Ragtag Misfits

i blog every day. it's interesting. it's something i said that i would do sometime near the beginning of this year, for at least one year, and i haven't technically missed a day yet. i don't always have a lot to say, and i mostly just talk about what i did that day or offer some insight into my life. i try to keep it somewhat interesting, but when you do something every day at around the same time each day, it tends to be something you don't put a whole lot of time and energy into.

sometimes i end up saying something profound, entertaining, witty, clever, informative or grand, and sometimes i don't end up really saying anything at all. sometimes i put a picture in here, but usually i just end up leaving it as text. a lot of people have said that they don't like reading white on black, but i'm far too lazy to change my layout for those people, and i generally have a distaste for lighter blog layouts.

what can i say? i'm a dark person.

today was christin's day off, and i can say that we didn't use it to the best of our abilities. i ended up spending most of the day asleep, because i was having a pretty epic dream which included war, explosions and me owning an in-n-out ripoff franchise. the fries were more like potato chips but the method of creating them was like this spinning reverse blender that shot the chips outward and they dropped into a fryer they were dragged through methodically like some wacky conveyor belt. it was awesome.

after that awesome dream, i woke up and we went to get some lunch and off to target to replace our shower curtain that is way too disgusting to try and clean. yes, i am part of the problem, and no, i don't really care too much about it. $3 every few months for the joy of not having to scrub mold and hard water stains off a large, clear piece of vinyl seems worth it enough for me. the earth can take a hike! anyway, the rest of the evening was equally uninteresting. tomorrow will hopefully be less uninteresting.

p.s. i made this video. watch it.

Star Wars Without The Aliens

re: the title of this blog entry, that's what firefly kind of sort of is. with a 5th element twist since it's almost like river is a less awesome, more annoying leeloo dallas. without the multipass. it appears that i have found a cantonese tutor in the area that's reasonably priced and willing to work with me and keep me going in the right direction. score one for chinese! yeehaw.

i had to turn the computer back on to write this entry, and i'm not super stoked about that. pretty much i'm just super stoked to go to sleep. i'm tired. today was a long day of doing not a whole lot but it felt like a lot. we went to a great church service, had lunch with our friends [one of our elder's family] and came home. made probably the most bizarre video i've made in a while, watched 3 eps of firefly and now i'm sad because we're almost through with it. oh my.

Feels So Good

today was cool. spent a lot of time with christin at the mall, out and about, watching firefly. we saw 'get him to the greek' and that was pretty hilarious. we visited our friends at lush, ate ridiculously good bourbon chicken for lunch and ridiculously good pizza for dinner. we watched a great episode of firefly, almost halfway through the series now. we caught up on community the other day, by the way. i didn't note that before. consider it noted!

spent a good deal of tonight on my buddy way's live show on ustream. it was interesting. most of it was silliness and random conversation, but when we started talking about youtube and community and everything, it was very interesting. lots of good stuff brewing there. way is really looking long-term and beyond youtube, which is exciting. as for me, i'm just doing what i can for now. i'd love to be able to spend as much time as i do making videos for now, but it's going to come to an abrupt end very soon when i absolutely need to start working again.

church tomorrow. excited! making a video for christin's weight loss channel tomorrow as well, which is super cool. it's time to sleep now, i'm quite tired.

I Call It Vera

well kiss my grits, today's long work has culminated in this video, linked conveniently for your own viewing pleasure. took a while to decide on editing and get it all done, but i'm pleased with the final product. i'm pretty stoked on it, but interested to see what people think of it. it's almost absolutely nothing like the first one, as planned, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the end. and that's exactly what i wanted.

don't worry. you'll get it eventually.

this weekend seems to be wide open, in terms of plans and commitments. we've got none, as far as i can tell, and we may be heading down to six flags on monday for some roller coaster action. that'll be a good time for shizzle. christin has the day off again, because her boss has family in town and her wonderous services aren't needed. good times. three-day weekends. we may go see shai linne perform tomorrow, and/or see a movie. we'll see how it goes. oh! i may have a cantonese tutor and not just an online skype one. details to follow!

edit: on a serious note, today is a fairly sad and infamous day. watch this video to get a look at it.

The Creepiest Desktop Ever?

so i don't know if i've announced this on my blog yet, but christin changes my wallpaper for me at least once a month. the first time, it was david hasslehoff looking out a window with a wacky xmas theme like a bad c.d. cover, and this time... well... let's just say it's indescribably creepy. so much so that i simply must post the picture here and let you see for yourself. yikes. here goes:

yeah. and i do this knowing that it will cause many people on my facebook page to steer clear of it, and many others to immediately click to read more. that's what frightens me. i'm sure many people have seen this picture before, but i'm fairly certain that most of those people don't see it every single day of their lives, tiled 4x across two monitors. i'm almost numb to it now, but from time to time i just look at it and shudder.

like right now.

today i mowed the lawn, practiced cantonese [as i detail in this video, which you should probably not watch, that i am not linking on my facebook page because it's on my 'discrete alternate youtube channel'] and got some schoolwork done. i watched the ending of avatar while working out on an elliptical, which was interesting, and i caught up on my youtube subscriptions. go me! it looks like i'll be filming part 2 of the button series tomorrow. keep a weather eye on the horizon!

Cantonese

我要學廣東話快啲拉. it's making me crazy. 日日消失 and i still have to cheat to come up with words to put in a blog post that is going to be read by 鬼佬 who don't know what it says anyway. or just look it up on google translate and get a bad translation. it's frustrating. i need to learn more, i need to learn quickly. i need to prioritize learning the language of the city in which i hope to live for the rest of my life.

Escapa!

this game wrecked me. thanks a lot, pappy. anyway, today i felt horribly sick, as explained in 015 here. it was quite a miserable day, with the exception of the immense happiness of getting my car back from the shop [quickly followed by the pain of paying $280 for the repair] and a wonderful dinner cooked by the loveliest of lovely wives, my lovely wife. i finished my paper for school, only one day late, and i think it came out just fine. we'll see about that.

tomorrow if i feel a bit better, i'll get out and mow the lawn and maybe be productive. if my buddy is available, i may do a cantonese lesson via skype or msn, which would be wonderfully awesome. if not, i may have to stick with my rosetta stone mandarin. blech. but it's better than not progressing in my chinese. silly silly silly.

i've come a long way with twitter. ever since i started thinking about how it could be utilized and especially after reading the king of the nerds, wil wheaton's blog on the subject, i've been using it more. and i like it. i hated it at first, i was totally anti-twitter. but now i use it quite frequently and it's really a great form of communication. as i tweeted the other day, 'twitter is like free international sms for cool people.' i think that's true. so follow me, send me an @reply and let's chat a bit, eh?

edit: i re-read this post after submitting it and i must now let you all know that i just lost the game. stupid game.