Monthly Archives: March 2004

general ramblings

xbox modding

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i’ve ordered the mod chip for the xbox and now i just need to buy a hard drive for the blasted thing so that i can get on my merry way. i was thinking that i may end up installing linux on it, just for fun. and the more and more i think about it, the idea of making it a media center is becoming more attractive. maybe that’s what this mod will ultimately end up doing.

it’s kind of freaky buying a mod chip, there seem to be a lot of sketchy places out there selling them…but then again, i guess modding your xbox to begin with is kind of sketchy.

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general ramblings

uh oh

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i seem to have lost my cell phone. i’m not sure when i last saw it, but i think it could have been last thursday. where oh where did my cell phone go?

i guess i don’t use it enough to notice it missing until now. =P

general ramblings

warriors game

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oh yeah, i forgot to mention that my brother and i went to tonight’s warriors game where they beat down LA and won the game. it’s always nice to watch the warriors play AND see them win. the last time i saw them do that, they played the LA lakers. this time, it was the LA clippers. heh. heh. the clippers.

but still, the game was a lot of fun (thanks thanh for the tickets!) and we had great seats. i don’t know if i can ever go to a basketball game again with bad tickets. it’s just too cool to have the super treatment.

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general ramblings

there are no clear answers

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it never ceases to amaze me how completely frustrating life can be. sometimes it seems that there are no clear answers to be found, ever. nothing just is…rather, it usually just might be this or it might be that. why is it that life has a tendency to lean towards the ambiguous as opposed to the obvious and straightforwardness that we would all rather enjoy?

perhaps it is this way because we feel that we ultimately know what the reality of the situation is, but we aren’t prepared to accept that reality so instead we try to leave things as ambiguous so that we can fool ourselves into thinking that things may not be as obvious as we see it to be. maybe we are just fooling ourselves because we aren’t ready for the disappointment that lies ahead of us.

why is it that there appear to be no clear answers anymore?

maybe they are clear, i just don’t like the picture.

toys

neat

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last night my friends gave me an xbox for my birthday. it looks like i’m going to have to do some research now on the things that i can do with the xbox and see what makes sense.

it seems that a lot of people put linux on their xbox. i’m not sure if this will really be all that useful for me, but i guess that’s something that i can keep in my back pocket.

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techie

progress

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i’ve been making significant progress with the pearl tea pages. i’m pretty happy at where i’m at now. i think that i’m pretty close to ready to launching the second phase which allows people to write their own reviews. overall, though, it’s pretty cool.

i’ve also been getting some work done for the real job. because most of last week was spent in meetings, i’ve been unable to get any real code work done. as a result, i’ve been a little backed up in terms of actual progress on some of my projects. i guess it’s been about a week since i’ve done any coding. it’s kind of fun. sort of. i almost miss it. almost.

one of the things that i really love to have is a whiteboard. i don’t know why, but i’ve always, always loved using whiteboards for designing projects. there’s just something about a piece of paper that makes it hard for me to just fit everything in and be able to look at the whole project at one glance. i used to toy with the idea of having a whiteboard in my apartment, but think that would just be overkill. but at every job i’ve been at, i’ve always insisted that i get a whiteboard for myself. it’s one of those things that i need.

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general ramblings

stuck in a moment that you can’t get out of

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in each of us exists a sadness so profoundly painful that we build tools to help us cope with the situation we are in. denial is a powerful mechanism that we employ to help shape reality into what we want. no, things can’t possibly be as bad as it looks. it just can’t. maybe, just maybe, it isn’t. that’s how it all starts.

i got stuck in a moment tonight where i felt i had hit a low, oddly enough in a time where there was rejoicing and happiness around me. but in that very moment, i felt more alone than i ever had. it was a poignant moment that i got sucked into and from that moment i tried desperately to escape the grasp of sadness’s unyielding hand.

i’m not sure what it was that triggered it all. maybe everything that has been happening to me for the last several weeks was just building up to that moment. maybe, secretly, i knew that the moment was coming and i was afraid of what it would be like. maybe that’s why i’ve been running away from everything familiar. maybe that’s why i’ve become obsessed with cleaning my room, my closet, my surroundings. maybe i’ve been doing everything that i possibly can to avoid this very moment.

i think what it all boils down to is denial. i’ve been trying to deny reality so that i won’t have to look it in the eye and see what it has dealt me.

and i was doing a good job of it…until tonight.

techie

weird

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you know, it’s weird. at work, i’m coding all day and complaining about how draining it is to be coding all day. i tackle the problems of user management, ACLs, and all sorts of other technical things that are not particularly exciting, but still very much a part of my job.

and so one would think that on the weekend, i would be doing something drastically different to get away from the toils of the week. but what am i doing instead on a gloriously sunny saturday afternoon?

i’m writing the code to handle the authentication and user management of the pearl tea review site. the first phase of this project has been done for a while now, but it’s time for me to move on to the next part. letting the users submit reviews of their own! of course, that comes with a whole set of other issues. first the user needs to be able to create their own account. then they need to be able to edit their password and manage their account. and what if they forgot their password? they’ll need some way to retrieve it.

and then there’s the whole notion of whether or not i want to have some kind of approval process for reviews or if i should just let users post whatever they want. decisions, decisions.

oh well, at least i have a personal interest in this project.

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entertainment

average joe

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the new season of average joe is airing. the basic premise of this show is that the average joe who wasn’t selected from season one comes back and he now gets to choose from the girls. a quick twist in the show was presented in the last episode. the women who were picked for adam were not raging beauty queens, but they were still cute and fun people.

some other guys from the first season of average joe were tasked with the job to pick the hottest women they could find to tempt adam to choose beauty over compatibility. when the 5 swimsuit models were presented to adam, he was shocked and conflicted. he remembered how he felt when the hot studs were brought into the show and he didn’t want anyone else to feel like that.

what was admirable was that adam talked to the show’s producers and told him he didn’t think it was fair that these models come into the show. he said that he has a loyalty to the first group of women and it’s just not right to introduce these women to the group. the producers told him that the philosophy of the show is that adam is always the one who is allowed to do what he wants and he has to go with his gut. so adam decided to excuse this new batch of women on account of his loyalty to the first group of women.

i was shocked. after my initial shock, i was quite impressed at adam’s integrity. you just don’t see that very often.

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