one of the things that i’ve become terribly obsessive about recently is yahoo music’s launchcast. there used to be this radio station called emusic or something where they would give you money for listening to their music. if you rate songs, the quality of the songs that they will choose for you to listen to gets better. with yahoo music, they will give playlists custom made to your preferences and so i’m now going through as many songs as i can so that the station will be closer to what i like.

but the thing that really drives me to keep rating songs is that they have these ratings level where the number of ratings that you have will put you in different levels.

Rating Master: > 10,000 total ratings
Addict: 5,000-10,000 total ratings
Fanatic: 1,000-5,000 total ratings
Trendsetter: 500-1,000 total ratings
Enthusiast: 250-500 total ratings
Listener: 100-250 total ratings
Newbie: <100 total ratings

i’m currently a trendsetter, but i want to be an addict. i figure i can be an addict by week’s end if i am diligent.

man, so this is what retired life feels like, huh?

the last several days can only be described as crazy. it’s strange that it seems like i have so much to write about, but i don’t feel very compelled to write about anything.

people have been asking me how it feels to not work and i tell them that i feel like i’ve still been busy every day and i haven’t really relaxed yet.

i think one of the hesitations that i’ve had is that i don’t really want to write too much about some of the things i’m excited about because i don’t want to spend too much time being excited about it. i guess it’s a self-defense mechanism of sorts. i’ve been trying hard not to get my hopes too high about certain aspects of my life. disappointment is hard to take these days, so i guess by not trying to think too much about it, i’m trying to save myself from any unnecessary hurt. that being said, i think that i will be wildly bold soon. we’ll see what comes of it.

i’ve been toying with the idea of pursuing a degree in photography. i’ve said before that i would never go back to school, but i think that photography is something that i’m pretty passionate about and i think it could be something that i would have a lot of fun with, even if it means going back to school. i’m excited.

two more weddings next month and then i think i’ll be free of wedding for this year. i’m shooting at both, it’s been a busy summer for me. i’m slowly working on my portfolio, too. i think that i may try and design some business cards too. when people ask me what i do, instead of saying that i’m temporarily independently wealthy or searching for a sugar mama, i can tell people that i’m a freelance photographer. yeah…ummm, that’s the ticket.

let me tell you, planning a volleyball tournament is a lot more work than i expected it to be. the hardest part of planning a volleyball tournament is trying to find people who will sponsor your tournament. i suppose that this can be true for anything. finding people who will give you money for anything is just hard.

hi. i’m mike. will you give me free money? no? please? still no? oh well, thanks anyway.

i went to a pearl tea place today and sitting at one of the tables was this girl who i thought looked really cute reading harry potter. i sat across the way from her and stole a glance here or there.

it was only after a few minutes that she finally took her gaze away from the book and when i saw her face i was very unpleasantly surprised. she was not cute at all. i did a double take because i thought she was really cute so to be this surprised was…well surprising.

and then i remembered something that someone once told me about people and photography. everybody has at least one angle where they look amazing. it turns out that i was viewing her from that angle. =P