Sunday, December 31, 2000

Chillin' outside of BJ's in Covina

My yearbook advisor from (my junior and senior years at) Bishop Amat Memorial High School had a little Holiday gathering at her house yesterday...and needless to say, it was pretty fun. She actually invited former students who were in her staff during the years from 1995 to 2000. Interestingly, there was no one from 1995 who attended the party (obviously, it's because those students either graduated from college or got married and moved away). What was also surprising was that I didn't say hi to the people who I thought I'd say hi to. Maybe it's because it seemed like they didn't look approachable at that moment or I wasn't really in the mood to start a conversation with them. Other than that, the party was fun.


After the gathering, me and a couple of friends and other former yearbook members went to the restaurant BJ's in West Covina to eat out. Other than the fact I have no idea why they named the restaurant that...the food I ordered was pretty good. It was a mini-Barbeque Chicken Pizza.


Okay, after we left BJ's (HECK YEA, I'm gonna tell you what happened the whole day yesterday...heheh), we went back to one of my friends' house to kick back for a while. We watched the 4th quarter and overtime of the Lakers' 116-114 victory over the Clippers...and played the video games Mario Tennis and Mario Party on Nintendo 64. While I suck big time in Mario Tennis, I got (a record?) 12 Stars in Mario Party... 10 Stars coming in the original game and 2 Stars coming from the awards handed out after the game ended. Needless to say, I won. The character I used, Mario...was the "Superstar" of the game. Just how pansy can you get?


Only blah hours, blah minutes and blah seconds before 2001...

Thursday, December 28, 2000

Yesterday, I watched the Russell Crowe-Meg Ryan film Proof of Life with a couple of my friends. The film was pretty good, but I'd say that the movie Russell Crowe is going to be most noticed in for a while is Gladiator.

By the way... For those of you wondering where I got that quote located on the left hand side of this screen (above the archives), it's by Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars (1977). It sure beats Jar Jar Bink's "Yousa tinken yousa people ganna die?" remark from The Phantom Menace.


Only 4 days till the official start of the new millennium...

Tuesday, December 26, 2000

Pretty soon, I will have a page for the Nataku Custom mobile suit in the Gundam Wing section on my homepage. Check here for further updates.

UPDATE: The Nataku Custom page is now up.

Monday, December 25, 2000

Merry Christmas, everyone!!! Hope all of you have a safe holiday and some kick-@$$ gifts.


Let there be peace on Earth and goodwill to all men...except those bastards lucky enough to get girlfriends. God, I feel depressed! J/k. I'm as happy as someone who voted for Al Gore in last month's elections.

Saturday, December 23, 2000

A few minutes ago, I came back from the theater after watching the new Tom Hanks film Cast Away. The movie was pretty good... out of 4 stars I give it 4.

Friday, December 22, 2000

Gladiator

One of my favorite films for 2000, Gladiator, just got nominated for 5 Golden Globe awards yesterday. The nominations include Best Picture, Best Actor (Russell Crowe), Best Director (Ridley Scott), Best Supporting Actor (Joaquin Phoenix) and Best Original Score (Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard).

If Gladiator is gonna win a Golden Globe, it'd be for best original score. The film's soundtrack kicks @$$.


The Broadcast Film Critics Assn. also singled out the Roman epic for some awards...while the San Diego Film Critics singled out Russell Crowe for best actor.

Thursday, December 21, 2000

Well, the wait is finally over, haha. Today I got an e-mail by what's-her-name (if you want to know who I'm talking about, go to the December 13 entry)...after 2 1/2 days of wondering when-whether or not she was gonna e-mail back. Much like finding out I passed my Math 112 class, I pretty much felt relieved when I finally got her e-mail. Even if she hadn't replied yet, it's nice to know that at least her e-mail "addy" (as one of my friends call it) was real... since the e-mail wasn't returned to my Hotmail account because the addy actually existed.

Now I don't know whether to reply to her e-mail right away or wait till New Year's Day to write my next one. I'll think about it after I log off the internet.


UPDATE: I'll e-mail her right away.
Well...we didn't run into Harrison Ford or Pamela Anderson Lee or anything, but Tuesday was still fun. Me and four of my high school friends went to Beverly Hills and Hollywood to go celebrity hunting. Our original plan was to go to a taping of the comedy Everybody Loves Raymond at the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, but fate dictated that we'd be the last people in the line to be turned away (even though we had tickets). As a way to make up for this, we went to the NBC Studios a couple blocks away to see if we could get tickets to the Tonight Show with Jay Leno taping at the last minute. Needless to say, we didn't...but I ain't complaining. I've already been to two Leno tapings, and it's the second show (the guests were Shaquille O'Neal, Christina Aguilera and, um, Carrot Top) where you can see me clearly since I was in front of the camera.


You'd think that these would be the highlight (or downfalls) of our little trip, would you? WRONG! The highlight of the trip was when I unwittingly fell flat on my face after idiotically jumping onto a walkway that was covered with slippery tiles (this walkway was outside a store on the other side of the street from Hollywood's Mann's Chinese Theater). After this incident, you could pretty much say it was my dignity besides my jaw and left cheekbone that was hurting. Damn, that was a stupid move...and a painful one at that. Even though a little bruise is visible on the left side of my face, I gotta thank my friend Usha for getting me that bag of ice to put over the swelling. I also gotta thank my other friend Jarik for laughing so hard at the fall. Kinda makes you wish I still had that pen camera, huh dawg? What a candid shot that would be...


Before we went home, we chilled at the Beverly Center and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe outside the mall. The food there is pretty good...especially the loaded chicken breast sandwich that I ordered.

Monday, December 18, 2000

Yesterday, I sent an e-mail to my Geology 104 teacher about my final exam score and grade for the class...and she replied a few hours later. Needless to say...it got me concerned. First of all, however, I'm glad to say that I passed the class pretty much easily. I got an 83%, or a B in the lab. Unfortunately, this was a decrease from a 90.5% that I had before the final exam. Dang, all I know is... If I hadn't done that special credit assignment in which I look up pictures for a certain geology topic on the internet (in my case: NASA's exploration of Mars), print them out, and then glue them to a poster board and give a presentation on them... I would've been screwed. 68 out of 100 on the exam... I didn't know I did that lousy on the test! Then again, I guessed on some of the last questions...for reasons mentioned in the December 13 entry. Speaking of you-know-who, I wonder what she got? Of course, I'm not going to mention what she got in the class if she does respond to my e-mail to her...which I'm planning to send tonight.

Anyway, about my other classes...I'll worry about them on Thursday, when most of the final grades will be turned in at CSULB. ARRRRGGGHHHH!!! I hate college!!!!!!! Haha, no I don't. Actually, I do hate college...but only the academic part (which is not good since 99.999% of the reason I'm going there is because of the academic part. DUH).


UPDATE: Around 8:00 PM today, I e-mailed the girl in my Geology 104 class. Now it's time to count the days that will pass by till she replies to my message (I even mentioned the time I e-mailed, how pathetic is that?!)


UPDATE #2: Yes!!! Eh, screw it... YESSSSSSS!!!

Today, I checked my school e-mail to see if my college algebra teacher e-mailed my final grade. She did...so what can I tell you except that, I PASSED MATH 112!!! WOOHOO!!! No more of that function / matrix / negative integer / determinant B.S. for the rest of my college years. Sure, I got a C as a final grade (and 82% for my exam score)...but that's still a PASSING GRADE!! Like I said, WOOHOO!!! Can you people picture me jumping up and down like an idiot in response to this exciting news? Well, I did!! Anyways, I'll chill now...

No more math for me. Yes!!!

Saturday, December 16, 2000

Darn it, I hate it when that happens. I don't know if it's either my internet connection or my current webhost, Crosswinds, but this is the umpteenth time I tried to upload a file to my webpage and that file wasn't uploaded successfully. As a result, the browser screen is blank because that section disappeared on my file manager. If you want to know what I'm talking about, then click on Ask Parman!. You'll see that nothing's there.

Now I have to wait till probably tomorrow to try to update that section again. ARG!!
Now, here's an athlete who's a real role model. Yesterday, Shaquille O'Neal was absent from the Lakers' win over the Vancouver Grizzlies (at STAPLES Center) so that he could attend graduation at Louisiana State University. Considering the recent news of baseball players getting contracts worth a quarter of a billion dollars to play for not very good teams, it's nice to know that The Big Aristotle would focus on completing his education. For all his talent and athletic skills, Kobe Bryant could learn a thing or two about trying to complete the collegiate level while at the same time making Jordanesque performances in NBA games. I give Shaq props for getting his degree... Now the only thing he has to do is play well enough to earn that second NBA title next spring.

Friday, December 15, 2000

Yesterday, I finally finished all of my finals for the Fall 2000 semester (it almost could've been a tongue twister), and needless to say, ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!...again. For the first time ever, never had I been so assured that I bombed a test (actually two tests) royally. About my Greek test, my teacher wasn't kidding when he said it was helpful to read Odysseus twice. Heck, I didn't even read the entire thing ONCE! I skimmed through to the good parts...which is no easy task considering the story is at least 400 PAGES long!

If my Greek test was a pain, my Math 112 exam was no picnic either. Actually, I'm pretty sure I did well on the first two pages of the test--which had 5 pages--and the last 2 or 3 problems at the back of the exam. So which parts in the test did I struggle in, you say? Well, have you ever heard of FUNCTIONS?

f(g(x))... g(f(x)... h(f(x))...

WHO THE HECK CAME UP WITH THIS CRAP??!!

Actually, it was my fault for not completing those problems...because I was too busy proofreading the steps and answers to the problems on the first two pages that I didn't realize that at that point in time I only had less than 30 MINUTES left in the class. Good job, Parman!! If God is good to me...he'll get me at most a C in the class. I HATE MATH!!!

On the plus side...I'm sure I did fairly well in my last test in Geology 102. Well, even if I didn't do as well as I thought I did, I'm PRETTY sure I did A LOT better than in the first two finals. ARG!!! After I completed my last exam, I sold all of my books to the campus bookstore, including my college algebra and Greek textbooks. The back of my mind tells me I might need those algebra and Greek books again in a later semester. ARG again!!

On another plus side... I'M DONE WITH SCHOOL!! Yeahhhh!!! I wonder if I'll run into another girl like Denise in the Spring 2001 semester...

No, I'm not obsessed. Just, um, longing.

Thursday, December 14, 2000

Election 2000 UPDATE: Yesterday, George W. Bush was officially named President of the United States.

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!


Oh, the HUMANITY!!!

Wednesday, December 13, 2000

My Geology 104 lab class ended on a great note...not because I aced the final exam (I won't know my score for that till probably next week), but because I did something that oughta make my memory of college even more fonder than that of high school. Remember that girl who I talked about in my November 8 entry? Well, I didn't take a picture with her, but I did do something that should make her keep me in her thoughts for at least today. So what exactly did I do today, you ask? Well, I gave her a Christmas card.

Now, I'm not going to tell you ALL the events that led to me to buying and giving the Christmas card to Denise (NOT her real name)...but let's just say her response to the card was genuine. She liked it. She asked me for my e-mail address, which I wrote in the card...and I got her e-mail address in return, which she already gave to me last week but it didn't hurt that she wrote it down on a piece of paper as well. =) I bought this card for the sole reason of me telling her it was nice talking to her during the semester. Little did I know that I would actually get to tell her that in person after we finished the exam. Denise actually finished the test before I did, but she was kind enough to ask me if I wanted her to wait for me (um, OF COURSE!) until I completed my test, making that compliment possible.

To make a long story short (YEA, RIGHT), I guessed on the last few questions in my exam so Denise wouldn't have to wait for me out in the hall any longer. We left the lecture hall, and had our usual conversation about school while on our way to our cars (Denise also asked me which were the best seats to buy tickets for when going to STAPLES Center for a Laker game). The moment of truth came right before we were about to depart from school.

The back of my mind was hoping Denise and I would hug after I handed her the card before the Geology exam... it turns out that hug became a reality right before we were about to part for our cars. Just that hug alone showed that my acquaintance with Denise was a lot different from that of other girls I talked to in college. Of course, it might be because the other girls had boyfriends...which Denise might have also, but she never told me. And the fact she did a lot of nice things for me during the semester (drive me to my car, wait for me to finish my final exam, etc.) indicates that she might not have a boyfriend right now...which can only make me say, YESSS!

Anyways, I shouldn't be too happy right now. I'm gonna wait a few days before I send my first e-mail to Denise...and I can't really say our friendship extends beyond the Fall 2000 semester before she replies to my message. Hopefully, she will.

UPDATE: With all these things I'm writing about her, there's pretty much NO WAY in hell I'm going to tell Denise the address to my website, even though I already told her I have a homepage.

Unless some divine intervention took place where we actually got together (okay, those last four words further reinforce why I'm keeping this page secret from her) and she wanted to read some nice things I wrote about her...she's gonna be the only one I know who I'm not gonna promote my site to.

Of course, if Denise finds my site some other way, then I'm screwed...BIG TIME.

Tuesday, December 12, 2000

Can you believe this madness? Yesterday, the Texas Rangers signed famed shortstop Alex Rodriguez (a.k.a. A-Rod) to a 10-year contract worth $252 million. $252 MILLION. In the Los Angeles Times newspaper today, there was a list in the sports section that showed how many Major League Baseball teams that A-Rod was worth more than. Needless to say, there was a lot.

Chicago Cubs...$242 million
San Francisco Giants...$237 million
St. Louis Cardinals...$219 million
Detroit Tigers...$200 million
San Diego Padres...$197 million
Anaheim Angels...$195 million

and so on and so forth...

Now, the big question is... does this guy really deserve to get that much money? He is arguably baseball's best player, but what does he have to show for it to get that much cash? I mean, sure, Shaq is gonna earn more than $200 million in the coming years after you count the amount of money that the Lakers gave to him in his extension this past summer...but at least he won a championship to earn it. Heck, the Boston Red Sox got outfielder Manny Ramirez for $160 million. What's up with that? You pay all that cash...only to face a very big prospect of still getting your butt whupped by the New York Yankees in the World Series. Like what Jim Rome said today in his radio talk show, The Jungle: the Yankees are still the team to beat...despite the improvements made by the rest of the MLB.

I dunno. The guy who owns the Rangers, Tom Hicks, is a billionaire--so it's all good how the guy spends his dough. But $252 million?? Good lawd...

Sunday, December 10, 2000

Yesterday, I went with four of my friends to Glendale to watch 3 tapings of the show Change of Heart (which can be seen at night on KCAL Channel 9). The tapings were pretty fun... In between the filming a warmup guy who goes by the nickname of "Chunky B." would talk to the audience and joke around with them (with most of the jokes either being tastelessly amusing or plain-out disgusting). One of my friends whom I went with said only 18 year olds were allowed in the studio, and after listening to Chunky B...now I know why. Every other minute the guy would cuss and say a lot of irreverant things to different persons in the audience, but in a joking manner. Heck, he even called one of my friends a horny b1tch for a sexual poem that she said while standing in front of all the audience. She pretty much deserved to be called that if you heard the poem. I'm not gonna type that poem in here unless I want my blog account to get cancelled. =0 Although the taping of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno goes much smoother than the one for Change of Heart, the warmup guy working at the NBC studio isn't as funny (or crude) as this guy. Good work, Chunky B.


Of course, it was one of my friends who had a pretty pleasant experience during the Change of Heart tapings. Totally enthralled by host Chris Jagger, she managed to get Chunky B. to take a photograph of her sitting on Jagger's lap...with her getting his autograph afterwards. I guess that experience could've been the equivalent of Francine Dee sitting on my lap or her kissing me on the cheek while our photograph was being taken. HAHA!! Hah. Anyways, after we left the Change of Heart tapings, we ate at Old Spaghetti Factory in Pasadena. This may sound like no surprise, but DANG, the spaghetti was good. Not only that, but we got vanilla ice cream as dessert for FREE.

Friday, December 08, 2000

At least they didn't lose by 33 points this time. Tonight I went to another Laker game (with one of my brothers), and they lost to the Seattle Supersonics...103-95. They almost rallied in the fourth quarter when they were just down by two points at 92-90, but rookie Mike Penberthy missed an easy layup and the Sonics pulled away from them for good afterwards. It's all gravy... I don't mind the Lakers losing again. Just kidding. Their record right now is 14-7...and I have no idea what the Utah Jazz's record is, but the Lakers can't afford to let their nemesis pull away in the home court advantage race. But it's still early in the season, so no need to worry. Yet.

On the plus side... after the game, me and my brother went to the part of STAPLES Center where the parking garage for the players is located. We saw Greg Foster, Mark Madsen, Mike Penberthy, Kobe, Shaq, Horace Grant, Robert Horry and the bus carrying the Sonics players drive off. Horry, Penberthy, and Kobe were the only ones whose names I called out (and Bryant and Madsen were cool enough to wave to the sidewalk spectators watching them depart from the arena). I didn't call out Shaq's name because he missed I think ALL of his free throws tonight. Jeez. And DANG...is it just me but nearly most of the players either drive a nice Mercedes or a fancy SUV?! That's what fame and fortune will get you...

That and the ability to make fadeaway jumpers, windmill dunks, and clutch 3-pointers.
Well, yesterday was my last day of regular class for the Fall 2000 semester at CSULB. On one hand, I'm thrilled about it...and on the other hand, I feel kinda regretful that the semester is almost at an end. One reason why I'm thrilled that I'm about to go on Winter Break after next week is the fact that I don't have to worry about any more stinkin' tests. This whole semester was filled with STINKIN' tests!!! At least I didn't have to write any papers (except one in my Anthropology 120 class) this semester. That's a good thing. Next week are my finals, and I have to read at least 2/10th of the pages in my Greek Mythology packet that deals with the Odyssey story by Homer. There're 400+ pages worth of that storyline in the packet, in case you're wondering.


Now, the reason why I feel regretful that this semester is about to end was that I talked to a lot of cool people in most of my classes...and knowing college, this might be the last time I run into most of them. Math 112 was wack but I talked to this one Vietnamese girl who's really cool to talk to but is gonna move to Colorado after the semester ends (because her boyfriend lives there). There's this one homeboy in my Math class who I find hilarious just because of the fact I keep forgetting what his name is. Haha, that cracks me up. In my Greek class I talked to this one Caucasian girl and African American girl--who both sit next to me on my left-- who share the view that having to take a test on mythology is kinda like being quizzed on horse manure (actually, I came up with this phrase). In my Geology lecture, I can't help but tease this one girl whose average test score is at least 55% in the class...but she's really cool. In my Geology lab, there's that other Vietnamese girl I talk to that I mentioned in my November 8 entry, but I'll talk about her more later for reasons mentioned in that entry.

Hopefully, next semester will be dope too. That is, in terms of the people I talk to. About academics, I hope this semester won't be as HELLISH as this last one!!! Nuff' said.

Tuesday, December 05, 2000

Yesterday, at a store called Fry's Electronics in Anaheim in SoCal, I bought one of the coolest inventions recently made. Called a pen camera, this device allows you to take candid shots (or voyeuristic shots...depending on how sick you are) whenever you feel like it. Of course, you may not go totally unnoticed when taking a photograph, as the pen camera makes beeping sounds when you activate it and a single beep tone when you press the shutter button when taking a pic. On the plus side, if someone asks you what it is and you don't want to tell them (for fear you might have to kill them...j/k), you can always say it's a pager, a voice recorder, one of those asthma thingamabobs (I don't know about this one) or a cigarette lighter. Today, I've already been asked twice about it, and I used the voice recorder alibi to cover my tracks.

Not only does this pen camera take regular photos...but it also functions as a web camera and a video recorder. Ain't technology great? At $86, it better be.

Sunday, December 03, 2000

Today, I went to STAPLES Center again to watch the Lakers take on the Dallas Mavericks. Of course, the Lakers won, 99-97, against owner-Internet billionaire Mark Cuban's boys. Did I mention that that guy cracks me up? He's worth $1.2 billion... He can create his own basketball league if he wanted to.


On the other hand, I HATE Don Nelson. It's not so much because he keeps employing the Hack-a-Shaq strategy against the Lake Show's MVP player...but because he gets on my nerves. There hasn't been one game against L.A. that this guy hasn't tried to either pull hair off of his head or rip something off his suit. Well you shut your mouth and stay off the court, man? You should be worrying about your weight than about coaching a basketball team!!!

I would keep the potshots going, but it's all good. Nelson, your team will always be the Laker's pawns. They've already beat you 20 consecutive times at home.

Saturday, December 02, 2000

Well, this news isn't about me...but it's all good. Today, my sister has just informed my family that a film she worked on about 3 years back, called The Flip Side, will be shown at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Pretty cool, huh?

For those of you who don't know what The Flip Side is (namely, everyone who reads this), it's an independent film about a Filipino family and how they live everyday life. The person who made this film, one of my sister's friends name Rod Pulido, also attended Long Beach State.

Ironically, it's me who's trying to pursue a career in film. But at least my sis could probably hook me up with connections with some big name filmmakers like George Lucas, HAHA. By the time I talk to Lucas he would've already been done making the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Oh well.

On a different note, I have to get an oil change for my car today.

Friday, December 01, 2000

Nothing to post, really... I just felt like having an update on the first day of the last month of the 20th century. 2001 is the official start of the new millennium.