| What's Free? |
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| Wednesday, October 30, 2002 Nothing like a Yoshinoya beef bowl at 2 in the morning... again. What would life be like if I didn't live 2 minutes away from a 24-hour Yoshinoya? Life is like a Yoshinoya beef bowl. You know exactly what you're going to get - rice, beef, and onions. Come to think of it, I personally think that life really ISN'T like a box of chocolates at all. Most of the time, you know exactly what's coming to you depending on what decisions you made and the stuff you said. Yes, life CAN throw some surprises at you, but realistically, how often does that happen? Well the Angels won the world series.. not that I'm an Angels fan, but as a Dodgers fan I have two favorite teams in baseball: the Dodgers, and whichever team is playing the Giants. So naturally, I became an Angels fan for the world series. Well, three if I count my dislike for the Yankees, but that's pretty much a given for anyone who doesn't live in NY (or anyone with a BRAIN, for that matter). I do have to admit that the Angels are an exciting team to watch, however. And now that it's over, I can sit back and watch the Giants crumble and unravel in the off-season (there's no way Jeff Kent is going back hahahha). My frustrations with people seem to grow stronger and stronger each day. And by "people" I mean the negative generalities of human nature I see more of with each minute that passes by. Well, mainly what frustrates me the most about certain types of people is the utter lack of common sense, hand-in-hand with the inability to communicate, along with a complete ignorance of respnsibility, based on a foundation of self-centeredness. It's not that I don't like being around people and I'm definitely not saying that I'm the living example of goodness for everyone to follow, but I wish some people would just be a little considerate. The world would be such a better place if people were just a little bit more considerate. But I seriously wouldn't mind making a home on some deserted island with my wife and live the rest of our lives in isolation from society. Not completely isoated, however. I'd have to get back to the real world periodically to restock on whatever supplies I need to sustain a modern life with the internet, electricity, showers, home maintenance, etc. So I'd be keeping up with the real world, but I wouldn't actually be a part of it. Which means I'd have to own my own airplane and know how to fly it. And a forest on my island that has trees that produce an infinite amount of 100 dollar bills. Yes, that would be the life. Thursday, October 24, 2002 Nothing like a Yoshinoya beef bowl at 2 in the morning... although I would have preferred a Carl's Jr. Six Dollar Burger, but apparently their definition of "open late!" is either 10pm or midnight. I need to see for myself whether this burger truly lives up to its hype or not. Wow, I can't believe it's been three days since the last update... time just passed by in a flash the last few days, it seems. I have absolutely no idea why. I want to ramble about the reason why put up my new title "What's Free?" for a little bit. A few weeks ago during bowling they played this one song that said "the best things in life are free," but I forget the name of the song. I've heard it several times before, and I'm sure it's a pretty old song. Although I do stronly believe that the best things in life, are indeed, free, I don't completely agree with that statement in the context of that song. I figure the songwriter wanted to make some kind of profound statement about love, with this song being a classic R&B love song-type of song and all. It's nice to talk about love in that kind of way, but is it really true? Love, in many ways, is anything BUT free. Love definitely has its share of heavy costs and sacrifices if you want it to work. Even Jesus paid the ultimate cost to physically display the greatest love that could ever exist, so that we may freely receive the "best thing in life," salvation. And then it led me to another of thought. I think when you look at the root of things, love was at first, meant to be free. It was never meant to come with a cost. Then enter pride, in its endless amount of forms, originating from the serpent and then into man. I think in the short time when the world only consisted of Eden, love never required any sort of "sacrifice" in order to "compromise" anything, since you didn't have to worry about life at all. Everything was there for you (well, by "you" I mean Adam and Eve I suppose), and life only consisted of enjoying yourself in God's paradise, so why would you have to give up anything or pay any sort of price in order to express your love for someone? So yeah, I would completely agree with that song if we were living today in the Garden of Eden and things like pride and selfish inclinations didn't exist. But we're not. So in my opinion, heck no, love isn't free. Monday, October 21, 2002 DING DONG, THE WITCH IS DEAD!!!! Well, not dead, but leaving KRUMC for good sometime soon. Who is leaving? Ruth Ahn. Otherwise knowin as the Wicked Witch of the West. She is quite famous for her flawless display of being a greedy, manipulative, liar. She represented everything evil about church politics. But most of you already know how I feel about her, so I won't go any further than this for now. Quotes: -Conversation with May- May: I think I'm getting food coma... Mike: Yeah? Well I think I'm getting food period. (food "comma") -A little later- May: Hey they really did put a lot of vanilla in this coffee. Mike: Really? But they didn't put a lot of ice? (Vannila Ice) Thursday, October 17, 2002 So I discovered that some of these brilliant special analysts from CNN, MSNBC, and the Washington post concluded that the Washington sniper is probably a 15-year old kid who played too much violent video games such as "Silent Scope." You have no idea how much this entire notion pisses me off. Where do people get off babbling about how video games are influencing kids to become psychopathic killers and everything they see wrong in the world they just jump on the "violent video games are the reason" bandwagon??? Freaking sheesh!! Shyam had some pretty good smack talk about this, and I would have said the exact same thing, so here is my version. There is absolutely no proof that video games were what caused these kids to lose their sense of sanity and shoot down whoever the hell they wanted to. The Washington sniper, a kid who played too much Silent Scope??? What the hell are these people thinking? Okay, I used to play a lot of Counterstrike, but if someone were to hand me a USP or an MP5 right now, I would have absolutley no idea how to even load it or undo the stupid safety properly. This is a professional sniper we're talking about here, folks. Even if it turns out to be some teenager punk, this is obviously some dude who has had a lot of familiarity and training with his gun. You're not going to master a freaking sniper rifle and figure out where to strategically place yourself and make a clean getaway just from playing Silent Scope. An article from penny-arcade.com had a really good point about this too: ***** This makes me so Goddamn mad. I turned around and just looked at them for a moment. Then I looked forward again and took a breath. I wanted to slap them and say Hey, you fucking jackasses! Don't you remember when adults were talking about your "rock music"? Is it not perfectly transparent to you that the media gleefully demonizes youth culture? You should be ashamed of yourselves - one, for not remembering. Two, for taking the manic extrapolations of shock media and public officials at face value. Nevermind that this supposed junction between violence and games is pure mythology - it has never been proven, it is a political manuever, it is the opposite of true. Mythology is actually a good way of considering it - look at the role fantastical bugaboos like "violent games" play for us. We don't know why exactly people hide in high places, load weapons, and kill children. We will all agree that it is very frightening to think that you could just pop out for a video and then never come home. Something needs to fill that vacuum, and nebulous monsters - like beasts of legend, impossibly large - are supplied by a ready media. Violent Videogames. Makes sense. ***** Freaking a, man. I'm so horrendously annoyed by all this. The idea that video games are influencing kids to become serial killers is absolutely ludicrous. More politics talk. I was watching this commercial that was promoting proposition 49, which would provide considerable funding for "quality" after-school programs in California. Arnold Schwartzeneger seems to be the main spokesperson for this proposition. But what really caught my attention is the website they posted in the tv commercial. Normally, political websites are named after the cause, like voteforbush.com, yeson32.org or whatever. But the website for prop 49 is called www.joinarnold.com. I thought it was rather funny that they are totally milking Arnold Schwartzeneger's celebrity status to get this thing to go through. So by voting yes on prop 49, it's not really about me personally wanting to improve California's after-school programs, but it's about me saying yes to Arnold Schwartzeneger, who thinks California should improve their after-school programs. But I guess you gotta go with whatever works to get this prop to pass. Wednesday, October 16, 2002 I finished my horrendous October shopping spree with the purchase of the Sony TRV27 digital camcorder. Once I get the super video editing software from my friend, I'll be ready to do some serious hard core multimedia projects. Speaking of video projects, whenever that term comes up I can't help but think of the old high school videos. "Batman Returns Forever," "Behind the Scenes of The Rockpile," and "Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls" were all great productions, but I always laugh the most thinking about "Mysteries of the Universe." No one laughed at it during the actual showing in class, but it gets the most laughs now because that was the most horrendous project ever created by any of us, but it was so horrendous I can't help but laugh at every part of that video. That project was the first tep toward greatness in our video project legacy. The water pipes at my house are in the process of getting replaced so we had no water today. I had to go to church everytime I needed to use the bathroom. Gosh, I'm spending so much money. I need to get a Gamecube soon too. Metroid Prime is coming out next month. Hehehe. But while my current tutor student was giving me a bit of a hard time, I just got another tutoring job so that should help out my income pretty decently. But my goal is to get rolling with full time work by the end of this year... I hope... it's so sad, everyone is looking for work... although I am enjoying the free time I don't want to end up sitting at home all day for too long... but we'll see how it all works out. Quotes: Pastor Nah: Oh, I can't eat that, I'm lactose intolerant. Mike: Really? Does that mean you don't have toes? (lack-toes) Monday, October 14, 2002 YESSSS!!! My first time cooking pesto pasta was a grand success!! For the time and ease of preparation and low cost, this is by far the best thing you could make for any amount of people. I have John to thank for "teaching" me how to make it hahaha. Ryan told me today that Togo's was actually named after the term "to-go" (referring to last night's quote of the day). I saw the new anti-Gray Davis ad today that quoted a bunch of newspapers criticizing him. Man I hope that guy doesn't become governor again. Shyam made some nice comments about Gray Davis's idiocy and incompetence on his blog which was pretty interesting. I'm not all that particularly fond of Bill Simon, but dude, the crap that GAY Davis put California into, how in the world can anyone in their right mind vote for him??? I also saw their debate a few days ago and it was pretty funny, they spent the whole time bashing each other. Sunday, October 13, 2002 One thing I'm learning about macs is that it is very difficult to find software. But I will find a way. Hopefully my co-worker from my internship will get back to me soon. Now that my computer can play dvds, I could just pop in any of my concert dvds and listen to them while I do stuff on my computer instead of going through the trouble of setting up my ps2. Using the ps2 as a dvd player can be a hassle because everything is run through the controller. I could just flip through chapters with my keyboard. The 17'' wide screen also gives me a little section to put the dvd screen on one corner while I do other stuff on the other side of the screen after taking the dvd player off full screen mode. Also, I could watch movies on widescreen. I also set up a small counter next to my desk to put my PC monitor and computer, so now I have access to both macintosh and PC. Very cool. What's kind of gross is that now the UPS and FedEx guys know my mom and me by name because my mom sometimes picks up my online orders and signs the form. And they've been coming to my house quite frequently the past month with all the stuff I've been ordering. Quotes: Mike: Where'd you go? Emmanuel: I went to Togo's to get food. Mike: Ohh.. so you got your food "to-go" huh? Wednesday, October 10, 2002 I guess this week is the offical "let's have lots of pity for Mike" week. I'll be ranting and complaining about my health until the sickness wears off. Hey it makes a pretty nice space filler on this blog so why not keep a record of it? Plus, it would be uncharacteristic of me to not complain about anything in this blogger, and considering the only thing on my mind is getting over this stupid flu, might as well put it in writing... heh heh. Soooo... today I said goodbye to my sore throat, and the stuffy nose has gotten a lot better. And then I said hello to my upset stomach. I felt weak in my stomach starting about yesterday from so much coughing in the previous three days. The virus has moved to the next stage, and now I feel like I'm going to puke. Everytime I put any sort of strength in my body it starts hurting for some reason. Not like muscle pain but inside, like everything is gonna shoot right up through my mouth. Pretty nice feeling. I'm just thankful that I never got this sick, or sick at all for that matter, during the school year last year. It would have been really hard, since my toughest classes came in my senior year. I could just sit at home and rest all day until my white blood cells finishes kicking the virus's foreign butts. Tuesday, October 9, 2002 Well, it seems like my health has gotten significantly better... the headaches and fever are gone. All that's left is a sore throat, stuffy nose, and occasional coughing. But my voice is still nowhere near where I need it to be in order to sing at full volume. And I have no idea how I'm going to lead worship on Friday, Saturday, and twice on Sunday. Hmm... I purchased my digital camcorder today. So, after sending in my last payment on my Best Buy Card, I celebrated by making two horrendously huge purchases on my other credit cards. Oh well, I just have to keep telling myself they were worthy investments. And they were. They better be hahaha. Wow, it's pretty amazing how small my blog entries get when I'm not complaining and griping about stuff. I do have a lot of rambling in me, but I'm just too sick to think too hard. So 2-3 short paragraphs will have to do for now. Quotes: -chatting with Jenn- Super0406: so what'd u do today? Yada715: i went to Barnes and Noble with my friend. Super0406: ooh ic.. to study? Super0406: or to see the animals? hahaha ("Barns" and Noble) Monday, October 8, 2002 Okay it seems I had spoken way too soon. I'm dying now. I've been feverish since morning and every symptom is getting worse. I don't sound anything like me at all. I'm so dizzy. My head feels like it's going to split in two. It hurts my entire body when I cough. I want to sleep but I've been sleeping all day so I'm not tired anymore, just very weak and out of energy. How perfect was it for me to have to get up at 8:30 and take my dog to the vet. Oh woe is me. On a brighter note, I ordered my brand new iMac aftter getting back. Yes, a MACINTOSH. It's all about the mac when it comes to video editing. I'm also going to need to buy "Final Cut Pro 3 for Dummies." Sunday, October 7, 2002 Dang it, I really really hate being sick. All the coughing, gagging, sniffing, swallowing pains... ugh. What's really amazing is that all of last year I never got sick once. I had a very healthy senior year of college. Freshman-junior year I used to get sick at least 2-3 times a year. In high school I got sick almost every other month. What's even more weird is that the last 2 times I got sick, they were really minor colds. I used to have fevors, a major sore throat, super duper stuffy nose, skull-cracking headaches and nightly cough-a-thons. Now they just pass by with minor aches and no real nasty symptoms. But still, my voice was gone by the time I finished worship and I did have a fever on Saturday. I had to change shirts in the middle of the night because I woke up drenched in a pool of sweat. Haha not really a pool of sweat, but enough for me to get up and change. The Yankees lost. Which is really great. I don't care who wins the world series now, as long as it's not the Yankees. I don't really care about the Angels, but I was a fan while they played against the Yankees. I wanted the A's to win because they have three really cool starting pitchers but they lost the series. Oh well. The important thing is that that Yankess are out. It seems like there are going to be a lot of big events at church so I offered my multimedia services once again out of my desire to start this again. I missed the video projects. But now it's going to make a new and improved, roaring comeback. Hopefully. I'm investing a lot of money into this. But I don't want to stop serving as worship leader, either. I think I could find a good compromise between the two heavily time consuming responsibilities by leading worship just on normal Sundays, and doing multimedia ministry for big events. I don't really like leading worship for big praise rally nights anyway. So hopefully this could all work out. Quotes: -Church chat- Emmanuel: *rambles something about the weather report* ...so that's why it's hot today. Grace: So when did you all of a sudden become the meteorologist? Tell me what a barometer measures. Mike: It's a meter that measures the level of baro. Anne: You have a fax machine at your house, right? Brian: No, at work. Mike: Yeah, get your "fax" straight. (facts) Thursday, October 3, 2002 I did some major buddy list cleaning today, erasing all screen names of people who I don't keep in touch with anymore or screen names that are no longer used because that person made a new one. And the people who switch screen names like every 2 weeks, I don't even bother putting them on my buddy list anymore, sheesh talk about annoying. So my buddy list now has shrunk to 106 screen names. 106!!! I find it horrendously amazing that I actually personally know 106 people. So I guess I'm not the social outcast I portrayed myself to be. And there are about 50-60 people who are consistenly online now, since school is in session and people are back in the dorms. I'm thinking about putting a virtual poll thing on this website. Too bad I have no idea how to make one, heh heh. In light of the baseball playoffs, I have decided to follow Ryan's lead and dedicate some time into hating the Yankees. Here is Ryan's take: *** This space here will be devoted to anti-Yankees rants, easily the most hated (and beloved if you're from NY) team in professional sports. They say we're jealous. Well, not really. If Rupert Murdoch spent $200 million to buy the Dodgers the championship, I'd be pretty embarrassed. As it is, the Dodgers have a huge payroll but pay most of their money to guys who sit on their asses because they're injured. Not to mention that Derek Jeter does not belong in the same class as the other great AL shortstops, ARod, Tejada, Nomar, no matter how much you think a couple of stolen bases means. He definitely beats them in ego. Most hated baseball player possibly since Darryl Strawberry. And hey, no Giants fans threw chairs at Barry Bonds nor did Cards fans give Mark McGwire death threats when they were chasing the home run record. What's the matter with you people? *** I've also taken the time to do a little research on statistics. WIthout question, Alex Rodriguez is the best shortstop in the game, and arguably the best baseball player of this generation. So it would be a little unfair to compare Derek Jeter to A-Rod. Therefore I took another excellent shortstop, Nomar Garciaparra of the Red Sox to compare the differnece between Derek Jeter and an actual quality shortstop to prove that Jeter is the most horrendously overrated and hyped up player in the history of MLB. 2002 Batting Average Nomar: .310 Jeter: .297 Runs Batted In: Nomar: 120 Jeter: 75 Runs Scored: Nomar: 101 Jeter: 124 Home Runs: Nomar: 24 Jeter: 18 Nomar obviously has far superior batting numbers. The only area where Jeter is ahead is runs scored, but that is the one statistic that the player has no control over. Unless you hit a home run, you could only score runs if a teammate drives you in. Of course this stat becomes pretty inflated if you have Jason Giambi and Bernie Williams hitting behind you. As for Nomar, he was a one man show for a good chunk of the season since Manny Ramirez was hurt and Cliff Floyd didn't come to the Red Sox until mid-season. Runs batted in also has a teammate factor as well since someone has to be on base for you to drive them in, but unlike runs scored, it's up to the player to put the ball in play and bring them in. Regardless of where you are in the batting order, you will always have opportunities to drive in runs. But still you could take these numbers and say that Jeter is a #2 hitter and doesn't always hit for power and these numbers aren't legit in comparing Nomar vs. Jeter. So let's take a look at some more statistics. Nomar: 197 hits, 56 doubles, 5 triples in 635 at-bats Jeter: 191 hits, 26 doubles, 0 triples in 644 at-bats Nomar: 41 walks, 53 strikeouts, ~4:3 strikeout/walk ratio Jeter: 73 walks, 114 strikeouts, ~5:3 strikeout/walk ratio Jeter may have drawn more walks than Nomar, but he also has more than twice as many strikeouts. For every walk Jeter drew, he has an extra strikeout than Nomar, so who is the more efficient hitter? And here is where it gets more interesting. Nomar: .352 on-base percentage, .528 slugging percentage, .880 OPS Jeter: .373 on-base percentage, .463 slugging percentage, .794 OPS Any professional baseball analyst will tell you that a hitter's value is heavily determined on his OPS, in which Nomar is up by almost a hundred points. Jeter has a significant edge over Nomar in walks, and yet his on-base percentage is only up by .021 which is really really lame. Oh, but then you mention "the play" Jeter made in last year's AL division series against the A's and conclude that Jeter is the most awesome fielder in the game. Career Fielding Numbers: Nomar: 110 errors, .969 fielding percentage, 4.56 range factor Jeter: 118 errors, .974 fielding percentage, 4.13 range factor Let's also compare his defense with other top shortstops of the American league and ask ourselves, how in the world do Jeter fans go off yapping about how he is a standout defensive shortstop? Miguel Tejada: .970 fielding percentage, 4.76 range factor Omar Vizquel: .984 fielding percentage, 4.69 range factor Alex Rodriguez: .976 fielding percentage, 4.64 range factor Jeter has a .005 advantage in fielding percentage while Nomar has a .43 advantage in range. So the only thing Jeter has going for him is stolen bases, in which he has 32 over Nomar's 5. So basically, Jeter is considered in the same level as Nomar and A-Rod and Miguel Tejada, but in reality he's just a guy who has pretty similar numbers in fielding and has a few more steals, and is a FAR inferior hitter and baseball player. So yeah, I'd say Derek Jeter is horrendously overrated. Oh, and if you want to look at career numbers, go right ahead, everything is set up in the same way as the above. Nomar will be ahead of Jeter in every offensive category besides steals. |