there, i actually saw and talked to someone i knew out there and it ended up being a pretty good time, i even stayed way longer than i had planned to (mostly because i was talking to my friend).

then as soon as i got home i found myself again creating pinpoint plans in my head about how to spend the rest of the night. but luckily my friend called to play tennis so i let myself let go of those plans and go with the flow of the day. and it was loads of fun too. so what does that tell me? why do i get so worked up about creating hour-by-hour plans for my days? it's summertime dammit! why can't i go with the flow?

well, i've identified one problem... my calendar. i've been writing down everything i do each day. it started off because i wanted to keep track of my workouts at the gym, to make sure that i'm making the most of my $$ gym membership. but i've been noticing that it's becoming more of a guilt thing to me, when i don't see any writing each day i've come to regard those days as "wasted time." when really, that's not the case right? can't condense all of your life experiences into a few words and phrases on a calendar, that's dumb. so, i've stopped writing in my calendar (well, besides appointments and special events of course). i think it's going well so far. i've got to stop being a slave to these artificial devices and live freely. right?

#160 - inspiration

i guess i tend to think of myself as a guy with a plan. my days are usually planned out either according to a weekly routine (e.g. yoga tues/thurs, gym mon/wed, tennis on sun, etc.) or by my work schedule. but lately that routine has grown weary, and for the past two or three months i've found myself weary as well. a little more tired than i used to be, a little more sore than i used to be, a little more disinterested than i used to be. so this summer, instead of conforming so strictly to a weekly routine, i've decided to let inspiration take a more prominent role in my life. allow myself to be lead more feverently by my gut (after all, the nervous system located around your intestines could actually be considered a "second brain," because it performs functions that some researchers argue could be just as complex as the brain in your head... that expression "follow your gut?" it has justifiable reasoning behind it, the nervous system in your "gut" can actually make decisions that do not incorporate the nerouns in your cerebral cortex, therefore, obeying the decisions of your "gut" may be just as credible as the decisions you make with your head, sometimes even more so because those "gut" decisions are using different sensory input than the ones used by your "head decisions"). this goes a long way toward maintaining the mindset that i talked about in my previous post about expectations. instead of relying so heavily on my routines and self-established rules for living my life, allow life to flow freely and seek inspiration for daily activities in what's going on around me in the present. skip the gym and go surfing when the weather's sunny and the waves are rolling. don't spend hours trying to decide what's for dinner or whether or not i should cook or buy. take a nap when you want to. don't feel bad for enjoying a lazy day.

anyway, all this brings me to last weekend. it was the 4th of july and according to my plan, i should have gotten one day of bbq, two days of workouts and a lot of time spent outdoors at the beach in order to take full advantage of the 3-day weekend. well, i did have a fun bbq, but the next day i was feeling a bit hangover-ish so i decided to sleep until noon and skip the workout. normally that would be a big guilty problem, but the new me is taking that missed workout in stride. in fact, by taking a new view of my life and completely blanking out the day of it's original plans, i was able to welcome in inspiration. i went to home depot, bought a paint set, another gallon of paint, some painters tape and decided to make my home a reflection of my new viewpoint on life. well, okay, beginning the summer i had already wanted to finish the paint job on my place (the first one was kinda rushed, and some colors didn't come out quite how i had wanted). but i was waiting for that flash of inspiration and motivation to drive me toward finally picking a color and actually doing it.

for big projects like this, i have always waited patiently for inspiration to hit me (it seems that i just can't work up to these projects slowly) and once it hits i'm gone, man. i spent all day saturday (well, after 12 noon) taping, removing outlets, laying drop cloths, and painting until 1 am. i started by finishing off the living room. i only had one wall painted (like an accent wall), but after living with that for about 7 months i decided i wanted to paint the other walls as well, so i did that in the same color "sage gray," in some lights it looks more gray, sometimes it looks green, and sometimes it looks kinda blue:

so i thought that was pretty good and i was gonna live well with that. but darn it as soon as i woke up the next morning the inspiration bug hit me again and i wanted to completely redo the color in my bedroom. it was "green tea," but i wasn't liking it in the bedroom so i changed the entire room to "shortgrass prairie." i was afraid that it might turn out looking like poo, but i think it's not bad huh?:

i also picked out a darker green color to paint the 2nd bedroom, but i dunno, i think i'm good with the original color in that room now that the other two rooms are darker... so i think i'll put that one on hold, at least until inspiration stikes again.

#159 - MAJIDE!

so tv has been pretty crappy since christmas. i was actually enjoying a pretty regular weekly schedule of tv shows last fall, heroes, terminator, plus the office and 30 rock. then that writers strike pretty much killed the after christmas time (good thing for american idol huh?) and now the summertime is likewise crappy. and although i really don't enjoy the bludgeoning of reality shows on network tv, one clear winner has emerged...

MAJIDE!!!

this is the most awesome show, but not for the american part of it. what i like most about it is that it's kinda like going backstage at a real japanese game show, like challengers of fire, shows with crazy obstacle courses or funky human video games. because, of course, i'm a child of nintendo and so naturally i'd be completely drawn to full-grown human versions of video games. for example, today's first game was like a stuffed animal crane game when a person was hanging as the crane and they had to pick up giant stuffed pandas. then the second game (this was really cool and i absolutely wanted to do it) was like this huge wind tunnel that the contestants had to walk down to deliver packages in slots. it looks so fun, i love it.

plus the audience is SO ridiculous. they all have noisemakers and they go crazy at all the super lame jokes of the host and everything. and they do this hand motion and yell "majide!" all the time, it's so annoying, but you know i'll end up doing it all day tomorrow.

MAJIDE!!!