Albie1 Kenobi

my parents are here!

2008-04-19T08:46:04Z

last time they came was 2 christmas ago. can't believe it's been that long already. i spent pretty much the whole week cleaning/reorganizing the place, even though i have an accounting exam on thursday. well, yeah. i really need to change my study habit. or actually having one.

plenty of stuff planned to be done here. tomorrow will be dim sum, chinese market, then costco. you know, standard chinese family weekends.

speaking of cleaning up, my computers needed to consolidate and clean up too. i have way too much music and pictures, and i was running out of hard drive space (all 3 of them). while i was cleaning up my old music, i randomly came across a song by crystal kay called ex-boyfriend. who's crystal kay? she's half black half korean like amerie, but she grows up in japan and is a jpop star.

anyway, i was shocked by how much i vibed with the song right away, and i've been OBSESSED with this song. i love music and i listen to a lot of music, especially lately. so for a song that captured me and have me putting my music players to "repeat one", it really says something. good chill/up-tempo that i can bounce to, catchy beat, tight bass line, well orchestrated, and it's mostly in japanese! i love how japanese sound and this song delivers the sound perfectly (good word choices?). maybe i'm just bias for japanese R&B. haha.

go check out crystal kay's "ex boyfriend"

wow

2008-04-14T09:43:07Z

i've taken a lot of pictures by most people's standard.

this is easily one of the best moments i've ever captured.

frequent flyer

2008-04-12T00:14:25Z

i've been pretty damn busy traveling lately, since the turn of the year, i've gone to:
- hong kong to see my family (with a 3 day side trip to guangzhou, china)
- vegas to kick it with the boys
- san diego to celebrate megan's birthday
- mini camping outside davis to get in touch with nature

as i'm leaving the office now, i'm going to vancouver to hang out with my childhood best friend and to see my grandma and aunt. this is my 3rd/4th weekend trip of the past 2 months, not to mention the planned yosemite weekend trip in two weeks when my parents are here.

and that's the reason my bills are adding up.

back to nature for the first time

2008-04-08T22:15:11Z

with apologies to everyone who i've gone on a trip with recently, i think i just had the best and most memorable trip in a long while. it was not something i expected, so maybe that's why it shines extra bright. (you know how my saying goes, "expectation and disappointment")

so here we go: i went camping. probably for the first time in my life, since i don't remember when i last did it (if ever).

arlo took me to the lake solano park just west of Davis on saturday, and we made it there JUST in time before the registration closed. we found an amazing spot that was open and relatively large with no neighbors around. (perfectly, the camp spot is # 23, which is a number every basketball fan looks up to.) with nice chillaxing music playing, we quickly set up a new tent that arlo's parents got him for christmas, and we started the camp fire before it was completely dark.

since we loaded up on grocery before we headed out to camp, it was time to start cooking too. arlo's family (used to) camp a lot, so they had all the necessities like cooking vessels and utensils, not to mention the all important propane stove top. we set up shop and, with the tiny amount of light from a small LED light and the fire, we cooked up a storm. for dinner we had tortellini with mushroom and sausage, and bacon-stuffed baked potato for dessert. for breakfast the next morning we had eggs, bacon, mushroom, and potatoes. needless to say we were stuffed the whole time we were there.

time flew when we were there. even though we were practically in the backyard of davis, it was nice to get away from everything. there was nothing fancy or extravagant, it was just simple pleasure with no distraction. food, music, relaxation. all the every day hoopla is nowhere to be seen or heard, just taking everything back to basic. it really makes you think about the way we live. we've taken electricity, running water, sewage for granted. it's amazing how little resource we can live off on, and how wasteful we live our lives.

this camping trip was definitely a very incredible experience. the only regret i have is it way too short. sure enough though, i'll be back.

i'm in a good mood

2008-04-04T22:28:24Z

it's sunny outside. i just received a whole bunch of cds from BMG. i made a cute card of/for emmie's adorable baby nephew that his parents loved. i have a clean apartment to go home to every night. nba basketball is probably having one of its best/most competitive and interesting season. i'm doing pretty good in my accounting class. i have great friends who are all far away but close at heart. my very loving and healthy parents, who have become professional traveller since my dad's retirement, are coming to visit me in two weeks. i have a sweet and beautiful girlfriend. i have interesting work at my job. i have a boss who challenges me to be better. i have wonderful and thoughtful co-workers. i just bought a ticket to go stay with my childhood best friend and to see my grandma and aunt in vancouver next weekend. and i'm heading out to kick it with arlo at davis tonight.

life is good. there's no reason to be unhappy.

"have the ethusiasm and curiosity of a kid, not the bitterness and stubbornness of an old man."

i just thought of that today. it's a much better way to live our lives.

Mr Raffi

2008-03-27T20:50:57Z

i remember the first thing that Raffi and I ever did together was to shop for a xbox 360. that was the night when he was moving into my apartment last october. we just clicked then and we've become friends ever since. he turned out to be not just another person sharing an apartment with me; he is someone who i can talk to and we share similar interests in video games and music. i mean shopping for a game console was a pretty cool introduction.

today he's moving out. his company is relocating him to LA and it was a short notice, but he's gone now. he was great to live with not only because he was cool to hang out with, but he's also very respectful and keeps the place clean. i enjoyed having him in the apartment.

my parents will be visiting the last 2 weeks of April, so i won't be renting my room out until May. I'm a little tired of looking for yet another roomate, but i'm going to hold off on that until sometime in April, since i'm contemplating about moving out. we'll see what happens. for now, i'm just going to use the extra room as my study and enjoy the apartment for myself.

gonna miss you, Raffi.

CNYE light show

2008-02-28T10:35:35Z

thoughts from a birthday boy

2007-12-31T10:49:05Z

until i sleep, i don't consider a day is over. so to me right now is december 30th. still sunday night. and i spent my birthday working. i think it's appropriate that i made my birthday a productive day. with many apologies to megan, who was planning for my birthday, i just couldn't leave my team and leave before things are done. "when you sign on a project, see it through." i kept thinking about that. i would love to go relax and enjoy myself, but i just couldn't do it. it's my birthday, so i choose to do what i think is right and what i think is the best in the big picture.

for the longest time i didn't understand what growing up means. a few people told me about that before, but now i think i'm getting it. growing up means accepting responsibilities, taking care of your life. don't just keep thinking about the past and stay in the same place. think about the future. plan for the future. gotta keep your eyes ahead. being better, learning more.

i remember vividly reading an old friend's AIM profile, and she says growing up is learning to delay instant gratification. it sounded so weird and i didn't get it then. but now i know. it means sometimes you gotta put in a lot of work before there's any return. learn to put in the work.

do more than you are ask for. increase your knowledge and skills. then you'll become more valuable and is worth (and earn) more.

so this year, i'm gonna be more knowledgeable, healthier, better. like kanye said, "i go for mine, i gots to shine, now throw your hands up in the sky."

happy new years eve y'all.

with the bros (and other adventures of the weekend)

2007-12-28T08:21:15Z

currently i'm back in the bay, slaving away for another physical inventory. well i can't really say i'm slaving, it's just long hours in the cold warehouse. it's really not that bad, though i wish i could have organize it better so it can run smoother.

this past weekend's been a little crazy but great. the point of me going to jersey was to audit one of our assembler's warehouse. to make a long story short, the address that i was given was the assembler's office, so i drove to the wrong site and ended up having to backtrack and drove further down south, and the trip took about an hour. i was kinda pissed coz i planned my stay at the wrong hotel; the hotel that i could have booked would be much closer to Newark and would have allowed me to visit my uncle on thursday night. well what's done is done, and i had an okay day counting stuff. it was an interesting experience to reverse the role and audit someone else's physical inventory.

after i was done with work, i called up dino and ken, who convinced me to drive into the city instead of returning my rental car at newark airport then taking the train to the city. that saved me so much time and hassle, and i enjoyed driving down the hudson parkway, looking at the jersey skyline. it was nice.

it's been more than a year since i saw them briefly at jamaica for dino's wedding. we just picked it up like we had lunch 2 days ago. something never changes. it's really amazing how ordinary and natural it feels to hang out with them. that's brothers for life. in any case, we hit up the famed yakiniku juju with will and sherry and selina for some grilled meat action. the food was indeed superb, but the company was priceless. i can't say that enough.

other highlights for the weekend:

- visited janet's house party late on friday night. haven't seen her in a least a few years now, so i took a shot with her and i haven't had one in a loooooooong while. she was already pretty drunk. i wonder if she remember my visit.

- we had good dimsum, really great turkish food, decent indian food, and cafe/french food. the most memorable meal i had (aside from yakiniku juju) was this peruvian/chinese restaurant called Flor de Mayo. SIMPLY awesome. we got 2 roasted chicken (Pollo a La Brasa), squid fried rice, seafood chowder (heavy in spice and not creamy, i LOVE this soup), some fried plantain, and saute sliced steak. did i mention we split this meal between 4 people and it's basically 14 bucks a person? it was a feast! definitely a very memorable meal.

- watched I Am Legend with the boys. great great movie. it was really intense, but it was well directed, well written, and well acted. it definitely have you by the throat and drive your emotions up the wall. highly recommend it.

- we spent most of our other free time playing Rock Band. besides Wii, this is the best group game out there. it's fun to play guitar, drums, or sing, and they are many recognizable songs for everyone, not to mention you can download (read: buy) new songs every week. it's totally a non-gamers game, and everyone loves it.

- i was behind schedule on monday, i was 15 minutes late and i missed my flight back to SF. after being re-routed to DC, i had a flight to SF that would land me there after midnight, which meant bad news for me because BART and bayporter would stopped running by then. while i was stretching in the back of the flight, i struck up a convo with a flight attendant, who turned out to have two daughters at Cal and is living in Berkeley with them, and i got a ride from her back home. what's the odd of that happening? life is funny sometimes.

way past my bed time now. gonna be up in less than 6 hours. good night all.

back at home?

2007-12-21T07:14:05Z

the team got back to san francisco fine on Monday, but it was another crunch time for me as i need to get our boutique PI prep ready by wednesday. since i lost a day on monday, i had to make up time for it by going all out to get it done. i have to say it's kinda nice to go all out on something, to work hard at something. sometimes i feel like i'm indifferent to a lot of things because they come so easy to me and i never had to work for them. you don't treasure things you don't work for.

i'm sitting on a hotel bed once again typing this, but this time i'm in jersey instead of michigan. the flight wasn't bad, strong tail wind made it a quick trip, letting me endure the cram-ness a little less. it was definitely a weird feeling to step out the gate and into newark airport. this used to mean coming home, but now i'm renting a car for the first time, driving by myself towards a destination and a part of jersey that i've never been to. it's odd.

i thought about going to see Uncle martin when i got off the plane, but i'm glad i didn't. it took me about a year and a half to finally get to my hotel, as i've missed turns after turns because of the unfamiliarity with the roads, the GPS, the car. weird road splits, half turns, hidden entrances. the gps had to redirect so many times i lost count. i went through some shady streets here, just made me not want to drive around anymore.

although i suppose it was a good thing that i went to all sorts of different places too, as i found a nearby mall with restaurant abound. so after i settled in my hotel room, i checked the map and asked the concierge, then i rolled back out for dinner. somehow i got to another side of the mall, and i ended up being at a restaurant called bonefish grill. i sat at the bar and had myself some fried oyster, corn chowder, and a rainbow trout, all while watching lakers play at cleveland on tv. that's just awesome.

well rockets just got beat by 1 point to nuggets in 2nd overtime. although it's only 11pm and i'm just a little sleepy, that's west coast time and i need to sleep now. looking forward to seeing my bros this weekend. nite all.

big snow

2007-12-17T05:45:16Z

well. i should be home right now in berkeley typing this up, but i'm not. a snow storm hits the central/north east and we got snowed in, and i'm typing this in my hotel room. i suppose it's a blessing in disguise breathing i get from work.

i've been here in the detroit area for physical inventory since tuesday. we took a easy day on tuesday to get ready and relax a little (that seemed like ages ago), but the heat cranked up a whole notch this week. the PI went okay, i ran the control desk for the first time, it took me a while to get into it. at least it gives me a good experience as we'll have two more PI that's bigger than this one.

anyway, snow has stopped and we should be able to fly out tomorrow, though i have a feeling that the airport is gonna be a mess and i'll need some shut eyes now.

side note: the golden state warriors got their ass whooped by the pistons today. can't believe they still had a game in the blizzard today. also want to point out that the warriors will be visiting the nets when i'm in jersey, staying at the hotel just down the road from the arena. it's like i'm following the warriors or something.

fun before the storm

2007-12-08T19:28:06Z

the past few days i've logged about 10 hours a day. wednesday night i came home and just crashed without having dinner. it marks the beginning of PI season. physical inventory around the country. i'll be flying back and forth to 3 different destinations in the next month. michigan jersey ohio. good thing is hopefully i can meet with ACC during my jersey visit, since it's right before christmas.

before all this madness began, i had a pretty good weekend. me, megan, jenny and mo had tickets for the cirque du soleil show kooza last friday at 4. since i didn't confirm my time off with my boss, i asked if i could come in early instead. so of course i got to office at 6:30 when the office light was still off. i didn't know where the central switch was so i worked under a spotlight for a good while. it was kinda dramatic.

it's interesting getting off work early. it's good to be out when the sun is still up. Kooza was fun. they set up a huge tent on the AT&T parking lot a la traveling circus. i was impressed with the stage and tech setups. it really was more of a show than a circus. the presentation and packaging are excellent. i especially love the music. there was a live band with singing. the acrobats weren't superb, the swing and the high wire act both made a mistake, but maybe it's coz a martinee show? i ain't mad at them. i have effed up at a live performance before, i know what it's like. the best portion of the night was definitely the double hamster wheel. it was really exciting to see them fly through the air but still stay on the spinning apparatus. i can't really describe that to you. you gotta see it for yourself.

for dinner, we went to palomino, which is right along embarcadero st next to the coast line. it was a nice restaurant and we all had really good food. speaking of food, jenny's birthday was on the 6th, and told her i'd make a batch of mussels from costco, which she loves, on sunday and invite everyone for that. megan suggested we make a seafood thanksgiving dinner since none of us really had one. so we thought up the menu and i spent most of sunday putting the meal together, and this was the menu:

cocktail shrimp
smoked salmon & avocado on top of garlic bread
steamed mussels in white wine
roasted butternut squash with rose mary (this turned out so great, everyone loved it)
mashed potato
roasted portebello mushroom
grilled asparagus

and i had roasted red, green, yellow bell peppers that didn't make it out on the table. my roomate raffi helped out but we still had quite a bit of leftovers. it was a feast, and it made me really happy that i was able to feed everyone a good load of food that everyone enjoyed.

i'm telling you food brings people together. yesterday it was my co worker john's birthday. me and a few people got together and threw him a surprise lunch at california pizza kitchen with a decadent chocolate cake from citizen cake (a gourmet cake place). it was a success and everyone had a good time. the whole shindig made for an unproductive afternoon. hahaha.

right now i'm sitting at the kitchen table at arlo's house. haven't been up here for a while and i know i won't be doing anything but work the coming month, so i made the trip out here. i took my wii along and everyone LOVES it. they were first curious and a little resistant, thinking it's probably not that great. but they got familiar with it and loved it. seriously wii sports, which comes with the console, is all you need. they had so much fun bowling and playing baseball, we didn't even get to try out tennis and golf yet. they both said they are going to get a wii now. hahaha.

i love my wii i have to say. aside from all the exciting wii plays, did you know that it's backward compatible with gamecube? if you have a gamecube controller and a gc memory card, you can play GC games on wii! armed with this info, i went out and got myself zelda's wind waker and the paper mario RPG. zelda is now the game i play the most. even though it's 4 years old, it's still simply a blast to play. talking about that gets me excited! i'm gonna go play now. have a good day!

wiiperience

2007-11-17T20:38:38Z

thanksgiving is around the corner (in fact it's the coming thursday), people are going places. my roomate is back home in LA for a week. a coworker on our team is taking off for all next week. another of my coworker was checking out blackfriday ads, and that got me checking out LCD monitors and HDtv. after looking around for a while, i decided that i just don't got a place for one nor do i want to pay for it. then the next idea came.

what about a wii?

so i took some time to look around for wii deals, turn out it's kinda hard to find. i told amy about it, and she adviced me to use wiitracker. well, nothing is available for now. guess what though? the next day she sent me a link: amazon has them in stock! i didn't think too much about it and just bought it. why not right? shiet. haha.

i got the free shipping option, then i found out that could take more than 2 weeks to deliver. at this time i still don't really i got one, so i want to have it in my hand sooner. you know? so i quickly changed it to the next best option, which may not arrive before thanksgiving so i said fuck it. 2 days shipping it is. turns out it's not a bad choice anyway. if i buy the wii at a bestbuy or gamestop store, the tax would be more than what i paid for shipping.

well, i have it set up right now. and it's pretty cool =) me and megan started the machine, and made wii-versions of ourselves. haha. it's pretty funny, as we messed around with different facial features and hair styles. then we used those characters to play the famous wii-sports. i tried the tennis out and megan played bowling and boxing. haha. it was hilarious to watch her box. =)

next step is to get some games. i heard super mario galaxy is really impressive. i think it will be too. though i think first business is to get wii-play (which comes with another wii remote) and another nunchuck. i hate having only 1 set of controller(s).

i also picked up some cds from amazon: sergio mendes's timeless, which is a whole bunch of collaboration a la santana's supernatural.; sergio mendes & basil '66 greatest hits, which sounds a little like brazil version's abba; jill scott's live concert double cd; and a jamiroquai concert dvd. it was this package that made me realize that super saver shipping could take really long, but turned out not. i received the wii and the cds yesterday at work, with the wii arriving in the morning and the cds coming in the evening. feel like christmas.

buying stuff like this made me realize that's what my job really is: making sure products get to places on time. i rarely shop and so i was never familiar with consumer business. i just don't really understand what i'm doing sometimes. buying the wii has also taught me that, it's not really hard to invest. buy something when you know it has value, and resell it for a higher price when there's a market. wii official price is 250, but on ebay in general they close for 350 or so. that's $100 profit! it's not hard to make that money.

just checking in y'all

2007-11-17T20:35:42Z

back to being sick again. probably just too much sickness going around right now. more than a few things happened besides being sick though. it's a good thing though. at least i have something to write about here. hehe.

i found a way to keep data entry interesting last week: listen to stand-ups on youtube. so far i've listened to dave chappelle, russell peters, eddie murphy (who's simply amazing btw), and richard pryor. any suggestions?

last sunday me and megan went on a drive on the pacific coast west of the san fran pennisula. it was pretty nice. pacifica's beach was rumbling. the waves were huge. i don't understand how people were fishing there. when we got to half moon bay, water there was much calmer. it's still too freezing cold to get into, but you can at least walk on the beach for a bit.

being sick is no fun. not terribly sick right now, but being tired all the time sucks.

360 weekend at davis

2007-11-06T05:29:27Z

this weekend was really chill and nice. weather bounced back a little so it was nice out too. my new roomate raffi is really cool. he's the first roomate i hang out with since george in frosh year. been a long ass while since i've been living with someone fun. anyway, Arlo invited me up to davis and i took raffi along. it was good time all around. we hooked the 360 up to a huge HDtv and gamed a lot. arlo also made some badass ribs, possibly the best he ever bbq'ed. the fact that we all had similar good taste in music was a major major plus. we really enjoyed our relaxing time, away from the madness.

back to work today, which is nothing new. same shit i been doing the past month plus. me and megan were gonna have a run around lake merrit, but it was getting dark fast and megan needed to get something for her spanish friend's wedding (in spain), so we went shopping in downtown instead. i haven't shopped downtown in the longest time. i barely spend any time in SF now other than when i'm working. why be there when you don't have to? anyway megan picked up two really nice champagne glasses from Tiffany, and we went to dojimi an (this jap restaurant on o'farrell cross powell) for a delicious dinner.

that's it for now. more interesting/boring update soon!

november is here

2007-11-04T00:41:32Z

this is my first post in november. in fact i didn't even know someone left a comment for my last post til now. i feel like i'm so busy doing nothing every day. every day's the same. and i'm so bored. when i get a chance at work, i'd go on slamonline to escape. i do data entry everyday. it's like postal work. you process shit into the system over and over and over again. it's an never ending job. great for job security, terribly monotonous. it's alright if i don't give a shit about my career. i can just fuck around and do this all day but i wanna be something. ugh.

one thing about slamonline is i found a bunch a people who are all diehard basketball fans and they kinda got me back into blogging about the nba. go to idunkonthem.blogspot to check out what i've been up to lately. i've spent some quality time writing. you know it's kinda funny that i used to be the sports editor for my yearbook, and i didn't write one single copy. i was there for the technical/layout stuff.

anyway i'm gonna go finish the inventory book that my boss gave me back in May or June by this friday. at least then i'd be doing something for my job.

i have things on my hand way too long and i need to do something better with them. i gotta flip things. become more and give more, and that will get you more.

hi

2007-10-17T08:24:55Z

this is the first post of october, and it's more than half way over. man. time flies don't it?

my new roomate raffi just moved in. i was supposed to go up to hang out with arlo this past weekend coz he's having a birthday gathering, so i met up with raffi to give him the house keys to move in this weekend. turned out he was getting a 360 that day so we went about union square looking for one. gamestop, virgin, compusa have no stock. raffi did end up getting one the next day at another gamestop in el cerritos. he was dying to play halo 3, and i couldn't wait to get my hands on nba 2k8. i think we were both happy with what we got. that's an understatement. exited is more like it.

other than that, job hasn't been too amazingly fun. there are things to do and i'm just starting to not care. you can never do the job right anyway. there's always something wrong. though i suppose that goes for everything. i also don't feel very close to my co workers. maybe i seem standoffish? i know it shouldn't really matter but i still wonder what they think of me. it's only natural right? right.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

today was a good day

2007-09-27T07:49:25Z

i'd say today was a good day.

got to work okay, and finished all the data entry i've been doing this week for the time being. weather was was hot outside, so me and megan shared a burrito and taco outside the embarcadero center after i got back to the office, thought it'd be a good idea to get some ice cream and share with everyone. well not EVERYONE at work, but people we worked directly with. it was cool, a little ice cream social. our department moved to a new floor recently with more open space between us (instead of individual "cell" cubes), so people could gather around. it was nice. everyone had fun.

after work i went to apple to check out their new ipdos. i must admit they are effing impressive. everything. the video nano is surprisingly watchable. the size ain't too small. it's also exceptionally thin. i was quite amazed with it. i mess with iphone for the first time ever and i'm REALLY impressed with it. it's like everything you need electronically put together: internet, map, phone, music, movies, pda functions. they are all well interfaced with each other. only problem i have with it is it's impssible to type on the touch screen. i don't have big finers and i have trouble hitting the right key. that's all the complain i have with iphone (well can't tell how we it works as a phone), everything else is nice.

afterwards i went to bose in sf centre, because my headphone's left speaker stopped working. the service was great. the sales check the cord, then the headphone. then just exchange it for a new one without charge! well it's less than a year old so it's under warranty, but i didn't provide him with any proof of that. it was pleasantly surprise. great stuff.

i came back home, relando dropped by and my new roommate (subleter) raffi cam by to drop off his deposit. another roomate. man. at least he's cool. oh one reason why i picked him coz he went to same high school as my frosh year roommate george, and fabi. and direct. and julia? damn i know a lot of people from glendale. speaking of which george is coming up this weekend. jasper switch place with george to see sheryl, hoey's at harvard. just me and john around. it's all good though. we'll play some basketball, watch the cal game and probably play some video games. you know, doing the guy thing.

Re-emerging into the world

2007-09-11T03:35:26Z

i'm utterly and completely exhausted right now. i just came back from working 11 hours straight with no break. after working 16 hours yesterday. after a week straight of at least 9 hours of work a day.

yup. it's physical inventory time. best time of the year, of course. so i apologize for disappearing for so long.

well i was in hong kong for two weeks and unbelievably i was actually busy not doing a whole lot. i ate a whole lot, which is a trademark of a trip to hong kong. didn't get to play piano or basketball or video games as much as i'd like. only get to do those about 3 times each. my bro even bought an extra 360 controller and we only managed to raced in forza 2 for about half an hour.

the biggest thing was taking a family trip together for the first time in 8 years or so, before i went to college. or maybe even 9? i don't even remember. we went to macau, which i haven't been to in about 15 years. it used to be our family vacation spot, also where my mom was from. i vaguely remember things there, and it all looks so much smaller now. tiny legs and tiny eyes made things seemed much bigger and farther away back then. it's developed a lot but still preserved a lot from yesteryears. we stayed at a nice hotel, ate a lot more fine food (had possibly the best canto meal i had this trip, and probably in YEARS), sight see, and took massive amount of pictures with my dad's digital SLR. it was a lot of fun.

okay. done talking and near death. gotta eat/sleep. night all.

a hip hop experience

2007-08-23T02:05:01Z

what do you call a concert that last from 11 in the morning til 10 at night and featured a massive old school hiphop lineup?

an experience. seriously it was one of those once in a life time experience. for one, i don't think i've ever stood for at least 12 hours straight. me and john got to AT&T park around 10 in the morning for the line, and we didn't sit down until we got on BART around 11. it was pretty damn intense.

there were actually a main stage and a side stage, though the main stage lineup were so monstrous that we never left the front of the stage. check this out:

jedi mind trick
immortal technique
pharoahe monch
epmd
talib kweli
mos def
the roots
public enemy
cypress hill
wu tang
rage against the machine

impressive right? if you dunno them, i feel bad for you. true hip hop at its best. (yes, the shit you hear on the radio is exactly that, shit. Nas is right, hip hop is so fucking dead). aside from the above listed artists (not to mention MF doom, blackalicious on the side stage), during the set changes on stage, there's MC supernatural (an AWESOME freestyler) and Rahzel the human beatbox. them two are probably two of the best at what they do. really really good shit. surprise guests included jean grae doing a song with talib and redman doing rockwilder with methodman.

all the performances were just fun. my favorite set was mos def, especially since he was doing his set off the stage on the "runway", just close the crowd. i love MOS. the roots did a medley of hiphop classics that was off the chain, and their set was just really fun to bounce around to too.

so what makes this an experience, more than just a concert? aside from the required endo that everyone was smoking (cypress hill was smoking a FAT ass joint on stage), towards the later acts, we got squished closer and closer to our neighbors. when Wu Tang was performing, if you put your hands up to do the Wu sign, you wouldn't be able to put your hands down; by the time rage comes out, i was pinned against the rail. it was more about staying alive then watching the show. crazy was what it was. i finally had to get out and went towards the back to breathe. the show was much more enjoyable too. or at least i can pay attention to the show and not other people's elbow.

the experience didn't end after the show ended either, as 50,000 people took the street and caused a ruckus. i mean. that's what happens right? people were walking on the streets and mooning cars as they go by. the cops couldn't do much either. it was crazy. they should be glad that this didn't turn into a riot, consider that Rage against machine was the last act. hehe.

right now my right ribs are sore from being pinned against the rail, my lower half of my face and my neck are slightly sun burned (at least i had a hat), and my feet are kinda sore. was that all worth it? hell yeah! you bet your sweet ass it was worth every single minute of it. (though i must admit it would be more enjoyable if we stood back and not get smashed by the crowd)

be true

2007-08-17T09:13:07Z

quick. 10 things you are thankful for:

1) healthy parents
2) brothers who are bonded forever
3) good friends who you can always count on
4) nice and comfy place to live in
5) fun car to drive
6) all the gadgets that i want
7) UC berkeley diploma (truly b.s.)
8) relatively strong health (i need to get a phyiscal)
9) good music collection
10) a wall of beautiful places i've been to

i feel that i've been trying to present myself as what i'd like other people to see me as instead of who i am and how i really feel. edgar mentioned yesterday that, formality is being fake to a certain degree. because true friends don't need the show. just be yourself. now i realize it's harder than it sounds. unbelievable.

also just realize that i barely ever talked to my brother. the last 8 years i've been here in the west coast made it tougher, but when we lived together we didn't talk much either. that's someone i need to talk to on this trip too.

i'm doing a thought excercise:
i am somebody in this world. people notice me. i mean something to people. in fact i mean a whole lot to some people. i exist in this world and i have affected my surroundings, whether it's good or bad.

hmmm... never thought of it that way.

plenty to be thankful for. just be true.
(well even this end paragraph seems too calculated. back to basics, back to basics...)

after the rain...

2007-08-16T11:14:52Z

it's 4am right now and i haven't stayed up like this in forever. at least not for a weekday anyway. today, well yesterday by now, was edgar's bday. sree called me during the day and told me they are having a bbq and shoot some pool and thalasa. turned out we were at thalasa from 8 til 11. we all had a good time there, especially sree who ended up making up with some girl at the bar when he went to grab a few beers. that was truly random, but i didn't slack either, i saw my ochem lab partner wendy who i haven't seen in 3-4 years and caught up with her a little.

after a really wild KFC run that involved with sree practically yelling at the intercom to get food (makes me wonder how many drunken/stoned orders like that for KFC/taco bell a night), we rolled back to edgar's place to hang out. we all just had a grand old time with the boys talking and bullshitting around. it was really nice.

it's starting to step into the weekend, and it's gonna be something. on saturday i'm going to rock the bells concert, featuring MOS DEF, talib, the roots, wu tang, cypress hill, jedi mind trick, blackalicious, doom, oh and did i mention rage against the machine? yeah. that's gonna be from 11 in the morning til 10 at night. gonna be CRAZY!!!! only thing was Nas was supposed to be there, he alone woulda worth the ticket for me. but damn, he ain't gonna be there, and a lot of people are pissed about that. still gonna be a massive lineup though.

and on sunday? i'm flying back to hong kong for two weeks. i suddenly feel the need to just disconnect from my everyday life. just wanna step back and see what i'm doing, why i'm doing it, and where am i going. relando brought a co-worker along tonight and she said that she's got everything planned out ever since she came out of a serious accident unscathed. that's what i need to do (plan stuff, not getting into accident *knock on wood*). retreat, refresh, and reintroduce myself.

strive to better yourself each day, but at the same time, count your blessing because there are so many less fortunate people than you are (you don't have crippling disease that destroy your life, you don't live in poverty, you don't have to deal with disaster aftermath, etc etc).

a chinese story

2007-08-15T19:04:14Z

i was perusing a chinese philosopher's book, and came across this story:

A man steals a chicken from his neighbor's farm every day, and it happened for a long while. one day he was finally caught, and the farmer was a nice person so he agreed to let the thief off, if he acknowledged his wrongdoing. so the thief said, "I'm sorry for what i did. how about this: i'll only steal one chicken a month and i'll stop stealing a year from now."

does that make sense to you? of course not. the moral of the story is, if you know you are doing something wrong, you should stop that immediately, not phasing it out.

driving my life

2007-07-29T05:09:43Z

i haven't been feeling myself lately. actually been a while. i'm not even sure what's happening. i think i need changes in every facet of my life.

not updating for so long, i actually have a lot to say but now that i'm sitting here i'm drawing a blank.

i've been having longer drives (hour plus) quite a bit, and i think driving has taught me about life-relating things. how so? reading traffic and reacting to it is like investing. you try to get from point A to point B, you can take different opportunities or ways to get there. changing lane is like making choices to invest yourself in getting ahead, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. to make those choices you have to know what's going on around, otherwise there'll be casualty.

learning to understand the immediate surrounding will enable you to make better decision, knowing your ability and utilizing it when chances come is also very important. experience helps a lot too. for example, in general it's faster to stay on the fast lane, but sometimes when traffic is slowing down, there're usually less cars in the slow lane so you'll actually make better gain because the fast lane is now stuck with so many cars.

just random stuff i thought of when i drive. it's practically though, right? i mean what i said applies to all situation. there's always a set of rules for the game and there's technique to play that game. learn both and you'll do fine. learn both well and you'll do great.

outdoorsey

2007-07-16T07:11:59Z

this weekend i've spent a lot of time outside, it's good for a change. started off on thursday night with fire art festival, which was at a small parking lot right next to the west oakland station. here are the pictures:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8CZsm7Jo0cMLG

friday night i went up to arlo's at davis. he had some friends over for some bbq and we played croquet in the backyard. it was quite fun til late at night. the next day around noon, we went to a middle school with a whole bunch of nice courts and no one was there. me and arlo shot around and we threw a football around too. then i took my car to elk grove, coz i got moshin to help me do some maintenance stuff at his work place. it was really quickly done, and now i can drive my car without worrying about it. i kicked it at arlos' for a while before i headed back to the bay late at night. it took me two hours coz there was a part where 3 lanes were reduced to 1 because of roadwork. not fun.

today me and megan met up with van and her bf Tom and stern grove festival in SF. it was really hot and sunny everywhere else but the fog was so thick near the coast in SF. and we were slow to get there so there was no place to sit really. we ended up sitting on some slope that was barely able to support us stably. the music was good and the venue was nice, but i personally didn't really pay that much attention, keeping myself sat on the slope was tough enough.

well i really should go to sleep. i'll post more pictures later on.