Monday, May 31, 2004

Lakers: 96, Minnesota Timberwolves: 90... FINALLY, onto the NBA Finals!! Out like the Timberwolves, and out like those stupid commercials on TNT where footage from NBA playoff games are combined with shots from upcoming or just-released movies. So what did the Spurs-Lakers series have to do with Van Helsing? Or what does the NBA conference finals have to do with The Day After Tomorrow? Stupid advertising...

Six 3-pointers??  Good job, Kareem Rush!
Six 3-pointers?? Good job, Kareem Rush!

Sunday, May 30, 2004

Minnesota Timberwolves: 98, Lakers: 96. Um... Uhhh... BAH!

So anyways, yesterday was my graduation party. It was pretty fun. Would've been a lot better if the Lakers won (since almost all of my relatives were gathered around the TV to watch the game when it was on), but oh well. A lot of my closest high school friends showed up...while only one of my Long Beach friends stopped by. The others are bastards. Screw you! Haha, just kidding.

There better not be a Game 7 on Wednesday. Don'g screw up tomorrow, L.A.!

Friday, May 28, 2004

Me (with the purple lei) and my classmates

GOOD-BYE CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LONG BEACH!!! My graduation was at 9 AM today, and while it almost rained, it was a memorable ceremony: the speeches were funny (especially the one that attacked President Bush), the two announcers who called the graduates' names (why, that would include ME. Heheh) before we stepped onto the stage to shake hands with the President of CSULB were entertaining (the way the announcers spoke reminded me of Lawrence Tanter, the announcer for Laker games at STAPLES Center, haha)...and I took pictures with all of my closest Long Beach friends. And I ate at a good restaurant (called Rock Bottom) in downtown Long Beach afterwards. Even though I didn't finish my food (darn appetizers LOL).

The only disappointment of my graduation was not running into Duyen, who attended the ceremony because of one of her friends (who was an Art major). While Duyen most likely saw me--when I was walking to my seat at the start of the ceremony or when I went up on stage to shake hands with the CSULB President--I didn't see her at all. And I couldn't look for her because I obviously had to meet up with my family after the ceremony ended. When I woke up this morning, I figured that if I didn't see Duyen at school today, I wouldn't see her ever again. And that's pretty much the case. She wants me to e-mail her pics from the graduation, which I will definitely do once I develop the pictures. But other than that, good-bye Yenny-Pooh. Having a picture with you would've been a very memorable moment during my time in Long Beach. It would rank up there with hugging you on the last day of our Geology class almost 4 years ago...and it would rank right above that kiss I planted on Jasmine Mai's cheek at Los Angeles Hot Import Nights two months ago, hahaha.

Sorry to end this entry on such a sad note, but oh well. On a different note, I'm gonna see The Day After Tomorrow sometime this weekend...and Go Lakers in Game 5!!

UPDATE: I like laughing in my journal entries. Heheh! Hahaha! LOL! Anyways... That was lame.

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Lakers: 92, Minnesota Timberwolves: 85... Show that killer instinct this Saturday, guys!

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Lakers: 100, Minnesota Timberwolves: 89... So much for the sweep, but at least L.A. leads the series, 2 games to 1.

Friday, May 21, 2004

Lakers: 97, Minnesota Timberwolves: 88... Four words: Go for the sweep.
Woohoo! My very last class was at 10:15 AM today...and assuming the teacher for my Tuesday class (Senior Film Theory) doesn't do anything wacky and fail me [when I should at best be getting a 'B' in that class, much as how I got a 'B' in the class (Alternative Media) for which I had a final today]... I'm done with Cal State Long Beach!! Last mandatory trip there is next Friday (commencement ceremony). Can't wait!

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Today I watched Shrek 2 at the AMC theater near my house. Good movie... I found it a lot more enjoyable than the first one (even though I didn't watch the first one till it came out on video). Puss in Boots, the cat assassin voiced by Antonio Banderas, is hilarious! Especially when he sings Ricky Martin's Livin' La Vida Loca. What a crack-up. All the other characters were very funny as well (though not a surprise), but Puss stole the show. I also saw Troy this week. Also a good film, though not very original in the wake of Lord of the Rings and Gladiator four years ago. I saw Van Helsing last week.

...

So anyways, I enjoyed watching Shrek 2 and Troy. That is all.

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Not to bring unwanted attention to her... But I just wanted to provide a link to Jasmine Mai's Yahoo group. She's beginning to post up a couple of, how should I say, sexy photos that she took for her club--and I just couldn't resist talking about it! Dayamn Jas, you're so freakin' beautiful. Haha, anyways... You have to be 18-years old to be a member in her club if you haven't joined already, which oughta tell you just how provocative Jasmine is getting now.


Lady in Red...
Lady in Red...

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Lakers: 88, San Antonio Spurs: 76... Onto Minnesota...if the Timberwolves win the series. Or right back home against Sacramento...if the Kings win the series. Either way, I Love L.A.!!

Thursday, May 13, 2004

Lakers: 74, San Antonio Spurs: 73... DEREK FISHER F***IN' RULES!!! I'm glad I met the dude three times!! Click here to see the two autographs I got from him. The third autograph wasn't scanned for my website. But oh well. FISHER RULES!!


Go Fisher!

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Dark Angel

DARK ANGEL. Yesterday, I finally finished watching the second of two DVD sets that I have of the now-defunct TV show Dark Angel, which aired on Fox from 2000 to 2002. And thanks to Fox, I was disappointed with the Season 2 finale of Dark Angel. Do you know why? Because the series was immediately cancelled after that, and the story's not finished yet! The Season 2 finale ended in a cliffhanger, with Max (played by Jessica Alba. *drool*) and the other "transgenics" (AKA mutants created by a secret government agency called Manticorp) holed up inside an abandoned building (in Terminal City) and facing a standoff with a mob of ordinary humans and police officers (who surrounded the building) bent on attacking them. One of the last shots in this episode was of a group of mutants hoisting up a new flag (representing the transgenic race) atop the building (with the Seattle skyline in the background). While the show admittedly ends on a dramatic note because Max and her people face the fight of their lives right up to the last image in the season finale, there are other plot points that remain unanswered.

First of all, what happened to Donald Lydecker (the main villain from Manticorp. who chased Max around for much of Season 1)? He was last shown driving alone in his truck when another truck showed up to force him off the road at night (in an early episode of Season 2). A few days later, the police found his truck submerged in a harbor, but Lydecker's body was nowhere to be found. So is he dead or alive?? Second of all, what happens to the virus inside Max's body? This virus was implanted into her body by Manticorp as a secret weapon against "Eyes Only"...the mysterious cyberjournalist who is actually Logan Cale, Max's main love interest on the show (and Jessica Alba's former fiance, I think, in rea life. Logan's real name is Michael Weatherly). If Logan comes into any form of skin contact with Max, Logan will contract the virus and die. So does Max ever get rid of the virus? And does she and Logan finally do the deed? Third of all, what happened to the "Sandman"...the guy who Max's (part man/part dog) friend Joshua said created Manticorp? It was revealed in the Season 2 finale that Agent Ames White (the main villain in Season 2) apparently killed Sandman. But what else do we know about him? Last I recall, it was Sandman who would've known how to kill the virus that prevented Max from gettin' her freak on with Logan.

Fourth of all, what happend to Asha, or Osha (played by Ashely Scott), Logan's hot blonde friend in Season 2 who was part of a political activist group known as S1W? Or is it SW1? Wouldn't hurt to know what happened to her after she found out Logan's apartment was f*cked up by Agent White's men (who found the apartment by tracing the location of Logan's last Eyes Only broadcast). Fifth of all, what happens to Max's relationship with Normal, her boss, and Max's other co-workers, including Sketchie (or is it Sketcher) at Jam Pony Express? At the end of the Season 2 finale, Normal apparently had a change of heart about transgenic people after he helped deliver a transgenic's baby during the climax of this episode.

Sixth of all, who was that person Renfro (the blonde lady in charge of Manticorp, who oversaw Max's re-training after she was recaptured by the agency in the last episode of Season 1) was speaking to on the phone? Renfro was speaking French, I think, so did the French government have some sort of allegiance with Manticorp? Just being facetious with this sentence. Not really. Seventh of all, what about that secret "breeding cult" that Agent White was part of? This breeding cult raised kids who had the power of telekinesis (the ability to lift objects with one's mind). Wouldn't hurt to see more of 'em had Fox let James Cameron (who created Dark Angel) do Season 3.

And finally...eighth of all: What happens to Max? Not only was it revealed that she's the most perfect genetically-enhanced killing machine ever made by Manticorp (since she didn't have "junk DNA" in her body and whatnot), but she also had those mysterious Japanese letters-like symbols all over her body...after she was bitten by some special snake used by the cult in a previous episode. It was revealed in the last few Season 2 episodes that Max was some sort of Chosen One, who would save the world from a "biblical" disaster that was suppose to take place. But that disaster never took place, since Dark Angel didn't last long enough on TV for that to happened!

Darn, too bad Dark Angel got cancelled. It had a lot of potential to become a pretty cool sci-fi series. But oh well. At least I wouldn't have to spend how many more days watching its episodes on DVD if the show made it to at least three seasons. Imagine if I bought the DVD sets for all 9 (or is it 10? or 11?) seasons of The X-Files... Or the DVD sets for all 15 seasons of The Simpsons? Good grief...

UPDATE: (I like typing parenthesis.)


UPDATE #2: One bad thing about Dark Angel is that it will become dated a few years from now. There was this one episode in Season 1 where Max and Logan are having a conversation about a bad guy and his potential ties to the Taliban militia (which, in real life, was ousted from Afghanistan in 2002...a year after Season 1 ended). Unless the Taliban reclaims power in the years between 2009 and 2019--the time period in which the story of Dark Angel takes place--that particular episode will have lost a bit of realism to it. In another episode, Max is talking to Alec (a fellow transgenic) about stealing the film reels for Star Wars: Episode 7 from the Fox studios...so that Max could sell it and use the money to pay off a doctor who could cure the virus that Manticorp planted inside of her. Episode 7 was supposedly filmed in 2007...so once that year passes by and there's no word from Lucasfilm that a sequel trilogy to the 3 original Star Wars films will be made...that episode will also become dated. But oh well. I'm taking things too literally.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Lakers: 98, San Antonio Spurs: 90... Back to San Antonio: Will this be a repeat of 2003 or will the Lakers take command of this series in Game 5? We'll see two days from now.

Monday, May 10, 2004

WORLD WIDE WEB: Having a HIT COUNTER on my site rules!!... One reason being that I know how many hits I'm getting (duuuhhhhh), and the other reason being I know who's visiting my site and from where! I have people visiting my site from China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Argentina, Israel, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Singapore, Belgium, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, France, Austria, Denmark, the United Republic Of Tanzania, Spain, Croatia, Mauritius, Latvia, Yemen, Colombia, Mexico, Lithuania, Norway, Indonesia, Turkey, Germany, Kuwait, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Tunisia, Uruguay, the Republic of Korea (obviously South Korea... North Korea's Kim Jong-il likes boys, not import models), Poland, New Zealand, Thailand, Hong Kong, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Australia, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Dominican Republic, Chile, Sweden, Taiwan, Serbia and Montenegro, Romania, Venezuela, Monaco, Hungary, South Africa, Guam and even the Russian Federation (a.k.a. Russia)! Someone from the International Monetary Fund in Washington D.C. even checked out my site! Closer to home, I have visitors surfing in from the Boeing Company at Huntington Beach, Unocal, and even the University of Southern California. What's EVEN MORE interesting, is the fact someone who was in one of my film projects at school (ahem... The Broken Table) is browsing through my site as well. I know who are! The IP address says it all! By the way, I didn't type the name of all those countries at the same time... I included a country whenever that was the first time an IP address from that nation appeared on my statistics page.


Of course, the bad thing about having a hit counter is that you become obsessed with finding ways to get more people to come to your site. I would've updated with the latest info about them Mars Rovers (heheh) or Episode III by now if I wasn't aware that most of you are just here to check out beautiful ladies like Jasmine Mai, Natalie Keen and Francine Dee. Who wouldn't? Well... Besides girls who aren't bi and guys who...swing that way. Who would've thought someone living in Australia would know who Christine Mendoza is! Haha!

Jas at Hot Import Nights

Click above for Jas and other lovely ladies. And a Lamborghini.

UPDATE: REPUBLICANS SUCKS ASS!! George W. Bush (and George Bush Sr.), you suck. Dick Cheney, you suck. Colin Powell, you suck. Condoleeza Rice, you suck. Donald H. Rumsfeld, you suck. And Ronald Reagan, I shouldn't be saying this since you have Alzeimers and all, but you suck. What makes these people suck is that we launched wars against the very enemies that these people were allies and shook hands with long ago. So Rumsfeld, how did it feel like shaking Saddam's hand? You like firm hand-shakes? Reagan, did you offer to invite Bin Laden to visit the White House back when we were helping him fight the Soviets 20 years ago? Or you were too preoccupied with the Iran Contra scandal? Bah! If there's one reason, AND ONLY ONE, reason why I'd vote for George Dubya this November...it's because I'm a big space advocate and I applaud him for that big space initiative he handed down to NASA last January. Other than that, LET'S ALL WELCOME Mr. John "My chin looks like Jay Leno's" Kerry to the Oval Office this Fall!! Woopty-doo!

Sunday, May 09, 2004

Lakers: 105, San Antonio Spurs: 81... On the plus side, if the Lakers lose this series at least they won't get swept.

Friday, May 07, 2004

Advertising gone awry

One of the things I learned in my Alternative Media class (the one I'm getting a 'C' in) is how the mass media in the United States cares more about pleasing advertisers and big corporations (the ones financing these media companies) than they do about giving the public what they want... Which is why you'll sometimes find more pages devoted to advertisements than those with actual news printed on them in newspapers like say, the Los Angeles Times. But this is just PLAIN RIDICULOUS.

Put ads on baseball bases? How dumb is that?? What, right before a Major League baseball game cuts to a commercial, the camera is going to focus on these bases? (Which is obviously the point.) "Tonight's baseball game is brought to you by... Columbia Pictures' Spider-Man 2..." Granted, I don't care if the Spider-Man graphic is shown on the TV screen itself, superimposed in front of the image that's being shot, but to have it printed on a baseball base itself? Advertisers will do WHATEVER it takes to promote their product, will they?

Back in the past, and even today, newspapers were afraid to publish certain stories for fear they're going to draw advertisers away...since those stories weren't going to put the consumer reading that newspaper in a "buying mood." Sure, we live in a capitalist society, but that's just plain pathetic.

Click here for the article on the Sports Illustrated website.

UPDATE: So much for the Spider-Man-on-first-base idea. The Sports Illustrated website has reported that the MLB will not allow ads for the upcoming film to be printed on any of the bases in major league baseball fields next month. Great decision. A sweet victory for the Average Joe who's against this crass example of advertisements gone awry. Thanks to me and this journal entry. Just kidding.

UPDATE #2: Speaking of Spider-Man 2: Last Sunday night I dreamt I was flying the F/A-22 Raptor jet fighter, was fighting a giant spider in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and was watching an NBA playoff game where the Lakers were kicking the Spurs' ass and not the other way around (check the May 2, 2004 entry). Last night, my dream was a combination of the now-defunct TV show Dark Angel (which aired on Fox from 2000 to 2002) and Spider-Man 2! I dreamt that a couple of people and I had to hide Max (played by the BANGIN' Jessica Alba on Dark Angel) from Lydecker (the main villain played by John Savage on Angel) and Doctor Octopus from Spider-Man 2! At one point, while we weren't running away, I watched as Max and these other people were sleeping on a giant spider-web spun over a street! I think the web was connected to two apartment buildings on both sides of the street...but anyways. It was pretty weird, but a cool dream nonetheless... I think Max got away at the end, and Doc Ock was stuck inside a house or something. Of course, the reason why I had this dream was because I was watching Season 2 of my Dark Angel DVD set yesterday (I have the sets for both Seasons' 1 and 2), and just read the Sports Illustrated article about the baseball bases last night. I know...pretty incoherent journal entry... But this wasn't a coherent dream, now was it?

Thursday, May 06, 2004

San Antonio Spurs: 95, Lakers: 85... The Gary Payton/Karl Malone experiment is only two games away from being declared a COMPLETE BUST. Woopty-friggin' doo. Let's hear for Devean George and him being duped by Tony Parker's crossover dribble and subsequent basket in the 4th Quarter. YOU DA MAN, George... To Spurs fans everywhere...


Are Karl Malone and Gary Payton's days as Lakers numbered?

Tuesday, May 04, 2004

Christian Bale as the new Batman

BATMAN BEGINS: Above are OFFICIAL movie photos of Christian Bale as the new Dark Knight of Gotham! Pictures courtesy of Entertainment Weekly and the official Batman Begins webpage (click on the photos of the new Batmobile below to get to the official site).

The new Batmobile

Sunday, May 02, 2004

San Antonio Spurs: 88, Lakers: 78 So anyways, I had three weird dreams last night. The first one was about me being the pilot of an F/A-22 Raptor... and I was trying to take off from the parking lot of my old high school, Bishop Amat! A runway was nowhere to be seen, and people outside watched as I was taxiing the jet fighter between trees on the parking lot. I occasionally had to turn my head to make sure the wings weren't clipping the trees. Once I found a runway (after taxiing over pavement with potholes in it), I quickly throttled up to begin my take-off...only to realize I didn't have my oxygen mask on! The canopy glass was still open, and once I realized I didn't have time to put the mask on as I was heading towards the end of the freeway, I ejected! The aircraft was actually becoming airborne at this time, and I watched it crash to the surface. And then I think I died during the ejection, haha. It was after this that I woke up in the middle of the night, and the clock said it was around 4:45 AM. I went to sleep around 2 AM!

In my second dream, I dreamt I was in the new Harry Potter film: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban! The film opens with Harry Potter battling a giant Spider inside a hallway. Harry Potter makes it out alive...and the Spider is actually a man who can transform into the insect (or is it a bug? There's a difference, but I forgot what it was! Anyways...) at night. The man is actually some kind of European artist who transforms into the Spider to protect the artwork he has displayed in the hallway. Anyways, in the second attack by the Spider in my dream, he kills someone...a guy who was betrayed by his friend after they both went into the hallway to confront the bug/insect. The friend knocked the guy unconscious, and I watched as the Spider arrived to begin feasting on the unconscious man. The Spider turned back into the artist after it was done feasting on its victim, and the artist, his mouth covered in blood, ran away in horror. Pretty graphic! Afterwards, there was a scene where Harry Potter was trying to contact some guy played by Gary Oldman (who's actually in the movie) for help. Gary Oldman was talking all weird and sheit. Anyways, after this scene, Harry Potter re-unites with his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger to find out how to beat the Spider. They teamed up with a girl I knew in high school...Carmel! Carmel had some wooden (or was it metallic) fighting stick and I dreamt of her doing some cool martial art moves with it. And then I woke up!

The last dream I had was a brief one about the Lakers. They were beating the San Antonio Spurs, 21-5, in the 1st Quarter of Game 1.

...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

Yea, THAT ONE was definitely a dream.


My three weird dreams were about these...