George's blog

An ex-con and a little girl

Shiroi Haru

So yesterday was a fairly nice day. I did pretty well in sales at work, and I got an email from the Dept. of Linguistics saying that I'm conditionally accepted into the graduate program. The condition is that I satisfy the minimum requirements of the university itself. So not only is my bachelor's dependent on my passing Japanese 202... my entry into the Linguistics program is, too.

Honestly, I'm completely humbled. I didn't even decide to apply for the Masters program until a week or so before the deadline. I somehow managed to get all the transcripts I needed as well as write a short essay on why I want to enter. Not only that, but my GPA is below the Linguistics minimum, so I had to write my reasons for it being under. And they STILL accepted me. Everything was against me, and somehow they saw through it all. I know I don't deserve to be admitted, but I'm incredibly thankful that they have faith in me as a student, especially Dr. Sharifi. He's had my back the whole time.

So I'm walking this coming Thursday, regardless if I actually don't get my bachelors. I really hope I pass Japanese, because I don't want to walk for no reason. I can't believe that a large part of my future depends on the one class I did crappy in. It's a scary feeling, to be sure. I didn't do well in the oral exam, but I think I did okay on the final. I know I missed some stuff, but I filled out most of it and I'm pretty confident that I got the reading stuff done right. And the listening portion (for some reason). I really, really, really hope it's enough...

So lately I've been watching Shiroi Haru. Abe Hiroshi is an excellent actor... he's so good at everything I've seen him in. Comedy, drama, everything. And this series so far doesn't disappoint at all. I have four more episodes to go and a lot of time to watch it. I also have a lot of anime lined up to watch. I haven't watched anime in a long time, so now that I have the time before Anime Expo to do it, I think I'll take advantage of it.

Till next time...

Seigi no Mikata

Seigi no Mikata

Once again I'm procrastinating. Classes for the semester are over now and all that's left are finals. Let's put this in perspective: I have 17 journals, 3 papers and two finals to submit for two of my classes. If we generously give each paper about six pages each (they probably should be/will be more), then that means I have approximately 35 pages to write plus the finals, which will probably be at least four pages each, bumping the rough total to 43. Let's split this up. For Linguistics 472, the final day is Tuesday. So before 12:00pm (noon), I will need to have 9 journals, one paper and the final which will be 19 pages. For Linguistics 363I I will need 8 journals, 2 papers and the final (both finals are take-home) which totals 24 pages by Wednesday. Also on Wednesday evening is my final for Linguistics 423, which I hafta study for. I procrastinate a lot, but this really takes the cake. I have about two days worth of time to do all this. I've done some crazy stuff before, but this may require a miracle.

So what am I doing instead? Watching more dramas! I finished Majo Saiban, which admittedly was fun to watch. It's been a while since there was a drama that made me want to see the next episode so much. The ending was satisfying to me, and honestly the whole thing was enjoyable. I've watched the first episode of Yankee Bokou ni Kaeru, which was good but kinda stresses out my heart, if that makes sense. So I'm watching Seigi no Mikata (pictured above) that is a light comedy about a younger sister and, from her perspective, her evil sister and how she deals with her. I don't think it will end up being too memorable of a show. I'm on episode six and while I've laughed at several parts, it's pretty much just another drama to watch. It's fun, but nothing special. Which is good, because I just want something to casually watch. You know, instead of doing work. =P

The Witch Trial

Majo Saiban

Instead of doing my schoolwork like I should be, especially since finals are less than a week away, I've been watching Japanese dramas. I'm in the midst of Ohitorisama, a quirky comedy about a teacher in her 30s who is single and proud of it. Everything in her life is good, albeit a bit lonely (to her satisfaction), until a substitute teacher 10 years younger than her arrives and she is assigned to him as a mentor. Predictable so far, but funny and satisfying. I'm waiting for the subtitles for episode 6.

Since I can't watch more of that one, I'm currently watching one that was on in the Spring season of this year, Majo Saiban, a.k.a. The Witch Trial. It's about a "jury" of sorts -- in Japan, or at least in this show, there are three main judges and several "lay judges" and a majority vote between them all determines whether or not a defendant is guilty or not. Once the lay judges were selected for the trial, things begin to happen to them all. If I were to compare it to anything, it almost feels like Phoenix Wright, the popular game for the Gameboy Advance / Nintendo DS, only from the perspective of the lay judges and not the attorney. There's court sessions and things that happen outside of court. I'm on episode 8 of 10, and after this I will finish it up before I hafta go to school. It's not predictable for me, but the editing hardly gives you a chance. Still, it's a fun series and I'm enjoying it immensely... I really can't wait to watch each episode.

Senioritis?

Modern Warfare 2

I guess it's obvious that it's been a while since I've updated. But it's a casual blog, so I guess it's okay. I changed the theme for the holidays, as I tend to do with anything customizable. I usually alter my wallpaper on my computer to have a holiday theme and/or colors of some sort. I haven't done so yet on my laptop, but I'm sure with the forthcoming boredom I will be doing so.

I finished Defying Gravity. It's an excellent series, so it was sad to find out that, as far as the ABC network is concerned, the show is in limbo. Considering it's produced by several different countries, there is still hope for the series as long as it does well overseas. Or a miracle can happen and ABC could find a time slot that works. The shows production values are high, and it shows, so finding funding may be difficult if it can't do better in the ratings. There is definitely room for a lot of story.

The semester end is fast approaching, and I've disabled Facebook and sent my Xbox 360 to stay with Brandi until my finals are over. It's only been one day and it feels like those attempts at focusing my attention toward school are moot. This week I have nothing due, and I am bored as hell. Ideally, I can use the time to write one of 15 one-page journals, work on one of the three different essays I need to have done by next week, or at least read for some of the journal entries. My laziness continues as I'm spending time updating my iPhone to current specs and organizing video and music to put on there. I think regardless of my lack of Facebook and Xbox 360, the true demon inherent in procrastination does not lie in material objects, but in a lack of motivation fueled by the fact that even when I write essays the day they are due, I still get a passing grade. The 10 page essay I did for my Semantics class I wrote in the hours before class, and although I arrived late, I still turned it in a received a B. Not only did I not learn nearly as much as I could, but as stated before it only fuels my belief that it doesn't matter what I write, as long as I think it will be passable in the eyes of the professor.

Two of the three finals will be take home. However, in those two classes, the day of the final will be spent presenting the essay I hope I will have written by then. It's completely possible for me to do all this within these two weeks, but considering the time allotted, combined with my lack of motivation, I will not be churning out papers I will be proud of. I am certain, however, that I will get a passing grade on the papers. The grade for the two courses, however, I am uncertain of because of my horrible attendance record. My saving grace is that when I am in class, I participate the most out of all the students. The reason is simple -- I did not attend class when I didn't have the book to read. Since the classes are primarily composed of discussions, my presence when I haven't read the material would be pointless. Not to mention the teacher, Dr. Sharifi, knows me from the previous semester when i took another of his classes and in that familiarity calls upon me whenever discussion falls flat and silence runs pervasive.

Thanksgiving started out slow this year. Because my aunt was recovering from an injury, our household was the host for the Velez family. Few people came early, as expected from stereotypical Filipinos; however at 5:20pm or so, everybody seemed to come at once. The film Up, given to me by Brandi for my birthday this year, was already playing. All the kids joined in to watch along with my mom. After the movie, there were requests for Rock Band, so I brought out the Xbox 360 to the living room and hooked it up to the big screen TV. Everybody seemed to have fun. It makes me happy to be able to make others happy by providing the entertainment. I feel useful and responsible for the smiles on their faces. =)

Christmas is around the corner. I will be poor and unable to buy gifts yet again this year. I have payments for my phone and Disneyland to make still, but I should be on track for those. Still, I have my girlfriend and all my friends, and to be honest I feel very lucky to be where I am at. I'm scared to be graduating in Spring of next year, as I don't want this era I consider myself in to end, but that discussion will be left for another blog. Until then...

Money is the root of all evil... and some fun.

So I've been spending money like I shouldn't be, but I do enjoy life a bit more when I do. I purchased some new speakers for my car and hooked up my old subwoofer, so now you can hear a bit more sound than the monaural crap I had before. I wish I could have done that before the trip to Fanime, but oh well. I also broke down and bought an iPhone, which is probably the best purchase I've made. Sure, it's a fun toy that does all kinds of stuff, especially when jailbroken, but it's also incredibly versatile. It makes a great study tool with Anki, the flash card program I use. Plus I have an entire dictionary in my pocket so I don't hafta carry one in my backpack like I usually do. I also have all my school syllabi for each class as well as my schedule. I also have a program for assigments, and even a GPA calculator, so I don't need an organizer anymore. Just really cool stuff. I also have every Family Guy episode on there and several fun games, so I'm never bored wherever I go. Just incredibly convenient. Right now I'm organizing my music files so I can sync them instead of manually adding them. That's taking a lot of time.

I've been going out a lot lately, too. Probably not the best thing since school has begun, but my classes this semester seem fairly chill with the exception of German. But language classes are always hardcore. My German class seems fun, though. I look forward to the rest of the semester. =)

Drama in space... and in my computer.

I've caught up with Warehouse 13 at six episodes. This is why I hate watching a series -- you are forced to wait for a week (or more) for the next one to air. I'd much rather watch an entire season at my discretion. I watched Merlin rather quickly, and it was nice... at my own pace. Now I'll be forced to watch it weekly again, probably with a pause in the winter. Not cool at all.

Defying Gravity

I was attempting to fix Vonage while my mom was watching a show on Hulu called Defying Gravity. It looked campy and not too scifi-ish, but because I had nothing else to watch, I thought I'd check it out on Hulu. Watching a show from the beginning makes a big difference. Defying Gravity is fascinating, because it's not what you would expect from Ron Livingston, the carefree office worker in Office Space. He's funny at times (his brand of funny -- which is good), but it's a deeply philosophical show in the backdrop of space. I love how sci-fi shows lately have been getting some great writing in like they should, such as Battlestar Galactica. It reminds me of the Star Trek: TNG days.

Right now I'm waiting for some files to copy onto my laptop. I was having some overheating problems with my laptop and Dell has since replaced the cooling fan, which seems to be helping out so far. It definitely runs a lot cooler and although I can hear the fan spinning loudly at times, I feel comforted knowing that it's doing its job. I have Windows 7 beta running on it and everything is going rather well right now. I'll be testing the video soon. The CPU runs the same, but the fan is dissipating the heat like it should. So far. =) Not sure about the video card. I'll check that, too.

Still, both computers are running nicely now. I have (after a mishap in losing my phone contacts) updated Outlook on both computers and my phone, and my school schedule and contacts have been synced across all devices. Looking great so far. I'll hafta reinstall Windows 7 after I actually buy it (for the lappy), but after this whole overheating business, I have backing up and re-installation down to a T.

Talking to a wall

Everything's been pissing me off today. It's just not a good day for me. I've been fighting Bank of America to reverse charges made on my account for something that I corrected and they've been sending me all over the place. It's frustrating as hell. Every time I get in these moods, I just don't want to deal with anything anymore. I'm sick of bullshit. I'm sick of the damn sucky economy. I'm starting to hate random things like a grumpy old man. Watching my dad curse at the TV... it's like peering into the future of which I don't want.

I can't play games at the moment because when I'm already pissed off I'll just end up throwing shit left and right. Okay, not literally. But I get far more angry than I would normally be and it's not that it's ugly, it's simply ridiculous. There is no point in venting. It gets nothing done. But us humans with our emotions feel it is necessary. I just don't see why we get angry at certain things, and why we have the reactions we do. It gets nothing done. In my case it just breaks controllers and causes yelling at nobody in particular (theoretically the game, but it doesn't exactly yell back).

That said, I've been playing Mirror's Edge lately. The game is inherently frustrating, and there's no way I can play it right now, but the idea is great and the aesthetics are nice. At its core it is essentially a puzzle game with a timer. In certain ways you can equate it with Tetris. Odd comparison, I know, but I think it works. Finding the exact route to take, even with the hints it gives you, can be frustrating. And I'm not sure a game is good when it expects you to die. I think that's what made Braid so brilliant. It expects you to die, but that fact is made necessary through the story itself. The reversal used in Braid would be very nice in Mirror's Edge, almost fitting, really. I'm not surprised that Mirror's Edge didn't do well commercially. Darwinism weeded it out.

You missed! How could you miss!? He was three feet in front of you!

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Several days ago I checked out (I can check out games at GameStop like a library) Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I've played it before but only the multiplayer aspect of it. With such a short time to play it (I also hit Disneyland for those days), I managed to beat the game and get some decent Xbox Live time in. I'm decent at the game... sometimes I rock, many times not so much.

I had to return it, unfortunately. However, I checked out Call of Duty: World at War. A lot of people say it's not as good as the first and now I see why. Not only is accuracy a bitch in the game, which is somewhat acceptable in a World War II game, but when I'm shooting people dead on it takes forever to take people down. Not cool at all. It's like the Halo of the Call of Duty universe -- spray n' pray is what people do best and it works in their favor. Sniping works okay, though. So I guess there is no in between, like the variety of guns in Modern Warfare. Yes, there's a time difference, and like I said a rough accuracy is acceptable, but point blank shooting with no results is not.

There's one thing that I may be able to blame for it (besides the fact I suck, which is always a factor) and that is the ping rate. Many times on WaW my ping is not all that great (at the worst it's three of five bars), but when it is, so is everyone elses. Which means everybody is theoretically playing with the same handicap as me. I rarely get a bad ping rate in MW, which begs the question: Do people playing MW simply have better internet connections than people playing WaW? Awkward, but logic isn't presenting anything better. Since individuals host games rather than a central server there is a large variance in connection health. Sigh.

Oh, and still watching Merlin. I'm on episode 7. Cheesy, low budget, but very entertaining show.

Somebody save... Arthur?

Merlin

Before I started Warehouse 13 (which is only on its 3rd episode), I already began a series called Merlin. I think it's being shown in the States via NBC, but it's origins are in the United Kingdom. It's about, go figure, Merlin, as he grows up. It's pretty much a coming of age tale in the same vein as Smallville. However, the focus is not on the super hero (Arthur) but the person who assists him on his journey, which is a nice change.

Anywho, Merlin comes into a kingdom that forbids magic in any form. The person who has taken Merlin under his care is Gaius, who is King Uther Pendragon's servant... not a wizard, but one who uses science to heal or figure things out. Gaius is the only one who knows Merlin's ability to use magic and to what extent he can. According to Gaius, all sorcerers and witches must utter incantations to cast their spells, but Merlin can do certain things without utterances.

Anyway, it's a different spin on the whole King Arthur thing and the show has a ton of potential. I don't think all the episodes have played yet in the U.S., but in the U.K. the first season is over and done with, which means I can get all of them before they air here. I'm on episode four right now. It's a fun show, and I think I like it more than Warehouse 13. We'll see which one I tire of first. =P

I came across this video at The Onion, a spoof news site. I thought it was pretty funny. =)

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

There's a bunch of other videos on The Onion that are pretty funny. Check them out...

I want what I don't have.

Spice and Wolf

So another Anime Expo has come and gone. These days I liken them to annual family gatherings that I'm expected to attend. This is in contrast to the days when I would watch anime religiously and draw out efficient schedules to make sure I would get the most out of the con each year. Having no friends that were into anime meant that I would hit each AX solo for the most part. It was nice. I didn't have to follow my own schedule. I would drift into video rooms until 2 in the morning without a care as to what would happen the next day. I never had a hotel room so I didn't need to worry about sleep or any sort of drama amongst people. I was free. I love that.

It's very different now. The past year I've hit multiple conventions, which is odd considering I don't watch anime anymore. I actually hang out with people who do, which means much less freedom and more focus on the consent of the majority to do whatever it is everyone wants to do at any given moment. There's hotel rooms to deal with and any sort of drama between various people. Cosplay plays a role with many people whereas before I would simply be on the sidelines taking pictures of others. Perhaps I make it sound bad, but it's not. Just different. In fact, if I hung out with everyone when I was still the same person back in 2000, I would be having the time of my life. I've experienced this once the year #rpgamer2 visited my apartment (which was a total blast). But it's all behind me now. I hate being my age. Actually, I like being my age. I hate people's perceptions and expectations they have of me because of my age.

So I've been doing random things lately. Summer is kinda dragging along but going too fast, a common theme I've been having lately. I've been checking things off my list. I've watched a good amount of movies. I've been playing Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, the game I recently blogged about. I like it so far, but the game focuses too much on battles. It's basically all about the battles, which is part of the reason I don't like tactical RPGs. Even traditional RPGs are changing with the focus on battles. I love exploration. I love talking to people in towns. I love exploring caves and finding hidden things. It's like the adventure genre with Tomb Raider. I'm not big on the battles. I like more of the exploration and puzzle-solving elements. Maybe this is why older people say "they don't make 'em like they used to": because they grew up liking something and those things that they liked changed on them.

Warehouse 13

I just finished watching the pilot episodes of a show called Warehouse 13. It's on the Syfy (Sci-Fi) Channel, and it's basically a campier version of the X-Files. I'm starting to dislike the campy humor of science fiction television. I know they're capable of better, as evidenced in Battlestar Galactica. We need to go that route. Stargate was awesome, but we need to move on. Kinda odd coming from the old guy who was just complaining about change in the last paragraph. I guess I'm not that old just yet.