song of the week #10

As a follow-up to andy's recent entry, john is back with some new stuff.

I'm friggin looking forward to his latest album titled "Continuum" which will be released 9/12. He recently hosted a program on Star 98.7 during which he plays his cd in its entirety, while also offering a brief commentary before the beginning of each song. I already downloaded the entire show, but because of legitimate pirating concerns, they audibly stamped each song midway through with a female voice that chimes, "You are now listening to John Mayer's Continuum on Star 98.7, in stores September 12th." It gets kinda annoying after a while (but let me know if you want it anyways).

He displays a lot of maturity in his songwriting as he takes on some very difficult topics, and his vocal skills jumped up a couple levels too. He records a soul tune which was interesting to hear. The guitar definitely took a backseat to the lyrics and vocals, an observation that can be attributed to his maturing as a singer-songwriter. I think he's making the statement that quality, intelligent songs can be created without needing his guitar to speak too much.

But seriously, it's good. I think it's his best album yet in terms of quality. I don't know how far up the charts it'll go, but it's a dense, dense piece of work that has a delicate mix of uptempo tunes, hints of pop, somber/pensive stories, and an honorable Hendrix cover.

Here's Waiting on the World to Change.

mile-high city

Away on business again. First stop, denver. I was surprised to find the weather scorchingly hot even here, but I guess no region is exempt from experiencing the weather anomalies this year. I would love to come back here during basketball season, flaunt my lakers jersey and soak in all the anti-LA sentiment (kobe was innocent), but I already stood out like a sore thumb because this city completely lacks ethnic diversity. I swear, I saw only two other asians while I was here.

Training was bearable, mountains looked gorgeous, food was excellent, and I haven't seen any snakes on a plane yet.

St. louis next, then back to good ol' pacific standard time.

new toy

So, I've been playing around with my new Bushnell telescope since I got it a couple weeks ago. Granted, it's pretty rudimentary compared to most, but a telescope was something that I've been wanting for a long time.

It sure beats squinting at the moon while trying to find the Sea of Tranquility. And if you haven't seen it yet, the moon magnified is reason enough to take your breath away.

But besides the Bears, the Summer Triangle and a couple other hard-to-miss celestial objects/constellations, the retarded light pollution (& can't forget the air pollution) blanks out most of the sky. Sometimes, I wish I just lived in the countryside. But still have high-speed internet access, of course.

This should serve me well for the time being until my desire for this can no longer be contained. Only $200k. One day!

rock's on the finger

Enough about weddings -- let's hear it for engagements. Congrats paul and tammy! You crazy lucky bastards.

angie & jude's wedding

Despite the lack of air conditioning in 110+ degree weather, these two couldn't have been any happier. How'd it happen? Boy likes girl for a couple years, skips the dating, pops the question. Crazy.



Cunningham guys more aged than last time.

dreary duty

It's time that I could no longer postpone my public service to this great country, which is why I'm currently at the courthouse serving jury duty. The compton courthouse. Out of all places, why the compton courthouse? Yes, justice must be served, even here.

I'm definitely one of the youngest people here, if not the youngest. I hope my youth is reason enough not to be picked to serve on a jury. Wearing a big fat tie-dye shirt could have helped too.

There are multi-colored signs posted all over the walls that says "We <3 our jurors." I hand it to them for trying to make this process as painless as possible, but these signs just aren't cutting it for me. Surprisingly, there's computer terminals with internet access, thank God. I've opted to pay the $12 all-day pass because it's a small price to pay to keep my insanity.

Thank you blogs, xangas, wikipedia, bensbargains, gmail, and google chat, for helping me through this day.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

edit:
I almost officially became juror #11, but I dodged the bullet! Thank you God!!

ursa major

A close brush with death this past weekend was a stark reminder of my own fragile humanity. Other than that, the escape to big bear couldn't have come at a better time. I never knew how homemade spicy tuna rolls can be so dang delicious. Thanks for the weekend comrades!

On a serious note, I now made it my life-long mission to find a suitable girl for the man who saved my life - joe song.

What do you say irene?

guitar talk

Man, I wish I could have conversations like these.

happy 4th!

floridurrr

Dang, d.wade is a hero here. Unfortunately, so is shaq. Still, all this just strengthens my pride and loyalty to my LOS ANGELES LAKERS.

I <3 LA!!

westside love

An awe-inspiring parade of thunderous rain one minute, followed by an 80% "i-can-breathe-water-through-my-nose" wave of humidity the next. Such is the capricious nature of summer weather in Raleigh, North Carolina. Which reminds me. I once had a mountain bike in college named Raleigh (that's its model name, and we were on a first-name basis). When I could no longer withstand my time apart from KFC, Raleigh and I took the #51 bus which went down Telegraph to the nearest KFC. In my haste, I jumped off and bought my treasure... at which point I came to realize that I had left him behind. 'Twas a very sad day as I patiently waited for the same bus to come back on its return route, and when it finally did, displayed no trace of him. Damn.

Bikes to airplanes. Business trips used to be a shiny and novel thing. Huh? Free trip and an expense account? Count me in baby. Now, I can't stand being away from California for too long. Delayed flights, crumpled clothes, frantically searching for your luggage as they’re carried out by the conveyor belts, receipts strewn everywhere.. these things slowly tax you away. Evaluating all of my cali-external trips as a conglomerate whole, it makes me realize how good I have it on the westside. Sure, we might have the most congested highways in the world, but that’s all the more reason to take the scenic byways. And just by the beaches alone, California kicks your ass.

Raleigh has some great-tasting shrimp though. Fresh evergreen trees everywhere. People say y’all a lot. And I saw rain in the middle of summer… what more can I say.

cherry bomb

Whole Foods offers the most delicious cherries I've ever tasted in my life. Tastes even sweeter outdoors while watching Sergio Mendes, John Legend and Indie.Arie get their rock on.

summer days

Yesterday, the sun reached the northernmost point in the sky. This marked the first day of the summer by the arrival of the summer solstice, which is the only day out of the year with the longest daylight period.

In tribute to the new season, I have equipped myself by having an unprecedented five pairs of cargo shorts in my possession. Summer, here I come!

i hate the mouse

I'm constantly in front of a computer at work, so it's absolutely essential that I depend on keyboard shortcuts to make my work processes much more efficient.. and to keep myself sane. Beyond the well-known Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V commands, I hope you find something useful in this list that you can start using right off the bat. Don't be selfish and contribute to the list! Shortcuts of other well-known applications are welcome.


Windows
F5: refreshes the current window
F2: renames selected object
Alt+Enter: opens the properties of the selected object
Alt+F4: closes the current window/application
Alt+Tab: cycles to another program from left to right
Alt+Tab+Shift: cycles to another program from right to left
Windows button+R: opens the Run dialog box
Windows button+D: minimizes everything and shows desktop
Windows button+E: opens Windows explorer
Windows button+C: opens Control Panel
Windows button+L: logs off Windows
Ctrl+A: selects all items in current window
Ctrl+Z: undoes previous command

Firefox
Pushing mouse scroll wheel: opens link in new tab
Ctrl+Tab: cycles tabs from left to right
Ctrl+Tab+Shift: cycles tabs from right to left
Ctrl+[1-9]: selects tab based upon position
Ctrl+T: opens up new blank tab
Ctrl+W*: closes selected tab
Ctrl+R*: refreshes page
Alt+D*: jumps to address bar
Alt+left arrow*: back
Alt+right arrow*: forward
*applicable to IE

Outlook
Ctrl+N: opens new mail message
Alt+S: sends email
Alt+R: replies to current email
Alt+W: forwards current email

Ctrl+Alt+Del^2: dollar bills start spewing from your cd/dvd drive.

one day, I will

go to Vienna, where it all began.

song of the week #9

edit: Starfield concert was great. Didn't expect body worship performances by the youth group and the multiple alter calls, but all in all, 'twas a memorable night filled with energetic music. Those Delirious covers were certainly a pleasant surprise! Thanks roach, for getting us cheap tickets.

Here's a song from their latest album. This is slowly becoming my new favorite... solely based on one line only.

Starfield - Unashamed

Here I am at your feet.. in my brokenness complete.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In lieu of this friday's starfield concert, here's one of my favorite starfield songs. Man, what masters of the delay and effects pedals.

Starfield - Love Break Me

Love, break me now, strip me down
May Your beauty deep inside of me resound.

scrapping for glory

So we all know that Downey is home to the oldest existing McDonald's located on Florence and Lakewood. If you didn't, now you do.

What I just found out today: according to Wikipedia, Downey is also home to the very first Taco Bell too.

What a star-studded town!!

...

Who am I kidding, this is pathetic.

hard to grasp

the Promethean sunset.

song of the week #8

Gavin DeGraw - Meaning

I gotta admit, it took some time to really appreciate this guy's music.. a late bloomer for me. But this guy is good. Hear some of his other songs, such as "More Than Anyone" and "Chariot," and you could definitely hear him belt it out.

"Meaning" is one of those anthemic songs you like to sing along to on the way home with the windows rolled down. Unless, of course, you're stuck in traffic.

Sometimes our only way is jumpin'\ I hope you're not afraid of heights

back to school

Traffic school, that is. =/

Figured I pushed off attending traffic school as long as possible, with my traffic school completion date coming up next week. This was for a ridiculous speeding ticket I received last December for going 80 mph. So I'm attending the illustrious Pizza-4-U Comedy Traffic School, having just survived four hours of class today and four more tomorrow. It's really interesting how so many of these traffic schools have "pizza" and "comedy" in the title, obviously in hopes that it will make traffic school appear to be less painful and mind-numbing than it truly is.

Anyways, the instructor is this really quirky guy who has a knack at reciting traffic law ordinances by heart. Do you know what vehicle code two-two-three-four-nine represents? It's blah blah blah... Truth is, he shouldn't even be teaching traffic school, because he has twenty-four tickets under his belt. He would shake his head in disbelief, slap his knee, then tell us another story with another traffic law ordinance squeezed into it.

Well, I took some notes because it was the only way I could stay awake:

• it's really NOT illegal to change lanes in the middle of an intersection
• the horn must be audible up to 200 ft.
• motorcycles should always have their headlights on during the day
• the 605 freeway issues 17,000 tickets a year
• "Don't hit pedestrians. They're squishy."
• "Do not use flares if there's a gas leak. It's kinda self-explanatory."
  
• "Traffic school is organized torture, you do realize that, do you?!"

Sigh, I do. ARGH!

berkeley, i missed you

An overdue recap of an overdue trip:

• The drive up with roach. We stopped for food and the night was unusually humid. We went to a Jack-in-the-Box that was SO swarmed with flying insects that we resorted to the drive-thru (and also because of the fact that the line inside was ridiculously long). Seeing some of these bugs up close as they were crawling over the windshield was friggin gross. Roach improved the situation by keeping his windows down and letting these hellish creatures inside.. roach and bugs.. should have known..
  
• Arriving in berkeley right before Top Dog closed. Took one bite of my bratwurst and threw it away. When the heck did they start using sesame-seed buns?!
  
• La burrita restoring my confidence five minutes later
  
• Randomly going to the library and running into ivy, danny park, david lim. Broke my heart to see everyone studying.
  
• Staying over at brian hwang's and richard huh's joint. Thanks for boarding us guys! But you sheks better stop it with the shek-like behavior.
• Seeing my small group boys: danny park, jacob, david kim. How big you guys have grown.
• Waltzing to the Bearcade where I find an out-of-place gelato shop in its stead. Where did all the arcade games go?!? They no longer exist.
  
• Taking an unnecessary psych 160 final with roach. Being the first one to finish a final was something I've always wanted to do (it was actually on my things-to-do-before-I-leave-college list from two years ago) because I wanted to stimulate fear in everyone else. As I finished the test twenty minutes later, I realized that I didnt want three hundred pairs of eyes staring at me as I walked up to turn in my test. So as a GSI walked up the nearest aisle, I seized the opportunity by thrusting my test to her and leaving roach behind.
• Walking around the b-e-a-u-tiful campus.
• Meeting up with andy, rob, kwan and frank for some amazing dinner at a texas steakhouse. We had the best waitress ever. Great food, great conversation, great laughs.
  
• Bowling at Albany Bowl with the same group plus dennis. Dennis bowling the best game of his life. Socal (me, andy, dennis) vs. norcal (rob, kwan, frank). Norcal loses. Licks bowling balls for punishment. You can get hepatitis by doing things like that.
  
• Seeing some of brian's shekki videos. Brian, the shekki things you did. Take those off YouTube.
• Dropping by 2390 Parker St. Too many memories.

song of the week #7

How can I go seven weeks without paying tribute to one of my musical heroes?

This week's song is Gravity by John Mayer, a singer-songwriter virtuoso whose song-writing skills, god-like guitar playing and soulful vocal chords I tremendously admire.

Some people only know him to be the guy who made a ridiculous move by mixing the electric guitar and pop together (i.e. Bigger Than My Body, Your Body is a Wonderland). Or the guy who makes weird facial expressions when he sings. Well, both are somewhat true. I'm not a fan of all of his pop-ish sounding songs, but you have to respect the ingenius elements that permeate throughout his music. Besides the mind-blowing electric guitar solos and riffs (which he's more known for), there are the less-noticeable elements that are still equally or even more important: his lyrics of substance, clever instrumental and lyrical arrangements, his underestimated vocal control, his passion. Yes, passion is the reason why he looks like he does when he sings. It's because he's in the zone. When you're in the zone, the crowd disappears, you forget about the guys behind you, and you just get lost in the music. His mind's on cruise control, his fingers and heart take over, and voila, he's in the zone. Everything just becomes so much sweeter.

Gravity is a bittersweet number from his latest album, Try!. It is definitely an album that's more true to his musical roots... raw blues and rock. Yet, so much of John's unique style is fused in that this type of blues/rock becomes his own. The John Mayer Trio is comprised of two other world-class musicians as well: Pino Palladino (bass) and Steve Jordan (drums). A while ago, I read an interview in which he admitted that if playing blues is something he could do for the rest of his life, he wouldn't even think twice about it. Even though this album isn't doing nearly as well as Room for Squares or Heavier Things, I think he's most proud of this one.

I'm not ready to say that he'll be next Stevie Ray Vaughan, but his guitar IQ is definitely one of the highest that the music world has ever seen. However, I was quite disappointed that Fender jumped the gun by issuing out a John Mayer signature Stratocaster, because those signature guitars should really be reserved for accomplished legends. John's not quite there yet, though he does have all the makings to be one. He also has all the unique distinguishers that already set him apart as a great artist than an ordinary one. Be assured, he will continue to grow in musical prominence in years to come.

I hope he gives you the chills.

photo outburst

Jinny Kim (in the shadows) & Koo Chung. Clippers playoff game vs. Nuggets, Game 1. Bku's 24th bday @ Speedzone.

song of the week #6

Starfield - There's a Cry in My Heart (acoustic)

Calling out my name.

the critical question for..

...our generation - and for every generation - is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?

-God is the Gospel by John Piper