Video Blog Deux!

Here it is... Episode II of my video-blog (VLOG)! Emjoy.

Restless at 1:27am.

As I sit here, enjoying the wonderful flavors of my Jack-in-the-Box faux-taco, I'm thinking. Every once in a while, I think out loud here on my blog in totally abstract, vague, and nonsensical blabber. It's quite a treat if you get to read them. They're normally somewhat depressing yet with a dash of hope in them. I suppose tonight wouldn't be any different.

I mean here I am with a post title that is already dark in itself. 'Restless' signifying that I can't sleep and that obviously something is troubling me. Also, being 1:30 in the morning means that tomorrow's not going to be all that great at work.

So let's get to the heart of the matter. This week I've been deep in thought. I guess the new year always does this to me. It's a time to re-evaluate what's important in life and what takes precedent.

Last year what was important to me was so clear, yet I didn't do all too much to show it or really give it the significance that I claimed to put on it. My actions certainly proved otherwise. Such is life, maybe?

It seems every quarter of the year, the same progression takes over. At the first part of the quarter, you're really on track with life. Things are going right, but as you near the end of it, you're down in the pits and things are just wrong. Then something significant happens in life that sets you straight and puts you where you should be. You shoot back up and you're a-ok again. Then same thing... a couple weeks later, you've lost your way once more. The law of undulation is what they call it. Can we ever just keep getting better? Or at least just plateau for a while? Because the whole crashing and burning thing is really getting old every several months.

Here's the thing. I know the goals I have in life. I know what the end picture is... at least what I want it to look like. Yet it seems that I voluntarily choose every possible avenue to screw it up. It's like for a temporary moment (sometimes, not all that temporary), I put that picture down, or I blur my vision of it and I get caught up with the here and now. Granted, people say to live in the moment and to live as each if day was your last, but there is still something to be said about goals and dreams.

It's weird. Do you ever feel like you live in spite of your own self? That's what it seems I do to myself sometimes. They say you are your own worse enemy and looking back at my life in retrospect, that saying rings with so much truth.

If you guys couldn't tell, I'm in my 'downs' right now. When did life get so complicated? When did failure and disappointment become something so tangible? Sure there are several hidden gems of pure joy here and there, but the overall state of things seems to overshadow that.

I had a great talk with one of my best friends tonight and I think that is what has made me restless tonight. Being forced to bring what's been troubling me to the forefront of my mind, rather than compartmentalize it and let it fester, seems to be just what I needed.

And there was the little pinch of hope in an overall sad post.

I'm hoping the 'ups' come along soon.

Cy

My mind... is blown.

Yesterday at the MacWorld Expo 2007 in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced something absolutely ridiculous. And by ridiculous, I mean it is probably the best thing since sliced bread.

A couple months ago, I watched this concept video for iTalk, a fan's rendition of what he envisioned an Apple produced cell phone to be. Check out the clip:

*By the way, the name of the song in this faux advertisement is "In the Waiting Line" by English electronica band Zero 7. Their stuff is downtempo and really chill. I love sleeping to it.*

I knew then that if the real deal was anything like that, it'd be totally awesome... And well today, I found out about the actual real deal...

Coming this June is the new iPhone. Can Apple seriously bring us anything cooler than this? It's a widescreen iPod, an incredibly user-friendly cell phone, and a mini-internet device all rolled into one small, fits-in-the-palm-of-your-hand product.




I watched the entire keynote that Steve Jobs gave yesterday online and my brains are completely splattered along the back of my wall. That is how mind-blowing this new technology is.

Apple has been working hand-in-hand with top companies Cingular, Google, and Yahoo! to bring us this incredible new innovation. The new iPhone is going to be available exclusively with Cingular. I just switched my service provider over from T-Mobile to Cingular today actually before even knowing about this. I'm so glad I did, because once June comes around, this baby is MINE.

Here's a montage of the clips found from the apple site that someone put together up on Google Video.


Steve Jobs is truly a visionary for those of us growing up in this technology/information age. I can't wait to see what he and the rest of the Apple crew come up with. This is the stuff that changes the world as we know it! He mentioned a quote in his keynote that I really liked:

"I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been."
-Wayne Gretzky

That's our generation right there... coming up with new and exciting stuff. It's fun.

Do some more diggin' on your own:
Apple's iPhone Page
http://www.apple.com/iphone

Steve Jobs' Keynote for MacWorld 2007
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/keynote/

TIME Magazine Article
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1575410,00.html

Engadget (with pictures from Jobs' keynote)
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/the-apple-iphone/

More Engadget pictures of the iPhone
http://www.engadget.com/photos/first-iphone-pics/

Freaking Kent.

I was getting all ready to spell out in detail what I've doing the last two months, but I've got a headache and I'm kinda tired, so I'll save it for the weekend at some point...

Tonight I had some friends over for Bibletalk (where you talk about the Bible. Complicated, eh?) and afterwards we played one of my favorite games, Kent.

What is Kent?

Kent is a card game played with 2-4 teams of two with each team sitting across from each other. Each player is dealt four cards and just like Spoons (right, Heather?), you want to collect 4 of a kind. However, that's the only similarity Kent has to Spoons. The dealer will lay out the top four cards of the deck face up and all players are allowed to lay down a card from their hand and pick one up on the table as much as they want. After some time has passed where no one picks up the cards, the dealer scoops up the cards and lays out four more. This is repeated until someone gets four of a kind.

Now why are there partners in this game? Well to win the round, you must be able to guess when your partner has four of a kind or vice versa without the other teams knowing. This is done through subtle hints or signs that the team comes up with in secret from the other teams. If you see your partner doing the sign, you call out "Kent". If you were right, your team scores a point. If you're wrong, you lose a point. Subtletly is the key here because if another team believes you have obtained four of the same card, they can call "Ace". If they've caught you, you lose a point and they gain one. However, if they're wrong, they lose a point and you gain one.

I like to play the game with poker chips so everyone gets a visual for how well the teams are doing. You can either play to a number of points or til a team gets all the other teams' chips.

I went to a party for New Year's Eve and we played Kent for most of the evening. It's great fun. Hope you enjoy it.

So this is... awkward...?

YouTube has a pretty cool feature on it now... You can record video off your webcam straight to their site!

And this is the result... Hope it's not as strange for you as it was for me...

Without further adieu, VLOG I...

(WARNING: It's boring. But if you're here, I assume you're already bored.)

Fun, right? *insert awkward laugh*

In other news, Imogen Heap has an amazing voice and is insanely talented. Check out this song from her former band Frou Frou on the Garden State soundtrack:


powered by ODEO

Cy

I've learned my lesson.

I just got out of my History of Jazz class that I'm taking over the Winter intercession. During class, I got a text message from one of my friends saying,

"so there's a pic on ur page that i think u might wanna remove"

Before heading out to class, I posted the last entry about The O.C. being canned. Naturally, I wondered what the heck this person's talking about. I chuckled to myself and though that maybe she's talking about the picture of the cast of the show and that maybe she has some sort of extreme dislike for the program that she's telling me to take it off my site. But I was not 100% sure, so I responded with,

"?"

to which I received the response,

"u should look. its interesting."

And with that, I became officially worried with an hour still left in class. All I could think about was what could possibly be on my innocent little blog...

I got home and refreshed my page to find that my picture of the cast of Friday Night Lights was replaced with a plump rump. And I'm not talking about roast beef. I've heard about websites giving warnings against hotlinking (when a web page of one website owner is direct linking to the images or other multimedia files on the web host of another website owner), replacing the hotlinked image with some kind of obscene thing... and well, that happened to me.

So I've learned my lesson, no more hotlinking for me! I'll take the extra couple minutes to save the image to my Photobucket and host it from there.

Sorry for all of you who saw the huge butt.

Cy

So Long, Farewell...

So not that I really care or anything, but today I found out that FOX announced officially just yesterday that The O.C. will be airing its Season 4 and Series Finale on February 22nd. (Check out E! for the full story here)

I've been watching the show now for the past year and a half. Bought all the seasons and got my mom hooked on it as well. The premier season was a brilliant drama, but the light seemed to dim as the seasons progressed. Each subsequent season has been considerably more annoying and pointless up to the steaming pile of crap for a show that we have now. The fourth season of The O.C. has so far been the worst television I have ever seen. I honestly do now know why I keep watching it. It's like an unhealthy addiction.

You can imagine my elation upon finding out that on February 22nd, I can finally be released from my weekly hour of masochistic self-induced torture. I hear that there are rumors that the new CW might pick up the show for a 5th season this fall. If they do, good luck with that. I won't be watching it. That's for sure.

The O.C. was great for a while, but really just went nowhere fast. I liked watching a TV show with my mom and I guess that's why I stuck with it.

If any of you out there are O.C. fans and are disappointed by the news and need a High School drama to stay sane, tune your television sets over to Friday Night Lights on NBC Wednesday nights at 8pm. It's MUCH MUCH better than The O.C.. The characters have so much depth to them and the plot is amazing. Reminds me of the first season of The O.C.; just without rich people driving beautiful cars and living in gigantic houses. Plus, there's football in it. That's always a good thing.

Farewell, The O.C.. You were kinda fun while you lasted. Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, I am free at last.

Good thing there's still LOST.

Cy

Darwin Awards 2006!

And now, as the year is officially over, we pay tribute to those who have 'offed' themselves in such noteworthy fashion...

...Remember, there is no first place, because truly, no one really wins...

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2006.html

1st Runner Up: "Hammer of Doom"

(August 2006, Brazil) August brings us a winner from Brazil, who tried to disassemble a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) by driving back and forth over it with a car. This technique was ineffective, so he escalated to pounding the RPG with a sledgehammer. The second try worked--in a sense. The explosion proved fatal to one man, six cars, and the repair shop wherein the efforts took place.
14 more RPG grenades were found in a car parked nearby. Police believe the ammunition was being scavenged to sell as scrap metal. If it wasn't scrap then, it certainly is now!.

2nd Runner Up: "High on Life"

(3 June 2006, Florida) Two more candidates have thrown themselves into the running for a Darwin Award. The feet of Jason and Sara, both 21, were found protruding from a deflated, huge helium advertising balloon. Jason was a college student, and Sara attended community college, but apparently their education had glossed over the importance of oxygen. When one breathes helium, the lack of oxygen in the bloodstream causes a rapid loss of consciousness. Some euthanasia experts advocate the use of helium to painlessly end one's life.

The pair pulled down the 8' balloon, and climbed inside. Their last words consisted of high-pitched, incoherent giggling as they slowly passed out and passed into the hereafter.

Sheriff's deputies said the two were not victims of foul play. No drugs or alcohol were found. The medical examiner reported that helium inhalation was a significant factor in their deaths. A family member said "Sara was mischievous, to be honest. She liked fun and it cost her."

Honorable Mention: "Snake in the Grass" (Nobody died)

A hiker in Scotland picked up a grass snake so his brother could take a picture. Just as he reached for it, a black serpent slithered into view, so he grabbed that one, too. It was a Black Adder, Britain's only venomous snake. Both reptiles sank their fangs into the 44-year-old, who responded with serious anaphylactic shock. He gradually and painfully recovered in the hospital. His excuse for his rash act? He didn't think venomous snakes inhabited the whole of Scotland.

Honorable Mention: "Flyswatter" (Nobody died)

(April 2004, California) An adult education teacher gave 25 students an impromptu lesson in safety during his safety class. Using opaque reasoning, Teach figured the 40-mm shell he had found on a hunting trip must be inert. He kept the round and used it as a paperweight on his desk. After all, ordnance is such a unique conversation piece. But more notably, this particular ordnance was the teacher's ticking ticket to fame.

One spring morning, a bug crawled across his desk. Should he squash it with a tissue? Sweep it out the door? Leave it to pursue its happy existence, and continue on with his lesson? No; the teacher picked another alternative. He took up the "inert" artillery shell and slammed it onto the short-lived insect.

The impact set off the primer, and the resulting explosion caused him burns and shrapnel lacerations on his hand, forearm, and torso. No one else in the classroom was hurt. To the teacher's further consolation, his actions did succeed in one respect: the bug was eliminated.

Satire gone too far?

So as we all know, Saddam was executed this past week. A huge milestone in the history of time, if you ask me. On the news today, aside from the late President Ford's funeral and burial coverage, there was a lot of talk about the leaked execution video of Saddam.

I went online trying to find the clip. I'm not exactly sure why. I've seen some filmed executions online (read: my experience) and they're not that great to watch. I was definitely disturbed and it didn't sit well with my stomach. I think I just wanted to see if I could find it.

I did find it, but didn't play it all for the aforementioned reasons. What I did find, however, seemed to strike a stronger chord within me.

The following is a clip from SNL's "Saturday TV Funhouse", an animated segment that is usually a political satire. As I watched it, I was both humored and disgusted. See if that rings true with you...

Saddam-Osama
Uploaded by PigLips

Obviously the things that are incredibly over-the-top, such as Osama and Saddam being able to shapeshift and President Bush bearing a striking resemblance to our primate friends, weren't really all that offensive to me. The CIA agents 'fornicating' and Chaney talking about renaming Iraq to East Dakota reminded me a little bit of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The dialogue of the Iraqis seemed like a throwback to Team America: World Police, shouting things like, "Holy Jihad" and whatnot.

What really started to irk me was the commercials. Especially the one advertising rocks as children's toys.

I don't know. I think there's a line that shouldn't be crossed, and I felt like that one was taken a bit too far. But now, even as I sit here writing this, I'm thinking about the movies Borat and Team America. Were those satirical comedies, just like this one, considered to be taken 'too far'?

I'm not sure where I would draw the line, but I do know that I just felt a little uneasy after watching this clip. The same way I felt uneasy after watching Borat and Team America. At the same time, though, is there such a thing as being too Politically Correct? I guess that depends on the person.

What do you think?
Cy

Cy Recommends... [Jan. 02]

With the new year and the new changes to the blog, I figured it'd be fun to do a weekly edition of things that I like and recommend. For now, it'll be titled "Cy Recommends..." and I'll try to do one every Tuesday. Without further ado...



Cy Recommends for the week of January 02, 2007...



I. Liquid Bean Coffee

For those of you living in the Antelope Valley area (Lancaster/Palmdale), you most likely already know about this gem located in the heart of Lancaster.

The quality rivals that of Starbucks and exceeds, based on my first impression of the place, The Coffee Bean/Tea Leaf. The prices are competitive and in most cases cheaper than it's corporate equals.

The service is fast and friendly and that's always a good thing.

Also, I'm all about supporting local and small businesses. So if you're ever in the Lancaster area, check out the Liquid Bean Coffee House.

Liquid Bean Coffee House
1711 W Avenue K
Lancaster, CA 93534
(661) 942-7591

II and III. The Fountain/The Fountain OST

Don't know if you've had the chance to catch the latest Darren Aronofsky creation, The Fountain. Released in late November, this film is both thought provoking and visually stunning. If you weren't fortunate enough to see it on the silver screen, I recommend that you catch it when it comes out on DVD in April of this year.

Hugh Jackman gives a stellar performance as three separate characters - a Spanish conquistador, a modern day research scientist, and a futuristic astronaut. Rachel Weiss, one of my favorite actresses, gives a noteworthy performance as well. The plot is convincing and though it weaves in and out of its three different stories consistently throughout the film, the general theme is easy to spot and identify with. It is essentially a love story between a man and a woman.

Here's the trailer, which in my opinion, doesn't do the movie justice.

One of the best things the The Fountain has going for it, aside from it's outstanding cinematography, is its incredibly moving and beautifully haunting soundtrack. They say the score makes the scene, and in this case that's very very true.

Even if you don't like the film, if you have any taste in music whatsoever, this soundtrack is definitely for you. *wink*

The final track on the CD is one of my favorite songs from a film. "Together We will Live Forever", though just a simple piano piece, is the song that runs during the credits that just sends shivers down the spine. Amazing.

--

Well that's all I've got for this edition of "Cy Recommends...", I'm sure as time goes on, I'll refine this weekly feature. Tell me what you think! Leave comments. I recommend it.

A New Start

Hey, Friends!

It's 2007 and the start of all things new! I figured I'd get back into the blogging scene with a fresh new makeover. I hope you all like the new template I've picked out and customized. I followed the same color scheme as my Mysapce. I also moved my old blog over to the new Blogger, so there is now more functionality as far as commenting and the sidebar goes. (Check out the new archiving system. It's really cool!)

Anyway, there's a lot to talk about that's happened over the last two months.

...and I will start on all of that tomorrow. As I'm writing this, USC just beat Michigan 32-18 in the Rose Bowl. Fight On, Trojans!

For now, Happy New Year to all of you! Hope 2007 brings you some great surprises and a lot of fun!

Cy