Wednesday, August 1, 2007

in the philippines...

[ on rotation ] :: "birdsong" - the golden dogs


































cheers.


[ end rotation ] :: "the ghost of corporate future" - regina spektor

Monday, April 2, 2007

kendo - hachi-dan examination

pretty much as close to impossible as you'll get. pay attention, kids. and don't blink.


[ rotating ] :: "straight lines" - silverchair

Friday, March 23, 2007

kendo kata

[ on rotation ] :: "yours to keep" - teddybears


...because i need constant reminder of how to perform the katas properly. i almost failed my ikkyu grading because i had to realign my feet into position. a judge totally noticed and even reared his head in closer to see my number. good god, my heart sank at that moment. oh well...

























BOOYA GRANDMA!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

you know, i take more pride in this than i do my high school diploma and even my pending university degree. sad isn't it? but i didn't get my ass constantly kicked during practice for nothing! i received this during the 2006 december gradings, but just recently picked it up from the dojo like a couple of weeks back. i felt that i needed to immortalize it on this blog. and i need to start going back to practice and stop being lazy about it.


cheerio.


[ end rotation ] :: "lazy eye" - silversun pickups

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

and here is another weather comment

[ on rotation ] :: "nature of the experiment" - tokyo police club


today was a no jacket day. tomorrow is supposed to be around the same temperature plus the possibility of rain...but at least it won't be cold. the ice melted on the driveway so i don't have to plow my way through the snow. that is exciting. enjoy the weather while you can 'cause it's suppose to get colder next week.

i bought 3 books yesterday. not sure when i'll have time to read them, but they will be work in progress soon. i've
still not finished "eats, shoots and leaves" and i've got ann-marie macdonald's second novel to finish as well. as for non-recreational reading, i have my capitalism book i have to read still. not going to lie, i'm a little excited to read it. i love reading "new" books; books that are brand new, that is...not necessarily fresh off the press but not used. i'm strange.

i also saw 300 on friday. got there late so we had to sit at the very front. kinda sucked, but the movie was still amazing. where the hell did they find all those men?? honestly, none of them had an ounce of body fat and were ripped like your 90's jeans! makes me want to get unfat :( haha. yea...not kidding about that! :)

i need to go to bed, it's well past the a.m.

cheerio.


[ end rotation ] :: "this song was written by a committee" - hostage life

Saturday, February 24, 2007

this is my reading week, thursday, filled with movies and television and lots of things not related to school.

[ on rotation ] :: "best of you" - the foo fighters


thursday nights will never be the same without the oc to fill my 9pm timeslots. ok, sure, so now i can watch grey's anatomy at that time now but then i'm going to have to wait two hours until i can watch csi on time shifting. it just worked out so perfectly the way it was before. alas, it was a thursday night with a series finale and a conclusion to a thee episode arch.














au revoir, o.c.

i think the oc ended a little prematurely. my opinion. it's not that the finale wasn't satisfying (which it was, for myself at least) but it seems like they could've done so much more with it. it was this generations 90210 (which lasted for like a decade, i think it was...?). but it's done; last nail hammered, etc. for a 16 episode cap for the 4th and final season, they did a really good job. not going to lie, taylor townsend's probably the primary reason why i watched this season. she's effin hilarious. not only did she save ryan (as he so eloquently quoted himself in the show), but she saved the show. the other reason was ryan. i dont know what he did...it might've been the haircut...but he just looked so much better this season. especially after watching the flashbacks of
him first season (with the atrocious bangs), there was just no comparison. as for the actual series finale, considering their time/resource crunch, they did an exceptional job wrapping up the series. from julie's almost shotgun (no pun intended) wedding, to kirsten giving birth, to seth/summer and ryan/taylor antics, everything just fit. ok, so the first 15-20 minutes were kinda meh, but it picked up tha pace relatively quickly. i won't talk too much about the episode other than it was cyclical, and with good reason. like the great sandy cohen once said: "every good thing must come to an end". likely going to get the dvd set. definitely the best season, redeeming itself from the train wreck that it once was.

as for grey's...not so impressed. probably the worst episode for the series, which is disappointing. the arch started out so strong with the ferry explosio
n to the flatlining of meredeth, but i guess it's hard to conclude something like that without it being cheesy, overtly cliche and sappy. but i still had high hopes. this was supposed to be epic. and suddenly, i was very happy that i watched the oc at the 9pm timeslot instead. my heart actually hurt watching this episode. grey's is a show that constantly catches me by surprise, but this episode was so cliched and predicable and extremely unrealistic. i mean, trying to resuscitate a dead body for over 2 hours is just reaching! i might not be a medical expert, but i'm pretty sure if your heart isn't pumping by itself after 20 minutes or so, you're pretty much brain dead. most physicians usually call it after 20 minutes anyways. ok, so they started out the narrative talking about how miracles happen but you might as well have had Jesus come down walking the halls healing people and it would've been more believable than this. anyways, again, not going to go into details with the show. if you saw it, chances are you're feelings are relatively mutual.

csi: not going to lie, fell asleep in intervals in between scenes. didn't find out who the killer was so if you know, please share. what's crazy is that after it finished and i went to bed, i had a dream about it. it was pretty creepy now that i think about it in retrospect becau
se i think in my dream, i was supposed to figure out who the killer was and they were hiding out in the crime lab which, in my dream, was inside my aunt's house (which is where i was sleeping that night). i think if they continued with the miniature killer i wouldn't have fallen asleep. but i'm thinking they're going to save that for either a major story arch or the finale. funny how i'm crazy addicted to this damn show, along with its miami counterpart (holler to my homeboy, delco and homegirl, alex).

well, that was my thursday night, tv night recap.

as for my reading week, spent most of it in the cinema using up my free cereal passes. good times.

movies watched: pan's labyrinth, hannibal rising, letters from iwo jima.

movies endorsed: pan's labyrinth, letters from iwo jima.

hannibal rising was ok. if you're a fan of silence of the lambs, you might be disappointed. however, this movie made me empathize with hannibal. i probably would've done the same thing if i found out they killed and ate my younger sibling and fed her to me witho
ut telling me. i'd hunt down those sons of bitches too and spill their guts all over town. am i also twisted to think that the young hannibal was hot? hahaha! because he was!















pan's labyrinth - amazing. go watch it. it's so fucked up it's brilliant! fucked up in the sense that it's nothing you've ever seen. great story, strong cast and incredibly haunting.

letters - good. not great. a little slow. but good. worth the time and money.

i've got 5 more movie passes :)

cheerio.


[ end rotation ] :: "only" - nine inch nails

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

...and there's always a comment about the weather

[ on rotation ] :: "candyman" - christina aguilera


it is damn cold. it has been damn cold over the last week and a half. and there was no snow day today like many people predicted. boo-urns.

we got our asses served to us for the bsg game for year 15. ROE dropped to 8.8%, EPS to (something like) $2.45, image rating down 2 points and a negative cash balance.

reading week is coming. reading week is coming. reading week is coming.

cheers.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

it's not so much a pleasure as it is my own redundancy

[ on rotation ] :: "date with the night" - yeah yeah yeahs


honestly, who wants to know what's on page 47?? i am so frackin' addicted to the OC it's kind of embarrassing. really, i thought i outgrew this years ago...ergo, after season 1. and with 2 and 3 being failures, you'd think i'd be able to let this go easy. thursday's episode was damn good. damn hilarious too. and damn disappointing (in the end..."dream" sequence thingy, but with a nice touch). but honestly now, for those of you who watched it, aren't you the least bit curious as to what the hell was on the infamous page 47?? i love this new season. i love this new cast. thank God marissa's gone. however, there was that one marissa scare in the chrismukkah episode. thank goodness it was a false alarm. anyways, last season, 6 episodes remain, whatcha gonna do? i've only got one thing to say (and in the risk of sounding like an obsessed tweenage fangirl) ryan and taylor better stay together. she was so good at being bad; she's so good at being good; she's so good for ryan. there. got it out of my system. it's probably a good thing it's ending...and not just because they're ending it on a high not and all that glory...but because then it would mean one less thing for me to keep obsessing about. i mean with smallville, grey's and television in general...i might not get any work done.

i bought that bsg game yesterday (well, the 11th) and tried it out this morning with my group members. it looked fucked up. like, i had seen it before from when my friends took the course last semester, but working on it yourself was a little more intimidating. we did tinker with it a little and it's not as bad as it seemed. i'm actually a little excited about it, as geeky as it seems. basically, myself and 2 other group members are supposed to run and manage a company in the athletic footwear industry and pretty much stay outta the red. go bankrupt, fail...or just probably do really poorly...haven't figured that out...can't remember what the prof said...but not wanting to find out. i want to win. maybe i won't, but i want to. badly.

my capitalism course doesn't seem to be as exciting. my prof seems a little, how should i say...cynical, about business. well, big corporate businesses in particular; and perhaps a little bitter. but he's a very good lecturer. i think he intentionally tries to get under our skin, but something, somewhere in me, i know he's right. well, maybe the cynic in me believes him. and we all have one of those in us, don't we?...(and pause for effect :) ). the rest of the time, i've developed my own views and beliefs about the culture and environment about business and economics. but at this point, i'm just looking for the green light to graduate, so i'll just spit back his own political and economic jargon and hope that it's somewhere near his line of thought.

speaking of graduating, i went and talked to my program councillor and so far so good. just gotta pass and i should be "golden" as she said. now i just have to figure out how to do this registration business. stupid webadvisor won't let me register. i'm thinking it's because it doesn't show that my tuition is paid, but i paid it a few days ago. it's just a retarded program that doesn't show the transaction for like 5 working days so i'm stuck here worried that the payment didn't go through and might possibly be de-registered on my last semester. this happens every year, and the worry never goes away. it's kinda like when i thought i had lost my student card just a few days ago. i refused to pay the $25 to replace it and would rather think of ways to scam the system and find another means of a bus pass (though guelph's public transportation service is as efficient as a bicycle in the arctic). ok...maybe it's not quite like that...but the bottom line is that i'd be a stubborn bitch about it and bitch out financial services.

and i'm lying...i'm actually listening to teddy geiger right now. yeah yeah yeahs was playing maybe 20 minutes ago, before i went to the loo and brush my teeth. yeah, ok, so what, we all have guilty pleasures. i'm just willing to admit mine to the www.

cheers.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

woodwork

[ on rotation ] :: "level" - the racontuers


and so i am back in the g-town scrambling to figure out how to organize my next few months of academicness. i have 2 classes in class and 3 de classes. and it turns out that i don't have any classes on fridays. huzzah! i got a phone call from a mr. associate from sdm behind my house and i'm a little weary if i actually get the job. they might expose me as being a fraud in disguise as a tech. oh dear. what to do, what to do...

i have grad photos coming up in a little over 3 weeks and i still look like dora the explorer. this is going to be interesting. something amusing to look at over the mantle, i suppose. and $40 for the friggin' proofs! robbery!

spent these first few days in front of the tely. i'm on/off addicted to csi. i'm still hopping the boat between miami and las vegas...but i think i might be more partial to las vegas...only because the crimes are more fucked up. it's really quite intriguing! hahaha. aaaaaanyways, that is it for now. i still need to buy the BSG game for business policy and probably start taking a look at some of my de courses before i fall behind.

cheers.

Thursday, January 4, 2007

with a banjo in tow

[ on rotation ] :: "mad world" - gary jules


just thinking about what i'm going to type out makes me laugh inside my head. for the longest time, i've been neglecting the OC because of 2 really crappy seasons. now when they finally hit the jackpot with their best season EVER (thank you taylor townsend for replacing the dreary, one-dimensional, marissa cooper), they get the plug pulled. yea, ok, so i'm bandwagoning but hey, this season's actually made me want to come back and watch it again...religiously. i've actually put grey's aside for this, putting them on priority 3 for my thursday night TV lineup. i guess all good things must come to an end. and at least they end it with a bang (i hope. yet to see the season/series finale, but i've got my fingers crossed).

now that i've gotten the teenage girl in me out of the way...

had lunch with some old abbey friends. ok, do i ever feel old. we're all pretty much in our last year of uni and not one of us know what we are going to do with our lives. i believe it was fabiola who said:
"isn't it funny how we all went into university knowing exactly what we wanted to do with our lives? and now that we're graduating, we have absolutely no idea."
give or take a few words, but in the same context. regardless, she is absolutely right. funny how life throws you dem curve balls. too bad we all can't be babe ruths. it was a good day, ladies. we shall meet again soon! 20 year reunion, i hope to GOD that we'll all have flashy careers and bling to show-off. or just bling. just bling would be impressive too.

....and perhaps a nice, ripe, 20-something year old. hahaha! yea, you think i'm joking too...hahaha!

went to square one after lunch and met up with my alanna-giant and melo. did some of my trickery and got alanna to buy a nice pair of black, wedge-heel pumps from steve madden (ok, so maybe the fact that steve madden can make a 3" heel that feel like flats might've had something to do with it but c'mon...i'm taking the credit for slowly turning her into a name brand whore! :D).

it was a good day overall. and now it's a good night.

cheers.

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

oh, and one more thing...

[ on rotation ] :: "linus and lucy" - a charlie brown christmas


apparently, my celebrity look alike is dayang nurfaizah. yeah, "who?" my thoughts exactly. i googled her and according to wikipedia, she is malaysia's "r&b princess". that's right, bitches. brup brup. yeah, once again, "who the fuck?". yea, i hear ya. i had to do it. how could i pass up this opportunity?

special thanks to jen who introduced me to yet another great tool of procrastination:


http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/tryFaceRecognition.php


hours of your day gone. it's great.

cheers.

this is how we (as in i) do.......2007

[ on rotation ] :: "habanera (aria)" - carmen (georges bizet)


so unlike most people who were probably all merry and drunk the day before the first of january, i was asleep. let's backtrack a bit, shall we? let me tell you about how I celebrate the new year.....at home. by myself. in front of the television for 11 hours. and contrary to beliefs, it was good. very restful. very gretchen. are any of you surprised? thought not.

the short bit: watched tely until 11:30 then fell asleep until 2:30am.

why is it that there's never anything on new year's eve? i actually resorted to watching bollywood's best until a csi marathon. and what the hell is it with these bollywood movies?? granted, probably the first indian tv show, music video, or movie that didn't have the stereotypical chase around a tree/temple/whatever while the girl sings in a tone so high pitched even mariah would have to give props. instead, however, the girl was a snake that turned human and used a series of high pitched singing and dance moves as a battle to the death against an evil, power-hungry sage. ok. what. the. fuck. ? now this is something new altogether. now that i know that that's what you're supposed to do when you're in a magical rumble, i'd better sign up for dance and singing classes. never have i ever in a movie seen more cut scenes where the editing lab must've literally cut and paste the film together and ran them through a 100 year old projector. i actually wouldn't be surprised if this was just their last year's big blockbuster. i can't tell you why i actually watched the whole thing either. it was like a 10 car collision: you should just keep cruising, but you can't help but look at the chaos and carnage. you just couldn't not watch it. even my mom who had trouble reading the subtitles was intrigued by it. she almost missed a facial because she had gotten so into it. there had to be some sort of subliminal stint that movie was playing.

anyways, that's it for that. i've written far too much about it already. the rest of the day was pretty much me getting to know csi. erica would be proud to know that i stayed awake for 4 outta the 5 csi episodes i watched on the spike marathon. haha. fell asleep during the new york edition of csi. still working on ny. speaking of csi, erica would also be very proud of me to know that i watched 8 hours of csi: miami today. this is probably old news, but who the hell is leaking info to the press on miami?? and it only took me like what? 8 years to catch on to this show. it's not half bad. it's good to kill time (no pun intended) if anything. however, it's still taking a backseat on my thursday night lineups. :)

i think i'm good for now. i had something else i wanted to write down...but i forgot. i woke up this morning and planned my entire day, and i think i only checked off maybe 3 things from that list. i should probably make that list tangible.

cheers.