engine engine number 9, on the new york transit line. if my train goes off the track. pick it up, pick it up.

it’s nice to wake up in the middle of the night, only to find yourself wanting to blog the last few days’ events…

following the newly, but well-establish summer ’06 tradition, I’ve been hanging out with marvin and jess. on tuesday, jess and I took a little detour in fountain valley and found ourselves a whole new side of little saigon with a plethora of interesting little shops and restaurants. we found another little japanese market, Ebisu Market (18940 Brookhurst Street Fountain Valley, CA 92708), a few interesting eateries, a DJ shop catered towards trance, and a tropical fish shop:

a few streets down, there’s a 98cent & up japanese store. at first, it drags you in, making you think everything is just 98 cents. but then you realize that you got gyped. but then you realize it’s all japanese, and really cool. there’s so much random, neat stuff, you could easily spend a few hours there. it’s on the southwest corner of Magnolia and Talbert in Fountain Valley, in case you wanted to go.

then on wednesday, jess, marvin, ben and i went to the annual OC Fair located in the fairgrounds. we first went in the late afternoon. it was hot, and all we really got to see were a bunch of sheep and bbq smoke in the air. the hot air carried the scent of barn animals all over. it wasn’t too pleasant. the highlight of the trip was getting picked out of line for a random interview to try out a new krispy kreme chicken burger from Chicken Charlie’s. yeah, i never heard of the place either, but it’s neat to be in someone else’s blog. after that, we pretty much wandered our way out to get some grub elsewhere. we stopped by Big Lots! it was my first time going. i love big marketplaces that sell everything for cheap. i’m sure most of you can feel me on that. anywho, we just wasted some time, to only go back to the fair at night. we weasled our way back in without having to pay for parking a 2nd time, w/ one of my lame fake excuses. i must say, at night, the fair looked just like you’d imagine it. it’s exactly like you see in the movies – full of lights flying around all over the place and kids running amok. the scene is quite beautiful:

conclusion: the fair is much better at night.

yesterday, I decided that enough was enough. my lousy Logitech Z-5500’s were popping way too much for my liking. I even found that Logitech, itself, is admitting issues with it. although, I had already filed a ticket with customer support many months ago, in which they already agreed to replace my speakers. they were just awaiting my control pod. so anyway, I shipped it out via FedEx: 469197232123429. and according to tracking, it should’ve arrived this afternoon. i connected up my small little ipod speakers that calvin gave me, and then DUN DUN DUN!!! more popping…oh shit. i figured, “meh. these are by logitech too.” so i grabbed my old school sony headphones and plugged them in, finding that the popping issue was still coming from my computer. son of a bitch. I ordered the X-Fi XtremeMusic from newegg.com ($82 + s/h), which arrived this afternoon. and by the looks of it, has already gone back to it’s original price of $111.99 (suckahs!). but yet again, i got owned. i thought about it for a bit, and figured that the charge could just be built up from my computer’s long, ongoing uptime (meaning I never turn it off). so I shut it down and pulled the plug. after a few mins, I powered it back up, and tahdah, no popping. majorly gh3y! so now I gotta wait for Logitech to process my order and ship me my new speakers. I’m holding off on installing my X-Fi until they come. so in the meantime i’m sticking with my little ipod speakers. the good in all this: I still believe the Z-5500’s are to blame for the popping, with some kind of transferrence of static to my computer or something. and everyone around the net keeps raving about how much better X-Fi is over the outdated Audigy 2 that I’m using. all in all, like Martha says: “It’s a good thing.”

in more irrelevant news, I’m almost done with Advanced Wars: Dual Strike (on my DS). mission 21. that game has kept me up the past few nights. it’s really addicting. I highly recommend it. after I finish, I think I’ll wait a bit for the new Q3 and Q4 games to come out, before buying more. I’m really looking forward to Elite Beat Agents. it’s a remake of Osu! Tatake! Ouendan, which I’m still considering, but $50 is a bit much for a game that I won’t really understand.

last but not least, the heatwave keeps bringing in more and more ants into the house. earlier tonight, I left a candy wrapper on my desk before going to bed. as I woke up, just an hour or so ago, I found another streaming line of ants crawling all over. this time, I made an example out of the ones in sight, and left a note for any ants that want to invade my room in the future. hopefully they’ll get the message.

じゃあまた, さようなら!

sometimes i need to remember to breathe

there’s actually nothing of personal matter that I have to discuss, but just a lot of exciting news in general that I want to share.

first of all, in the movie industry, I’ve been following up on this new Transformers’ movie being made. I saw it on imdb.com a couple years ago, crediting Steven Speilberg as being the main producer. although he is still kept on as an executive producer, I’m wondering if it’ll end up like a crappy hook to get people to watch. Anyhow, the movie trailer has just been released this past week, which you can check out at the Transformers movie website. from the looks of it, they will stick with CGI based characters, just like here:

the only thing that sucks is that it won’t be released for another year. but in the meantime, Saw III is already in post-production. as one of my favorite movie franchises, I have really high expectations for this movie. The continuing director for this third installment will be Darren Lynn Bousman. after reading through some of the trivia at IMDB, I found out that Saw II was actually written as it’s own movie.

“This film originally came from a script by the director Darren Lynn Bousman which was called “The Desperate”. After trying for years to get it made but being told repeatedly that it was too violent, finally a company wanted to do it because they suspected “Saw” which was becoming a hit at Sundance might blow out big and they wanted to capitalize on its success. Some producers even described Bousman’s script as “Too Saw-ish”. Just before he was about to close a deal to make the movie, Saw (2004) opened huge at the box-office and the next day he received a call, and the producers asked if he could change it around to “Saw 2”. Leigh Whannel (who wrote the first “Saw”) was then brought on a little later to help Bousman with creating his original idea into a proper sequel to “Saw”.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0432348/trivia

Saw III is scheduled to be in theaters Halloween of this year. can’t wait.

In local news, I found on Digg that the nearby hangars on the other side of Jamboree were used to create ginormous cameras and take ginormous pictures. soon to be in the guiness world record, the photos were taken on Wednesday of this week. check it out: pdn online & msnbc news. i wonder if you can go in and check it out.

last but not least, i took a couple screencaps of a session of Advanced Wars Dual Strike for my buddy Calvin.

this weekend I’m heading up north with my brother. it’s been a while since i’ve seen my mom, so this comes as a much needed visit. also, I’m going to be getting a haircut. i’m kind of scared, but at the same time really excited. i’m still trying to decide what exactly I want to do with it. it has taken on a life of it’s own these past few weeks. i will be back sunday night.

peace out yo.

sometimes you have to return to the past to bring something to the present

these past few weeks have been pretty chill.
with UCI’s main school year over, most everyone has retreated back to their little huts of familiarity.
not too much has changed though. still hanging out with the uje: marvin and jess. marvin has moved back home, since he no longer has a home in irvine, but that hasn’t really hindered any hanging out time. if anything, we’re hanging out more than ever, but that’s just what summer does to you.

a few weeks ago, jess and i went for a walk around my neighborhood to the incredible edible garden. it’s on harvard and edinger. now, i think it’s owned by those community service organizations, and used to grown crops for those less fortunate. jess on the otherhand believed they’re free for anyone to take. i forgot what she thinks actually, but i think the exact opposite. regardless of legality, we picked some gimungous squashes, and a plethora of strawberries.

those are just a few of the ones we left on a tree stump while in search of a plastic bag to gather more. they’re so un-freakin-believably sweet and juicy, you’d kick yourself in the nuts over how you actually pay for them in bulk at costco.

mmm, and then last weekend we met up with ben in SD, for an afternoon lunch at Extraordinary Desserts down in little Italy. their food is pretty good and their desserts are nice, but i think the best part is the interior decor. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pics, but you can get and idea of what it’s like from the site. I did however snap a few outside…

don’t mind the weird person in the photos. she’s just this girl that I stalk. I think she knows….

last but not least, in my never-ending mission of creating my ideal room environment, I’ve purchased yet another television. this one is just a wii bit bigger than my LG, clocking in at 32″, it’s the Philips 32PF7320A/37. (on a side note, companies need to learn to name their products with easier names) I didn’t exactly do a full thorough analyzation of it before purchasing, because I failed to realize that although it has two HDMI ports, it lacks a VGA and DVI port…ports that my LG does have. but overall I’m still able to use it as I wanted. With my bro’s Apple powers, I’m going to swap my LG with an Apple Cinema display (23″ probably) after WWDC takes place in mid-August. I’m hoping prices will either drop, or a new set is displays will be announced. either way is fine with me. but for now, this is my current desk setup:

in addition, I got myself a Nintendo DS Lite (Black). the white one is fine and all, but with my constant need for something different, I had to get the black one. plus, with my black iPod and MacBook, it only makes sense to keep consistent. Now with a week of usage, I can say that Nintendo still remains top on my list of game development. Sony and Microsoft have a lot of great technology that goes into their Playstion’s and Xbox’s, but in the end, it’s always about the gameplay and fun factor. And I can definitely say that Nintendo always tops out. I just love how they don’t care about what the press says and how many people put them down, they still follow the beat of their own drummers and do whatever the fuck they want. With the Wii dropping 2006 Q3, we shall see what happens in the next gen gaming race.

I guess that’s about all for now.
I’m out.

-Joe