This movie soundbyte was in an Ataris song that I was listening to... it's from a Bronx's Tale. How many people would be guilty of this?

"All right, listen to me. You pull up right where she is, right? You go get out of the car and you lock both doors. Then get out of the car, and you walk over to her, and bring her over to the car. Take out the key, put in the lock, open the door for her, and you let her get in. And you close the door for her. You walk around the back of the car, and you look through the rear window. If she doesn't reach over and lift up that button so you could get in, dump her. Just like that. Listen to me kid, if she doesn't reach over and life up that button, so you could get in, that means she's a selfish broad, and all you've seen is the tip of the iceberg. You dump her, and you dump her fast."

It all started innocently enough with me buying a trash can at Wal-Mart. I bought a nice-sized trash can. I picked up the grey one and just threw it in my cart. As I was leaving, a kind worker handed me the top for the trash can - I had stupidly ignored the DO NOT FORGET THE TRASH LID THAT COMES WITH THIS TRASH CAN plastered across the plastic cover.

Anyways, we had no intention of using the trash can lid. So we did what anybody would do - we converted it to a prop. Want to see the results?

See the SPACE CADETS gallery. We will be adding to this as the year goes on.

By the way, the gallery you see is the default template that will be used for Tokki. Coooooool.

edit: oh yeah, check out the hard copy presentation of that album. pretty hot, eh?

side note: presentations are created primarily for aesthetic purposes; if you want to present a gallery without a lot of extra clutter. these files are also statically generated so you can easily download them as ZIP files (this specific one doesn't have one) so you can share them or download them and run them straight from your hard drive or you can upload it to another website or something.

i'm still kinking out some major bugs and building some more default templates. i'm not rushing the development of tokki like i did for tabulas.

the UI is a bit ... complex, even for me. but i'm not sure how to make it easier; with more tools you get more complexity :(

good thing most of the powerful features won't be open to free users so it'll be easy to use for them :)

this is sun's quote from this summer:

"there are a lot of ugly people on tabulas."

Tony Lee, my internet partner in crime, discovered online Monopoly. I loved that game as a child and I desperately wanted to play it again (except none of my "cool friends" think it's fun enough to play ... bastards).

We finally got around to playing a game today ... and boy was it exciting! We played HEADS-ON EXTREME MONOPOLY .... somehow Tony got both the purple and orange monpolies naturally BEFORE I even had one. After he started building houses and hotels on them, I got my first monopoly on Baltic/Mediterranean ...

At this point, I think the game is over. Tony has one WHOLE side, I have dwindling reserves of cash, and I have no monopolies.

I avoided "Tonyland" (as he called it) quite a few times ... and then it happened. My second to last possible monopoly got locked out as Tony secured Marvin Gardens (ARGH).

But ... I got Park Place. And with Boardwalk, that's a pretty scary monopoly. Putting in everything I had, I put in all my money into hotels on my two crappy monopolies and hoped I wouldn't land on "Tonyland" ... and it worked.

Tony landed on Park Place (CHA CHING) and then I avoided "Tony Land" a a few more times (amazing how I did it, I have no clue). Then... it came. Tony landed on Park Place AGAIN with hotels. With a large reserve in cash, I gave a favorable trade to Tony (my two red properties for his one light-blue property). He acquiesed (ooh, I saw Pirates of the Carribean ;)) and I now had "Royland." Right after the trade, Tony landed on Mediterranean, which sapped out his GO salary. Then he landed on Connecticut, which I had conveniently just built hotels on.

Man, what an exciting COME FROM BEHIND victory!


Forget the orange properties. Park Place + Boardwalk are HOT!

i now have two new things:
1.) a new crush
2.) a new fantasy

the new crush, is of course, keira knightly. the new fantasy, which i'm sure almost every red-blooded guy can relate to wil replace my 'twins fantasy.' it now involves almost-twins natalie portman and keira knightly.

did you know: keira knightly was the fake queen amidala in star wars: ep I?

and judy and christine said that keira didn't look like natalie ...

Last night at dinner, somehow we started joking about how I would die of heat stroke while playing basketball. Chris (who just joined Tabulas!) would inherit Tabulas with my last dying breath.

But Chris, knowing nothing about maintaining Tabulas, would sell Tabulas to Xanga for $30 and then buy a Premium Membership.

Those bastards. I will hax0r them all.


For those of you are are interested, you can play Monopoly online at games.com. It's free and fun!

And for those of you who didn't know (Alfish brought this to my attention), Keira Knightly's birthday is March 1985. Dear goodness. She's younger than me!!

I can finally lust after jailbait! ha ha. Damn I'm getting old.

There really isn't a purpose to the phone in our room. After Simpleton Sung got a cell phone, we really didn't need a "landline;" we could simply call each other on the handphone.

But the phone proved its worth today as we extracted some fun from it. While I was busy working hard playing Monopoly online, we got a phone call ... I picked it up.

"Hello, is Jamie there?"

"Um... who?"

"Jamie."

"No, I think you have the wrong number."

"Is this 4-1254?"

"Yeah ..."

"Oh, I guess I do have the wrong number." His voice trailed off with dissappointment.



...
Poor fellow. My guess is he met a hot chick and then tried to hit on her. The unrelenting advances probably forced the poor girl to give him a false phone number (ours).

Poor fellow. But I can't help to laugh though ...

They say if you don't respect nature, nature won't respect you. Well, nature bitchslapped me today.

After coming out of english recitation today, I noticed that it was thunderstorming. Even with my bike, I was drenched when I got back to the dorm.

Any of my past roommates will tell you that if:
1.) it's raining
2.) i'm wet

that I will naturally

3.) go biking on the Paul Greene Theater Trails.

I've done this a few times without much problems - it's always been a blast.

Well, the rain today was a bit heavier than most normal days, and there were a few small changes to the trail (most notably, a key wood bridge was broken and all that was left were two logs that used to be the framework for the bridge).


The creek is normally only about a foot deep at MOST ... but the thing was at least 4-5 feet above normal levels today.



On my way back from the trails going back home, I fell in at the place of hte old bridge. And as I grabbed a tree branch to prevent being swept downstream (to some horrible end), I watched as my bike was swept away by the rushing waters.

After I got off the bridge, I went searching for my bike, to no avail.

At this point, I'm pretty pissed at myself for falling in. I shouldn't have fallen in. But even worse, I don't know if my bike is lost or not. For its sake I hope it doesn't float - I plan on waking up early tomorrow and going out to find it. I hope I can ...

Bah. Check back tomorrow. Hopefully this story will have a happy ending.

After dinner, I went back to the creek (the water was down to its normal levels, which I actually figured is something like 2 inches) and found my bike. It was about 10 meters downstream from where I had dropped it. There was a random dude walking around and he must of thought I was one weird dude for "losing" a bike in the trails.

In any case, tonight was the second night I've played poker. Yesterday I played with Steve, Joe, and some of their friends. I got second place (which won me nothing), but it was a rough night. Playing to the full extent of my skills ... I just got mentally exhausted. I made a horrible call which lost me the game ... damn exhaustion. Oh well, I only have myself to blame.

Tonight's poker game fared much better. I was down to my last $3 (we get $20 worth of chips when we buy-in $3 in cash) ... and I managed to come back and win the whole thing. I made some strong moves and took some of the newer players out (they follow the money so badly) and then went on to win the whole thing.



Keira Knightly = superhot

Oh no! No more Federal-Pound-Me-In-The-Ass prison!

Oh yeah, an update from Iraq. Things are good.

There's gotta be more to life
than chasing down every temporary high to satisfy me
cause the more that i'm tripping out
thinking there must be more to life
well it's life, but I'm sure there's gotta be more
than wanting more

- stacie orrico "more to life"

Somehow this song seems to be quite fitting to how I've been feeling lately. I guess I've just been "out of it" lately.

I originally got this link on Asian-American Materialism from Yush. At first glance, it seemed to be somewhat interesting ... but the more I read, the less I liked it. After I finished reading it, I've concluded that this is one of the worst op-eds I've ever read.

Right off the bat, this article starts off with a broad generalization that basically categorizes most of Korean-American culture into Prada-buying, Gucci-wearing, BMW-driving materialistic assholes. Besides the fact that this is somewhat sensationalized writing, this problem is implied to be an inherently Asian one.

Here is the first fault of the article. This overly extensive generalization, while on the whole being false, is not just limited to Korean-Americans. Most of the Western hemisphere has a natural obsession towards greater goods - Prada, Gucci, and BMW. Status symbols has always been important in creating a social hierarchy for all societies, not just Korean-Americans. India has long suffered under the caste system, and it was not more than a 150 years ago when the European monarchies were firmly in power. All the gripes of the author extend further than simply the Korean-American culture, and we would be folly to be so hard on our own culture when other cultures are just as guilty of this.

I also have a huge issue with the writing style. The op-ed starts off pretty promising ... but then it soon degrades into random observations about problems with the Korean-American culture without really bringing together a real solution or tying together all the arguments.

The whole article ends by saying "Your parents worked hard, and you're blowing their hard-earned money. So quit doing it." Oh really. This is mind-blowing.

Parents ... working hard for their children? Kids ... blowing money when they have it? SOMEONE STOP THE PRESSES. THIS IS AMAZING NEWS.


Sorry for the sarcastic outburst. In reality, these problems are not just limited to Korean Americans, but to the whole of culture. All cultures are starting to feel the freedoms (and limitations) imposed by the sudden increase in wealth. Kids are being born into higher classes than their parents. They have more money. It is only natural that they are more loose with their money.

Does this make it right? No. But to present an article that seems to limit this problem simply to the Korean-American audience is folly. The problem is universal, but there is no clear-cut solution. As long as parents are able to humble children and make them realize the value of a hard-earned dollar, materialism won't become as bad as this sensationalized op-ed makes it seem.

In any case, materialism is not just limited to those who blow their parents money - it's a problem for everybody. I blew a ton of money on photography equipment, but it wasn't my parents money I blew - it was my hard-earned cash. Although it wasn't as useless as a Prada bag or Gucci clothes, it still drives home the point that this materialism derives from our financial status in the world, and not limited to some Korean-American culture.


Koreans, quit thinking the world revolves around you. Our problems are not unique; our cultures share the same problems.

Back when I was deciding on my first domain name prior to NeoPages.com, I was leaning towards CommerceAve.com until Hao told me it was a stupid name.


And now it's taken.

I hate having good dreams. It only makes you realize what you're missing in your life and how it will most likely be unattainable.

A hundred days had made me older
Since the last time that I saw your pretty face
A thousand lights had made me colder
And I don’t think I can look at this the same
But all the miles had separate
They disappeared now when I’m dreaming of your face

I’m here without you baby but your still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
I’m here without you baby but your still with me in my dreams
And tonight it’s only you and me

The miles just keep rolling as the people either way to say hello
I hear this life is overrated but I hope it gets better as we go

I’m here without you baby but your still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
I’m here without you baby but your still with me in my dreams
And tonight girl it’s only you and me

Everything I know, and anywhere I go
It gets hard but it won’t take away my love
And when the last one falls, when it’s all said and done
it get hard but it won’t take away my love

I’m here without you baby but your still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
I’m here without you baby but your still with me in my dreams
And tonight girl it’s only you and me

I’m here without you baby but your still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
I’m here without you baby but your still with me in my dreams
But tonight girl it’s only you and me

- Three Doors Down "Here Without You"

designs: suck
features: limited and incomplete
user interface: confusing
general reaction from people: lukewarm

I guess it's a part of growing up - realizing not everything is black and white. Most of you know I've suffered from insomnia for the last few years - I've been on and off multiple sleeping pills.

Those nights when I just laid in bed and thought, I would think about a multitude of things - some of them personal, most of them not-so-personal.

The personal questions that tugged at my heart were the result of low self-esteem that was bred throughout my middle and high school years. Leaving high school early was an escape to me, thinking college would be different.

Of course, I found out the hard way that the problem was with me, not with the world. This set the stage for a transformation within myself ... to quit laying the blame on others. Unfortunately, it still is a recurring problem that I am constantly battling ...

My self-esteem issues were really eliminated by my ex-girlfriend and my relationship with her. The relationship opened my eyes to the whole female-male interaction, how things work with girls, and just helped me become comfortable with myself. We are all flawed; there is no reason to hide these flaws.

My relationship with my ex was truly a blessing - and it still is. We still go out and eat dinner once a week and just talk about stuff. I still feel very much that she understands me and I can talk to her without being judged. I have grown up so much with her help, whether she realizes it or not.

-------------------------

The non-personal issues were related primarily with political and social issues. Where did I stand on abortion? Was the death penalty really right? Is America's current international political stance right?

Through my tortuous thought processes, I learned a few things. When I was younger, the world was simple - right and wrong. If I did something right, my parents would smile. If I did something wrong - I would get a spanking. As I grew older, right and wrong became shades of gray.

The world is such a complex place, and the issues that face our political and personal lives are questions which most likely cannot be answered fully. I used to be a gungho about defending my politics and views, but I've done so less over the past few weeks.

I guess I've realized that everything is so very complex that it's stupid to try to simplify situations to "right" and "wrong."

Lady Justice has balance in her hand. There are varying degrees of right and wrong.

History has always been marred with opposing powers pushing their belief systems upon each other. The Cold War was democracy vs. communism. Now there is fundamentalist Islam attacking Judeo-Christianity.

Do you know what made the Roman Empire so great? Their acceptance of other cultures - to become a citizen of Rome did not mean you had to completely become Roman - the Romans kept a lot of their outer territories without pushing the Roman belief system upon them.

America is great because it's the cultural melting pot (well, more of a patchwork now) ... America is based on the idea that ideas can coexist in harmony. Our forefathers kept a separation of religion and state to prevent one religion from pressuring other religions into believing what they believed.

Progress in our world will never continue unless we are willing to accept the fact that different cultures have different values. We must understand and accept this fact - we must understand that forcing belief systems is wrong and will only cause more conflict.

--------------

I've had religious struggles since high school. At first, religion was a blessing because it finally let me "pass on" tough decisions to God. It was a journey back to my childhood, where someone could tell me what was right and wrong - all I had to do was follow the faith with all my heart.

As I entered college and went through the self-realizations that the world was not wrong, but I was wrong ... I started to rely less and less on God. How could I expect to fully heal myself and better myself when my personal life direction would be determined by a higher deity?

I didn't want to be held accountable by God; I wanted to live my own life and better myself as a person without the assistance of an outside guide.

My abandonment from the church in no way implies an abandonment of morals - I still attempt to abide by all the moral rules that govern Christians. I respect the laws of man, trying to live a moral life that I could proudly present on Judgement Day (if it were to happen, of course). This does include my no drinking, no drugs, no sexual relations prior to marriage views.

But tying back to my latest beliefs that the world is gray, I don't think any lesser of people who do these things. To me, if their belief system says it's okay to drink, or okay to poke smot, then it is not my place to judge them or to push my belief systems onto them.

The rules of man are meant to keep civil order to society; they should not regulate how we live our lives, unless the actions of one man put another man in danger.

-----------------

Someone asked me today if it mattered to me if I were to get involved with a girl if she had previous sexual relations.

I said it wouldn't matter. A relationship is simply a friendship on an elevated status, it is not an open invitation to judge the other person and to lay blame on their faults. Coming from a Christian standpoint, sleeping with someone prior to marriage is wrong. But this position presents an interesting position.

Let's look at the different outcomes:
The first scenario is one where you assume the relationship goes to marriage. If you really love this person that much, are you going to let a past relationship bother you? It shouldn't. If it does, there are some self-esteem issues that will have to be dealt with.

The second scenario assumes the fact that the prior sexual relation was a result of the person's loose morals. If the person has loose morals, then there will be bigger issues than simply the past sexual relations, and the relationship would end.

It's one of those problems that solve itself.

-----------

pray for tatsu ... he's just gone through some f'ed up stuff.

WORK IT HARDER
MAKE IT BETTER
DO IT FASTER
MAKES US STRONGER
MORE THAN EVER
HOUR AFTER HOUR
WORK IS NEVER OVER

- daft punk
(i'm listening to the original club ibiza mix, which is far superior to the album version)

[img:23050]
(tokki is korean for bunny rabbit, which explains my ... impression...)

edit: nevermind, i'm not ready. 9/12 is the launch date for alpha.

weeks of design on the main page design has been trashed. i've decided to adopt the tabulas-style main page... so i'm in a last-minute major redesign mode :)

So Tabulas has been discovered by a community of web-savvy users ... and it's getting pretty popular over there. Which is good for Tabulas, as most of them think Tabulas rocks (which I would agree). Of course, the only downside to this popularity is that Tabulas is at a weak stage, with me working on Tokki lately and not being able to fix up Tabulas completely.

Well, Tokki launches tomorrow. So we'll see how alpha testing goes. I might push the integration of Tokki with Tabulas a bit faster if Tabulas starts getting way more users than I expect.

All in all, I'm pretty happy that people are discovering Tabulas and reaffirming my belief that Tabulas 1.0 is a decent product. Soon I'll get Tokki out of alpha/beta and can integrate it with Tabulas, which will be nice since it'll give the impression that I'm actually actively working on Tabulas ... hehe.

No, in all seriousness. I will get to work on Tabulas soon. I swear. Oh yeah, AudioMatch too. I have all these badass plans for AM but they keep getting sidetracked by school and Tokki.

Junk to work on:
- Shared journals suck ARSE. What's up there now is a holder feature ... gah. It pains me to see shared journals because they just suck...
- Custom Entry Formatting. This shouldn't take me more than a few minutes to fix, but I'm not really looking forward to delving into the scripting to find why it's not working right now.
- Better RSS creation. I found out PHP has built-in XML creating and parsing; I better take advantage of that.
- Better top nav bar. It's ugly.
- Better templates. The existing templates are lacking greatly. I'll try to make a few better ones one of these days.

Of course, there is the whole complete rewrite thing too. Hehe.

This is an half-arsed attempt to push my embarassing pictures below to the second page. Ok, not really. But anyways.
-----------------
The coolest thing happened today. We were called "cool" by this Duke froshie at dinner. YES! I AM FINALLY COOL! AFTER STRIVING 19 LONG YEARS ... I AM COOL. ;)
-----------------

Nothing really important has been happening. Tokki went alpha, and a big burden's been lifted. So far, it hasn't really been as awesome as I'd hoped, but it'll be fixed. I've taken a look at AudioMatch and figured out the work necessary (a lot) to get it to the next level.
-----------------
I had a good time chilling with friends today and driving around with my windows down screaming the chorus to "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog." Yay.
--------------------
I'm going to NCKPC tomorrow for the first time in a year. I promised myself when things started settling down, I would go... and I shall keep that promise.
-----------------
This newfound popularity of Tabulas is taking its toll. I've been coaxing my server to stay alive for the past few hours ... it's been getting really heavily loaded. This is not good. I need some money to buy a new server ... but unfortunately to even break even on a new server, I'd have to get something like 60 users to go paid. Grar. And it's looking like Tokki is also going to need a separate server besides the AudioMatch server.
-----------------
I've realized how hard it is to make templates for Tokki. There isn't too much content to go on each page if I strip out all my self-promotional crap. Interesting.

The missteps of the music industry contrasted with the successes of the movie industry


Great article that contrast two separate business models: one which is realizing that the invisible hand that Adam Smith talked about existed and the best way to lure more customers is to cut the prices, and the second, of course, is using the courts to delay the inevitable.

Skipped class today. Oops. Was pretty tired.

Spent most of today fixing up the public page for AudioMatch. The damn thing is XHTML 1.0 compliant if PHP would stop trying to append &PHPSESSIONID to the friggin URL links. I'm not sure why it's doing this, as I've set session.use_only_cookies = 1 in php.ini.

I'm going to now tackle the private pages ... and once that's done, I will continue working on Tokki.

I've read a few posts regarding some sort of conversion tool for Tabulas. I've always had in the back of my mind a quick tool to convert RSS-based feeds into Tabulas posts. I'll probably do this for LJ by tomorrow (hopefully).

Back to work.
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the family guy is hilarious.

I'm not sure what happened. I used to be really mellow and laid back. But as I grow up, I find myself growing more and more aggressive and easily angered.

Well, I think it's just the outlook of people who expect others to do unto them.

For example, yesterday night I was enjoying watching some TV after busting my ass doing some work ... when this stranger calls me up. He has the nerve to ask me to make a webpage and give them webspace for free. Out of the blue! And then when I said my schedule was booked for at least a week and a half, he sounded dissappointed. As if well-skilled designers were sitting around, waiting to do pro-bono work on the spot.

I mean, it's one thing to have the nerve to ask that, but it's another to call me up and ask it to my face.

I guess I've always been a favor of the "using friends" theory. I don't mind it when friends (or hell, even acquantainces) ask me to do work for them, since I can always say no. But when strangers have the nerve to do that ... that just boils my blood.

In any case, here is a plug to an audiomatch-type service: http://www.audistream.com . Looks promising with a lot of features. Hope it does well.

it's not what a man says, but what he doesn't say that determines his character.

The things I learn are so random. I've been trying to fully understand CSS, only to be really discouraged by the fact that each browser handles it differently. Sucks for me. It's like NS 4.x/IE4.x with tables all over again.

I bought some clay poker chips today. 500 of them. Hopefully they'll get here soon. I'm excited. They were $150, so they better be nice. Poker night tomorrow night and Thursday night. Hopefully I can win.

I've been also learning on how PHP fully parses XML files ... this has entailed learning vaguely about OOP. I'll bother borst about this more later. I'm going to take a shot at the PHP DOM functions that should make XML generation easier for me.

I've been messing around with mySQL fulltext options. This should lead to the development of a tool for beta/paid users that will let them search past entries. Yay.

I'm so friggin' tired. Someone help me ... there's so much on my mind right now, but I can't find anyone to talk to. It's not that the people around me aren't the type to talk to ... but I'm just looking for someone particular. I guess one of the things I really miss about my previous roomie was that he wasn't really involved with my social circle, so I could talk to him about things that bothered me. He always was a good listener and had good advice.

Things are changing so rapidly here ... and there is so much happening that I just can't digest it all. School is starting to slip out of my reach, and I'm starting down a path of heartache that I can't bother talking about because of its implications upon my immediate life.

Man, I'm not sure what to do...

Everyone knows I love steak. I've spent at least $200 at OmahaSteaks.com, which has amazingly good steaks and burger meat ...

In any case, I basically made an offer to my roommates, Sech, Yush, and (honorary) roommate Chris... if 4 people switched over to Tabulas paid over the next week, I would treat them to Angus Barn, which is arguably the best steak house in this area.

And guess what happened this morning :) So the second weekend from today ... we shall go and grub at Angus Barn on me! Weeeeeeee.


Yo, if any of my other friends are reading this and want to hit up Angus Barn, call me on my cell. I'd like to get a large group to go and grub.


-----
The new Outkast song is awesome! Can't stop listening to it... mwahahahahah.

I keep checking Weather.com to track Isabel's progress.

Quite selfishly, I want Isabel to come in and do just enough damage so I don't have school for the rest of the week. PLEASE.

Right now, NC State doesn't school (neither does my sister and the rest of all public schools in the area), but Carolina isn't closing school... yet. We'll probably follow Duke (once they decide to close).

PLEASE. CLOSE SCHOOL. EVERYONE I TALKED TO WANTS TOMORROW OFF.

So please, Isabel. Come in and do enough damage (not that much though, I want to live) so that I don't school tomorrow.

Thanks :)

Grueling tourney-style with 15 people. Because we had so many people, we split into two groups ... one of 6 people and the other of 8. The group of 8 was less-experienced ... the 6 were the more experienced. The idea was to have 3 from each table go into the final table; the less-experienced players would go in with more chips.

It seemed to work out. I grinded out my earnings ... I was playing superhot before the final table, but my hands just went cold once I got to the final table.

I managed to pull off a few bluffs and ended up with second place. I made very few mistakes (except at the end, because I was tired) so I'm pretty happy with my playing style.

In any case, I'm on the verge of shutting down NeoPages.net free hosting simply because I'm getting really torn between commitments.

I'm going to the CALL retreat at my home church from tomorrow until Sunday. I'm pretty excited about going to CALL ... not really sure why.

Once I get back, I'm going on a short internet hiatus to study hardcore from school and to spend some time away from the computer.

Cya Sunday.

So I'm supposed to drive up to the CALL retreat center which is about 2.5 hours north of us.

Original passengers: Chris, Soob, David, and Sun.

Chris decided not to go. So did Soob. Then David got a ride with someone else. And Sun just told me he's going with somebody else.




I'm so lonely!


Just kidding. Time to bust out my Britney Spears CDs and practice my vocal chords. Har har.

CALL was nice. I didn't really get to know the new members much, but that's all good.

I wish I had internet access on Saturday night - I had so much to write and so much to say. I don't have much to say, except that I think I'll start going to church with more regularity now ... I'm still torn spiritually on where I stand, but at least I'm taking baby steps.

I'm incredibly tired right now, but I'm working out some bugs on Tokki. I'm going to start some chemistry reading in a bit and go to bed early - CALL has worn me out for the weekend.

Joke of the day: "How do you get a UNC graduate off your front porch?"

Answer: "Pay him for your pizza."

Har har. So true. Except I will work for my roommate Yush's chinese restaurant. SO PAY UP FOR YOUR CHINESE.

Here is a nice discussion on why JSP sucks major ass.

The original article and the /. discussion.

I will say it again: I hate JSP.


Related article: Java's Cover. It's not a critique on why Java sucks, but rather is an article written by an experienced programmer on why he thinks Java was destined to fail.

Completely unrelated, but I'll put all the things that I know won't get comments in one post:
Girl wants to start a Caucasian Club at High School. Choice cut:

One person who won't be signing up is Darnell Turner, first vice president of the local chapter of the NAACP. Turner says he thinks the club will create racial tension.

See, this is exactly the mentality that our over-emphasis on minorities has created. Now it's "shameful" to be white. Stupid, stupid stupid.

Stuff to do this week:
Immediately here are some issues I want to add/fix up for Tabulas within this week:

- Add category support for entries
- Fix up the method of action on entries (prior to output)
- Fix up the crossposting feature to actually work better
- Fix up the output engine

Tokki things:
- Get Shared Journals to work
- More templates
- Redocument templating engine
- Allow usage of preexisting templates as primer for templates

SingIt Things:
- Add fulltext search

A rather long technical post about the future of Tabulas. Read more if you'd like.
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instead of studying i was looking at pictures, and i found this picture that looked like a cloud farted. it's from vietnam. har har.

There'a a report from Nature talking about some contest for scientists to make the longest-living mice. They get money every day the mouse lives past the current world record. The oldest one is 5 years old (150 in human years). The scientists are allowed to use any method to achieve their ends. This whole thing is for research into human longetivity.

Which begs the question, why WOULD you want to live that long? After 70 or 80, you're pretty much useless as human being. I'm not sure why you'd want to live in a semi-state until you're 150. What purpose does that serve?

I'd rather die relatively early than live to be too old. There's just something embarassing about not being able to take care of yourself. Ideally I could pass away (assuming I have kids) after my kids grow up and are adults. Then I can pass on my massive credit debt to them ( ha ha! just kidding! ).

Does anyone actually dream of living past the age of 80? I mean, that lady who just turned 120 (was it?) sleeps two days then stays away from two days. I wonder what she does for those days ...

I sometimes feel neglected when I realize that no one reads any computer-related stories that I write. So I have decided to post two stories in ONE entry ... kind of like those movies that let you watch two movies for the price of one. Maybe you'll actually read it now.

The first story relates to my general idiocy. You know how you can store files in folders on your computer? Well, due to certain restrictions on the Tabulas server, I've been storing _all_ images in ONE folder. And guess how many files that is?

25,000. Hah! This is why your Tabulas galleries seem a bit slower. As soon as 3 more people switch to paid Tabulas, I'm going to purchase a new server to handle Tabulas :)

The second story is my general experience in dealing with my sister. My sister is a freshman in high school and was born in 1989 (I FINALLY GOT IT RIGHT). Being a typical high school girl, she's all into "fashion." Her latest craze is to buy a seat belt from an old GM car and to wear it as a belt.

I told her this was a fad and that it was actually two years old, but she didn't believe me. Anyways, I took the belt from her and started wearing it around the house acting like my sister. You'd be surprised how high my voice gets, but that's another story.

Anyways, for the longest time, she was wearing short shirts. Shirts that would show her ... navel. Sick. This was a NO NO in MY book. I never wore shirts like that, so why should she?

Originally my plan was to harass her into submission, but I realized this was a futile weapon in my war against scandalousness. She is a teenager - she thrives on drama and being told what not to do. So I did the next best thing ... I made it completely uncool.

Whenever my sister was wearing a short shirt, I would take my shirt and roll it up just enough to show my belly button. Then I would walk around the house, being sure my sister noticed how I looked.

Now let me tell you something ... back in the day, I had abs. But unfortunately those abs have turned into something like a big blob of nastiness. So unlike my sister, me wearing short shirts is not sexy. It's nasty.

Before long, even my mom would start asking me to put my shirt down. My sister would yell at me, "YOU'RE SO WEIRD, OPPA."





But since then, I haven't seen her wearing shirts that show her belly button.

:)

Those results were that there are five distinct personality traits/dimensions. Here are your results on each dimension:



Extroversion results were low which suggests you are quiet, unassertive, and aloof.

Friendliness results were high which suggests you are very good natured, trusting, and helpful but probably too much of a follower

Orderliness results were high which suggests you are very organized, reliable, neat, and ambitious but probably not very spontaneous and fun.

Emotional Stability results were high which suggests you are relaxed, calm, secure, unemotional and probably too unobservant of your feelings.

Intellectualness results were high which suggests you are very creative, original, curious, imaginative but probably not very practical.

Over the past few weeks I've been doing a bit of research (when I have time) into the whole idea of the semantic web. The "Semantic Web" is in essence a way to structure all the data on the web into set formats so it's easier to read by machines ... in essence it's creating tons of metadata so that we can (hopefully) do something with all that data.

The "Semantic Web" can range from the way you mark up your HTML pages to the actual syndication of data so it's all free flowing. I've always felt strongly that syndication of data into set formats is one way to ensure the survival of any site (rather than destroy it). Much like I posted earlier about Tabulets, I'm determined to eventually fully syndicate all data for use by any party (except data designated as being private by the owner).

The biggest issue I've taken with the "Semantic Web" is how anal everyone is. I've grown up marking up webpages in any way that works, but the SW (I'm shortening it because I'm getting tired of writing it out) implies that there is a few "right" ways of doing stuff.

At first I was pretty resistant to mark up HTML pages in certain ways ... but the more I work on Tabulas, the more it makes sense. I've been slowly starting to utilize more CSS-heavy designs and am utilizing less and less div class declarations and more of the natural HTML tags (h1, h2, em, strong, etc.).

Once I get the time, I'm going to make every one of my default Tabulas templates CSS liquid with fully semantic markup so that it's not JUST XHTML1.0 compliant in law, but also in spirit. It's important we remember that the spirit of the law and the letter of the law are quite different.

After my advanced organic chem exam, I came back and started working out a new feature for Tabulas - categories. I've been spending a lot of time working on the new feature, but also fixing up errors along the way. Because of the complexity of categories in integrating it with the existing Tabulas infrastructure, I've had to go back and look through hundreds of lines of uncommented code I wrote months ago. I spent a lot of time fixing up old code (making it more efficient and slowly commenting it) ... but also creating a new "standard" way of displaying stuff in the admin panel.

The admin panel for Tabulas is quite a mess right now. I need to figure out _one_ way of displaying the data then do it like that. The control panel isn't as consistent as I'd like it to be. So that's another huge project to add on my 'to-do' list.

So far, I've gotten the administrator's portion of the categories done, but now I need to figure out how to do the output. Gah.

I've had this cough and congestion in the lungs area, but I'm not sure if I'm sick. I've had it since I came back from CALL, but I've managed to stay alright. My appetite is somewhat lacking, but besides that it hasn't had a big effect on me.

Except for the phlegm that builds up in my throat. It gets pretty bad. I can't seem to swallow it or spit it up, so it just sits there... accumulating. Drinking Coke seems to help clear it out temporarily, but then it comes back with a vengeance.

I spent the longest time trying to spit/cough/hack it out, except it was too low down my throat to do that. But it was high enough that it bothered me (darrgggh).

I discovered that if I go to the bathroom (next to the sink), close my mouth, and blow air out of my nose as hard as I can, all that phlegm comes out of my nose.

I know it sounds nasty (it *is* pretty nasty too, cause it just keeps coming in strings and strings of snot) ... but the relief I gain from being able to SWALLOW MY SPIT outweighs the nastiness of phlegm/snot coming out of nose.



So how is everyone doing?

Originally this was a friends-only post ... but what the hell. I have no shame :)

I've always been a hopeless romantic, although I didn't realize this until I started dating my first girlfriend. Quite happily the relationship was mutually terminated during this summer ... we realized our differences were too great to take the relationship to the next level. But I gotta say that I learned so much and had such a great time in the relationship... I don't regret a single minute of it.

After the split, I started immersing myself in a world of work and guy friends. I told myself, "No more girls." And for a while, everything was good.

Of course, all good things (har har) come to an end, and when it came, it crashing down around me. At first, it started off as one of those normal crushes ... but it soon progressed into an infatuation. I've fought the infatuation tooth and nail not only because I didn't want it, but also because the infatuation was not right for my current situation.

Almost every minute of the day I spend trying to push this girl out of my head. Out out out! But I can't. The very act of pushing her out only brings her image to the forefront. Why? Why must this stupid crush start over?

In my heart, I am a hopeless romantic. I do believe that you are fated to meet your one regardless of your situation and that no matter what happens, you will be meet up. Maybe that's why I can never let go of these crushes.

But I gotta say, for being so emotionally dry over the past weeks, it is nice to have some sort of emotions. The highs when you're around her to the lows when you're trying to end the infatuation on your own. I remember my very few serious infatuations, and I would say this one ranks up there so far... but we'll see how long it lasts.

Why must I have these feelings? Why do I have to have these foolish hopeless feelings and thoughts? The reality of life will probably rip apart these feelings... maybe I'm just looking for heartbreak. For drama.

I keep telling myself that she's out of my league .. that I'm not good enough for her. It helps to put yourself down to get yourself over a girl ... but is it really healthy to knock your self-esteem down like that?

In any case ... let's all hope I can get over this. For my sake ... I can't focus on anything... except pushing her out of my mind.

It's getting so bad I can barely focus when I play poker. I went out on the 5th hand yesterday and the 3rd hand today. It's tough...

stole a picture from jack from CALL 2003.
joon, joe, jack, david, daniel, and me:

Seong & Chris: At Spike's b-day
Yush: At home




Room is empty. Except for me. Time to get nekkid and start dancing around to Backstreet Boys!!!!




Just kidding. Programming tonight :)

Man. This song is so pretty... I want to stop listening to it ... but I can't... must... retain ... thugness... am...not ... soft

Delta Goodrem - Born to Try.mp3

Do you ever run into a problem that just halts everything? It shouldn't everything, but it does?

For instance, I was working on syndicating commenting data over XML... and then I ran into problems. Do I syndicate e-mail addresses? Tabulas inherently protects all e-mail addresses.. but the moment I syndicate all e-mail addresses, that value is gone.

So what do I do? Argh!!!!!

I haven't been able to do any work until I get this figured out. Do you think the privacy of the e-mails trumps the ability to freely syndicate data?

ABAlex: hey its the fucking marble jar theory right?
thug4life roy: what?
ABAlex: so your day is a jar
ABAlex: and you have big huge tasks like rocks... and some medium tasks like marbles... then you have sand, filler tasks
ABAlex: fuck i forget what comes next
ABAlex: hold on
ABAlex: nevermind
ABAlex: it sounded like a good theory when I heard it
ABAlex: but i obviously didnt remember

typical borst-isms.

My music listening habits are quite amusing. I've never favored the use of playlists ... I'm more of a "pick a song when I feel like it" type. This, of course, leads to repetition when I'm busy working... in other words, I get deep into programming, so one song will stick on repeat on Winamp until I get REALLY tired of it.

My roommates cannot stand this (actually, I'm not really sure who can stand it besides me).

But the most interesting things happens when you subconsciously listen to a song for that long. You start examining the lyrics more seriously.

For example, I've been listening to Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" right now and I'm remember a conversation I once had about how ludicrous this song is.

Let's look at a sample line: "I'd walk a thousand miles if I could just see you tonight."

This is obviously just a "line" Vanessa is singing to try to get into the pants of some poor schmuck. It's impossible to walk a thousand miles in one night. Maybe more realistically she could of said "I'd walk a hundred miles if I could see you tonight."

It's like saying "I'd buy you the biggest diamon ring if I were a billionaire." It's a nice gesture but means nothing!

NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok I'm not really sure what the purpose of this post is. I was trying to be funny, but I'm really not. I'll just go back and program some more.

So a while ago somewhere I wrote about Project Echo (which is actually now called Atom, both which are crappy names) which is a way of doing XML syndication. Wow! Sounds like fun!

Not really. I guess they're doing a good job of making a good format, but when I visit that site, I am totally confused as to navigating that website. I can't figure out where to go, and the page is just plain ugly.

Why do technical websites have to be so friggin' ugly? Come on, guys ... give me a break.

I was going to syndicate Tabulas' data with their format, but the whole thing is still really shady right now. I just wish someone there would make some decisions so i could do something. They seem to be content squabbling amongst themselves over the most inane details (which purists will tell me are very important) ... and it seems the whole project is just kinda becoming ... well... complex.

In any case, I hope I can wrap up the XML thing today.

They say a picture speaks a thousand words... so let's let this picture speak for this weekend:



You can see the rest of the pictures at my tokkiproject.

Fun! My score was 34! :) The answer to this quiz is really accurate (for me).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take this test for yourself and send it to your friends. The person who sent it placed their score in the subject box.

Please do the same before forwarding to your friends.

Don't peek but begin the test as you scroll down and answer. Answers are for who you are now...... not who you were in the past.

Have pen or pencil and paper ready. This is a real test given by the Human Relations Dept. at many of the major corporations today. It helps them get better insight concerning their employees and prospective employees.

It's only 10 simple questions, so...... grab a pencil and paper, keeping track of your letter answers. Make sure to change the subject. When you are finished, forward this to everyone you know, and also send it to the person who sent this to you.

================================================

1. When do you feel your best?
a) in the morning
b) during the afternoon and early evening
c) late at night

2. You usually walk...
a) fairly fast, with long steps
b) fairly fast, with little steps
c) less fast head up, looking the world in the face
d) less fast, head down
e) very slowly

3. When talking to people you...
a) stand with your arms folded
b) have your hands clasped
c) have one or both your hands on your hips
d) touch or push the person to whom you are talking
e) play with your ear, touch your chin, or smooth your hair

4. When relaxing, you sit with...
a) your knees bent with your legs neatly side by side
b) your legs crossed
c) your legs stretched out or straight
d) one leg curled under you

5. When something really amuses you, you react with...
a) big appreciated laugh
b) a laugh, but not a loud one
c) a quiet chuckle
d) a sheepish smile

6. When you go to a party or social gathering you...
a) make a loud entrance so everyone notices you
b) make a quiet entrance, looking around for someone you know
c) make the quietest entrance, trying to stay unnoticed

7. You're working very hard, concentrating hard, and you're interrupted......
a) welcome the break
b) feel extremely irritated
c) vary between these two extremes

8. Which of the following colors do you like most?
a) Red or orange
b) black
c) yellow or light blue
d) green
e) dark blue or purple
f) white
g) brown or gray

9. When you are in bed at night, in those last few moments before going to sleep....
a) stretched out on your back
b) stretched out face down on your stomach
c) on your side, slightly curled
d) with your head on one arm
e) with your head under the covers

10. You often dream that you are...
a) falling
b) fighting or struggling
c) searching for something or somebody
d) flying or floating
e) you usually have dreamless sleep
f) your dreams are always pleasant

================================================

POINTS FOR EACH ANSWER:
1. (a) 2 (b) 4 (c) 6
2. (a) 6 (b) 4 (c) 7 (d) 2 (e) 1
3. (a) 4 (b) 2 (c) 5 (d) 7 (e) 6
4. (a) 4 (b) 6 (c) 2 (d) 1
5. (a) 6 (b) 4 (c) 3 (d) 5 (e) 2
6. (a) 6 (b) 4 (c) 2
7. (a) 6 (b) 2 (c) 4
8. (a) 6 (b) 7 (c) 5 (d) 4 (e) 3 (f) 2 (g) 1
9. (a) 7 (b) 6 (c) 4 (d) 2 (e) 1
10. (a) 4 (b) 2 (c) 3 (d) 5 (e) 6 (f) 1

Now add up the total number of points.
DON'T LOOK BEYOND THIS UNTIL YOUR HAVE COMPLETED AND SCORED YOURSELF.

================================================

OVER 60 POINTS:
Others see you as someone they should "handle with care." You're seen as vain, self-centered, and who is extremely dominant. Others may admire you, wishing they could be more like you, but don't always trust you, hesitating to become too deeply involved with you.

51 TO 60 POINTS:
Others see you as an exciting, highly volatile, rather impulsive personality; a natural leader, who's quick to make decisions, though not always the right ones. They see you as bold and adventuresome, someone who will try anything once; someone who takes chances and enjoys an adventure. They enjoy being in your company because of the excitement you radiate.

41 TO 50 POINTS:
Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing, practical, and always interesting; someone who's constantly in the center of attention, but sufficiently well-balanced not to let it go to their head. They also see you as kind, considerate, and understanding; someone who'll always cheer them up and help them out.

31 TO 40 POINTS:
Others see you as sensible, cautious, careful practical. They see you as clever, gifted, or talented, but modest. Not a person who makes friends too quickly or easily, but someone who's extremely loyal to friends you do make and who expect the same loyalty in return. Those who really get to know you realize it takes a lot to shake your trust in your friends, but equally that it takes you a long time to get over it, if that trust is ever broken.

21 TO 30 POINTS:
Your friends see you as painstaking and fussy. They see you as very cautious, extremely careful, slow and steady; It would really surprise them if you ever did something impulsively or on the spur of the moment, expecting you to examine everything carefully from every angle and then, usually decide against it. They think this reaction is caused partly by your careful nature.

UNDER 21 POINTS:
People think you are shy, nervous, and indecisive, someone who needs looking after, who always wants someone else to make the decisions; who doesn't want to get involved with anyone or anything! They see you as a worrier who always sees problems that don't exist. Some people think you're boring. Only those who know you well know that you aren't.

Stolen from Christina

MIDTERM WEEK(S) OVER. TIME TO WORK!




my samsung USB disk key is dead :( it won't work on my compter. i'm hoping the disk key is just not working with my compter... cause it would suck if my USB connection crapped out.