Archive for the 'Personal' Category

A few years ago I came up with a small essay to help a fellow Asian male friend with his women issues, specifically how to “woo” a particular woman.  This essay unfortunately never got finished, but it’s worth a read.  I’m not implying that everything I’m saying is 100% correct, but it’s definitely a good start. 

I stereotype a lot (lol) and I make some bold statements/assumptions, but hey it’s worked for me.  Don’t take this to heart, read it as entertainment.

On a side note as soon as I wrote this, about 1 year later I discovered a book from a friend called “The Game” which a professional pick-up artist (yes apparently there really are people that can are professional women pickup artists lol) wrote.  I read a bit of it and interestingly enough his book documents some of the things I say in my essay except he uses evolution to justify it. 

If people actually like my essay maybe I’ll finish it one day lol…

Click here for the link to the essay.

You know it’s always funny when someone evaluates themselves based on others.  I believe this is why a lot of people have confidence or jealousy issues.  Personally I’ve noticed it’s also a cultural thing as well.  Things like house warming, baby showers, etc all are used to technically “show off” if you think about it.  I mean why invite people to your house just for one day?  Wouldn’t your friends, family, etc come over anyways over the course of the year if you were really close with them anyways?  Same goes for your pregnancy since you see these people ALL the time.  Why couldn’t they just give you a gift without the shower?  These things baffle me sometimes.

So back to self evaluation.  I have been evaluating myself every spring for years since it always brings back the best memories to me.  Last night I was able to just take out the garage queen and drive around under the evening stars in the town that defined my childhood.  My confidence level has always been high, but just seeing how far I’ve come in the relatively short time since High School is reassuring.  Now I’m not talking about all the materialistic things as I’ve always been blessed in this department.  The mental progression, career progression, and my place in life right now is good.  Just to be satisfied is a tough task for me as many know..

Speaking of materialism, do people really also evaluate themselves based on things you can not take with you to the grave?  I’ve never understood this one either as possessions are the things that change the most in life.  I could remember when I was in my teens and the only thing I wanted was a car and I would modify it until it was fast.  Sadly I did get to that point, along with losing my license as well at some point.  Regardless, as I grew older that desires has changed.  Of course I still love cars, but honestly I’m content with my Scion and very appreciative that I was able to purchase the M Roadster. 

Neither of these cars I would be sad to see go as I originally wanted to sell my TL for a Honda Fit or a Ford Flex as they seemed the most practical.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that your desire/wants will subside for what is practical and necessary over time.  You can’t evaluate life based on possessions since your possessions and desires change so often based on what is necessary at the time.  Since materials depreciate over time, it REALLY doesn’t make sense to judge yourself or others based on physical possessions.  It’s actually the opposite of what you want since you’re essentially saying that over time… you’re worth less lol..

So I noticed lately that several people are having a hard time with the opposite sex (primarily males).  What I don’t understand is why is something that is supposed to be “fun” so difficult for some individuals.

I formally would like to blame everything on the media.  The media has basically convinced most women that males have to be the most romantic guy on earth in order to be worthy.  This also makes most men feel inadequate around their interest and second guessing themselves quite often.  No longer is it OK for a male to just be themselves, they now have to say the right things, do the right things, pay for the right things, etc.  This never ending list seems to make most “nice guys” a nervous wreck.

It sure sounds retarded when I point it out, but next time you’re single think about it.  Also statistically, there are a LOT of single women out there in the USA.  Actually, more women are likely to be single for the rest of their lives than men in the states.  That is unless you’re hot/rich/awesome/etc.

iTunes in itself isn’t a bad media player or organizer, but the lack of FAST folder scanning and auto-updating really makes it unusable for a large collection of music.   MediaMonkey fixes ALL the short-comings of iTunes and then some. 

Since MediaMonkey bases it’s entire library on ID3 tags FIRST, changing filenames/folders/etc doesn’t affect the library at all.  Once you set the software to monitor a folder, it will scan/update itself upon startup.  This is VERY helpful as I have folders setup as sorted and unsorted.  My unsorted folder is for discs that I have not had time to create all the tags yet, but sometimes I want to listen to the song right away.  If I later change the folder in which it belongs to (to sorted) I don’t have to worry about breaking/not finding the songs on my player or even playlists!

Synching with the iPhone is quite simple as well.  You’ll still need to install iTunes on your computer for the drivers, but that’s it! Like in iTunes, all I do is synch my MediaMonkey playlists to my iPhone and it’ll always synch/update itself.  This is great as my playlists are always updated and updated.  Unlike iTunes, if the filename of the song changes/etc I don’t have to worry about iTunes removing the music off my iPhone.

Lastly, the speed of MediaMonkey is simply amazing.  It searches, organizes, caches searches so much quicker than iTunes that I’m not sure how I lived without it previously.  It seriously is the ultimate music media player for Windows!

Is the internet really a good way to express emotions/feelings/comradery?  I understand the importance of finding an outlet, but isn’t it easier to just talk to people instead?  Sometimes I feel that in this information-era we lose the touch of human interaction.  Think about it, online dating, online chatting, online SOCIAL networking, etc.  Some of this stuff is great for interacting with people that are all over the country, but when someone lives down the block from you isn’t it just another layer for us to have to break through?

Often I find it really funny how people like to text, chat, twitter, etc instead of just giving someone a call to talk.  Maybe it’s because I’m a people person, but I feel our generation started something that is so bad that our future generations will suffer in the end.

I believe this problem stems from parental guidance.  I really can’t remember much of my parents talking to me about anything in regards to relationships, friendship, etc when I was younger.  I’ve received excellent moral standards from my parents as well as the pursuit of excellence, but never the emotional support.  As much as parents succeeded in bringing me up, I’m fairly certain they failed in that part.  Sadly, I know for sure I am not the only one to have been raised like this as none of my friends that I’m aware of has gotten the proper support or even had less support than myself.  Sadly this seems like the norm after having talked to many people.  You can tell already by how often you have family dinners where you and your family sit together in a room without the TV on.

So now, that we are a generation of emotionally detached individuals we need to find a way to express ourselves without feeling embarrassed.  What better place than the internet where you can hide behind your computer and post anonymously about how emo your life is.  Sad really..

Luckily, I broke this invisible emotional barrier with my parents in my late teens.  This really strengthened my relationship with my family and in life.  At that point I realized that I’m finally not embarrassed to talk about how i feel, I’m not embarrassed to make an ass out of myself, I’m just not embarrassed period.  I’m above all of this because you do NOT get what you want by NOT talking about it.  Best quote I heard in a long time, “a closed mouth doesn’t get fed” which seems very suitable. 

So man up people, the internet is a good outlet…if you are a coward.  Talk to someone!

Sometimes, you run across a website in which you could not fathom how you lived your entire life without.  The FAIL Blog is one of those websites.  It contains so much WIN that I had to dedicate a post to it…that is all.

Spent the last few days going back and forth with my provider as it seems that someone restored my old site, and removed my newer site that had more updated posts. It’ll take a few days to get everything back in order../sigh

I’ve been lazy to update this blog lately because I’ve been having a blast with Jenny being over here and World of Warcraft (everything you heard about this being a life suck is true!).

Christmas was wonderful as always. I got to spend it with Jenny and my family. We also winded up traveling quite a bit during the vacation. Washington D.C. is gorgeous! Everyone should seriously stay at least one night in D.C. and spend the day going around all the museums.

Also new toys were bought over the break. I’ll probably post more on this as soon as I get some time.

Being roughly 1683 miles away from Jenny kind of sucks sometimes. Talking on the phone goes only so far and sometimes I just want to see her do her silly antics -=)

So being the tech whore that I am, I convinced myself to buy an iSight for myself and a Logitech QuickCam® for Notebooks Pro for Jenny.

We’ve spent most of yesterday playing with different video conferencing software. With both of us being behind a router, it wasn’t easy finding a good solution without having her learn how to port forward.

Here’s a list of the free clients (with some pros and cons) we’ve tried.

Ichat AV/Aim 5.9
– This worked great for me and some of my other buddies but, for whatever reason I could not get this to work with Jenny’s computer. This was probally the most preferable solution for me since I could use my Powerbook instead of having to jump on my PC to chat with her.

After about an hour of fiddling around with our router settings, I gave up and tried the iSight with Windows XP. Windows definately detects the iSight as a Firewire Camera but, due to the lack of driver I could not get sound with it. This was fine as I’ve been using my Plantronics DSP-500 for sound since I haven’t hooked up the speakers to my computer in a while.

These next clients were for Windows Only.

Skype with the Video4IM Plugin

– Although the iSight was detected using a generic driver, this also meant that you couldn’t adjust any of the settings. The default brightness on the generic driver was way too bright. I had to download a program called Iccapture to play around with the settings as Video4IM lacked any sort of adjustment. The quality was very good after the iccapture adjustments and it even used our Skype logins! The program was very painless and used Skypes methods to break through firewalls (which was what we wanted).

Eyeball Chat
– This is currently our favorite client. It has adjustability for the webcam, which was great since Iccapture was a 3rd party pay program. The video quality was actually better than Video4IM and had the same break through firewall idea. It also allows you to log into AIM, MSN, and Yahoo just like GAIM.

The two webcams we’ve used are much better than the old school logitechs that most of us probally used in the past. I believe they are using CCD instead of the crappy CMOS sensors and the quality definately shows. Until bandwith increases or someone develops some crazy new compression algorithm, I’m not sure if the quality that we’re seeing will get any better. I can’t wait until Skype unveils their video conferencing solution. I hope they can do the same for video conferencing as what they have done for voice communication.

Previously I was paying $40/month for 1.5/384 and 5 static IPs from DCA.net, but Verizon had a killer deal for $30/month after the promotion for up to 3.0/768. I signed up with Verizon on the 1st (canceling DCA on the 20th or something like that), and they gave me an activation date for the 8th. Come the 12th, i get an email saying that my new turn up date was the 15th. Then on the 12th i get another email stating a turn up date on the 22nd.

Ummm….3 weeks of false turn-up dates?! I proceeded to call up Comcast on the 13th and ask for the best price they can give me. The CSR told me $19.99 for 6 months and then $57.00 after that. I told her fine I’d like the service for 6 months and to have it canceled after the promotion. She then told me that if I call her on the 5th month and tried to cancel, she’d give me the retention rate of ‘$29.99′ for 12 months. I guess it never hurts to ask for a lower rate -=)

Of course I canceled with Verizon after the Comcast call. Well apparently there was some sort of technical mishap (yeah right) and they offered me some lower rate. I pretty much told them Comcast is giving me the same rate plus it’s faster. Well after talking with the CSR for 20 mins or so, he told me that Philadelphia should be almost done with their FIOS rollout! The ETA of completion should be 4q05, which is nearing.

Gotta love Philadelphia! I remember when we were one of the firsts to get broadband in the nation and we’ll again be one of the firsts to get fiber!

So no internet at home for me until tommorow (it’s been over 2 weeks now). I’ll have pictures of the California trip up as soon as I get everything working at home again.