trip home

My dad notified me today that my electric engineering textbook got shipped to Monterey Park, instead of to UCSB. Since I actually need that textbook, I came home to get it. Horray for unplanned trip home.

I also brought my stereo home with me, cause I really don't have the space for it there, and I really don't use it there.

Now it's at home and I can blast music to my hearts desire :D

...and I found out my subwoofer has a peak output of 600w. That's crazy sexy. My Sony subwoofer is only 280w. Any equivalent replacement is well out of my budget, making upgrades ridiculously impossible to afford. I guess I'm holding onto it for a long long time.

Then I found out that my amplifier is one of the best Pioneer amplifiers ever produced. It can power just about every speaker you attach to it.

Not bad for a 20+ year old system. I just need to upgrade the speakers.

If I only had the money.... :(

R.I.P. CX300 (again)

Yeah. I broke my 2nd pair Sennheisers today. The left earbud just went dead on me. I think it might be the wiring. I probably should stop dangling/dropping my ipod..

As great as these sound for their price, they arn't very durable.. not that I expect them to be anyways..

Time to buy another pair!

flippity floppity flip flop plop

I broke my right flip flop. It sucks. I wore them to paint senior parking spots (so they're all spotty and stuff). Oh well. It's bound to happen sooner or later.

Walking back to my dorm with only one flip flop was... an experience. It wasn't too bad when I was on the streets.. but as soon as I got near the lagoon it was pretty nasty.. and the path next to the lagoon has some pretty sharp rocks. So I had a layer of gunk on my foot by the time I made it back to my room.

Lesson learned. Don't walk near the lagoon barefoot.

That’s weird, there were only two of them when they got in on the first floor

A bunny’s a critter that’s fuzzy and warm

And prone to some mischievous pranks
A bunny will get his friend drunk at the dorm
Then tag, with a Sharpie, his flanks

A bunny might wrap a commode in Saran
Then wait for somebody to spatter
His pants and his shoes and the floor of the can
With the erstwhile contents of his bladder

Bunnies are constantly goofing around
They’re like practical jokers from Hell
Their favorite is piling themselves in a mound
In the lift at a store or hotel

They’ll pile in the car ‘cause they think that it’s funny Completely ignoring the notice That says “Max Capacity: Seventeen Bunnies Signed, yours officially, Otis”

-shirt.woot.com

I like bunny shirts. This one's cute. My mom thinks I'm weird for buying so many bunny shirts.
I like the color of this one too. :D

lucky bamboo

That's bamboo plant #1. My entire hall makes fun of me for it cause I water it.. everyday.. to the point where it overflows. It doesn't drink all those half empty water bottles fast enough..

Soo..

I got more. They're bigger. I hope they consume more water. :P

Hey, wait up...you are my best friend

It was only supposed to be for a little while. He wanted to see what it was like up there in the sky. She felt a different pull. It held her in place. He understood, but it wasn’t the same for him. He lacked her gravity.

Maybe he would have asked her to come along, but they both knew she couldn’t. It wasn’t that he wanted to get away or she wanted him to go, far from that. It was just… there was something else up there with the clouds in the sky, and he had to see for himself what it was. And who was she, she asked herself, to stand in the way of a dream? Really, she was happy for him. This was what he really wanted.

He was already going when she tried to say goodbye. Only he moved so fast, and her arms were so short, and they were suddenly so far apart.

And it was only supposed to be for a little while.

-shirt.woot.com

I bought that shirt. It's a bunny chasing a balloon (obviously). I like that shirt. It reminds me of that one birthday I chased after balloons.

Third post today. That's a sign of how boring my paper is. Makes up for my past for days of.. nothing. Really going back to work now. :P

christmas lights

Well a few weeks ago, I was poking around on the internet and I saw some cheap LED lights. I ended up buying 20 of them. For the most part, they pretty much sat in a big pile in my desk. Then finals week comes around and I, instead of studying, decided to screw around with them. They make nice Christmas lights, no? Maybe when the batteries die, I'll take them apart and wire them together in parallel and actually make them into makeshift Christmas lights... just don't stare into them, you'll have a star shaped thing in the middle of your vision for a long long time. They're bright.

Oh, and you get a good view of my computer screen. Facebook during finals, great huh?

facebook disabled + new earhpones(again)

Depressing news (for me) first. I got my facebook account disabled. So if you're wondering where I disappeared off to, it's cause I was "spamming" messages to "unknown person(s)" and a high rate. It ended up being considered "misuse of facebook features" and I got my account disabled.

If messages are not supposed to be used to talk to friends I'm not too sure what they're supposed to be used for...

I'm also not sure how it was spam, every message was unique. I know everyone I message too. -.-

So until then, I'm pretty much going through facebook withdrawl. :[ I guess it's a sign that I should be working on my research paper.
Now to happier news. New headphones! KSC-75

For those of you who wonder why I keep buying earphones/headphones, it's because I already own two and a half very nice sound systems at home, so when I'm staying still, at home, in the living room, I have good sound. But now I'm on laptop, so I want the same good sound I had at home, through earphones. Besides, its cheaper to get earphones.

Bang for buck, this one wins hands down. My Sennheisers cost three times as much (retail) and these sound slightly better.

But sound quality is only better in complete silence. These are open type earphones. So they don't block sound at all. You can hear most environmental sounds around you, and they can hear your sounds too if its quiet enough, and you're playing music loud enough.

Plus, they're not exactly ideal for running.

But they produce very very good sound for their price.

school sweater

I finally got myself a UCSB sweater. I know, took me long enough right? It was pretty last minute too, bought it the day before my freshman discount expired. :P I doesn't have a surfer dude on it like the rest of them, oh well. It's also significantly longer than the rest of my sweaters, so if you thought my other sweaters were long before, this ones a good 5 inches longer. I guess its to accommodate all the tall people here.

You get a view of my extremely filled closet too :P Image is flipped so you can actually read the "Santa Barbara" on my sweater, cause the mirror flips it. So yes, its as if someone was taking a picture of me from inside the mirror. Creepy thought.

R.I.P. CX300. You will be missed.

Remember back in March when I bought a pair of Sennheisner CX300s? They broke. Lets take a moment to remember all the abuse I've put it through..

I drop them on the floor, often. The left earphone normally stays hanging around my next, and often gets flung into walls or crushed when I carry stuff. I exposed the wiring (which I fixed later) by pulling on them too hard trying to pull my iPod out of my pocket. Both earphones have been dissected (and later reassembled on the spot) because they got hit too hard by something.

I run with them I jump with them. Sometimes I sleep with them (since they're kinda sound canceling). Sometimes when I run or jump, my iPod falls out of my pocket, and it either hangs by the earphone on my ear, or the jack disconnects and my iPod falls to the ground. Oh, and sweat and other sorts of bodily fluids gets on it all the time.

Strangely enough, even though my left earphone gets more abuse (the left side is longer, and I normally only wear one), my right one died one me first. Another funny point is that it just suddenly went quiet when I was just walking around (slowly at that), not jumping, running, or playing teather iPod with it.

My warranty didn't expire yet (2 yr), but I don't have any form of proof of purchase. I'm also not sure if all the abuse I've put it though can be noticed, and if it contributes to anything. Perfect example of this is if you decide to shake your computer hard drive, and contantly power up/down your computer within a few seconds. Hard drive fails. But its considered normal failure covered by warranty, even though it was user induced. Now to just wait for a responce.

If it does get replaced, horray! I'll probably buy two more different one. One dirt cheap one for running. Another pair of headphones for dorm use. If not, I'll probably replace it with one of similar price and quality, just to try out other brands.

freeline skates

Props to Spency for introducing these to me.

So 2 hours ago, the came in through UPS, nicely hidden in my bush near my front door. Learning how to skate with these is.... fun... among many things. So sounds from my backyard was pretty much a combination of, skeets (skates scrape against the ground), clunks (skates fly out from the bottom of my feet and bounce off), thunks (me crashing into the wall), poonks (me crashing into one of the poles in my yard), donks (skates run off and hit the wall), flaps (my shoe hitting the ground), pleets (me hand scraping against the wall/ground), and clinks (skates bang against each other when I pick them up for another go), of course with the "ow" and "ahhhh".

It's comming along pretty well though; I can manuver myself rather easily weaving back and forth through a line of poles... at least until my momentum expires and I just end up standing there looking stupid.

When I learn how to accelerate (if I ever learn how), I'm going to go around and scare asian moms driving their expensive cars near my house. That's when this gets really really fun (or I get myself killed).

Oh, and my right buttcheek hurts (I think I fell on it once), my left leg tightened up a few times (yay for being out of shape and leg muscles being underused T.T), my fingers are black and white (dirt and scratches) and pretty much lost all their skin (breaking falls and griping the grip tape), I'm drenched in sweat (90 degree weather playing with these in the sun), and my neck hurts (I didn't sleep well last night).

move in part 2

probably final list... still can be updated (probably for myself)

key
[x] = have, sitting in "to pack" pile
[ ] = do not have, get soon
[x] = have, not packed, not in "to pack" pile
[ ] = need to get when i arrive
strikethrough = decided not to bring
[x] (blue) = packed completely, ready to bring

-bathroom..
[x]shower basket
[x]shampoo
[x]conditioner
[x]body wash
[x]shower shoes
[x]contacts
[x]contacts solution
[x]toothbrush
[x]toothpaste
[x]gel
[x]comb
[x]razor
-bed..
[x]fitted sheets
[x]sheets
[x]pillow
[x]fat "lumpy" pillow x2
[x]mike (still needs to be washed)
[x]pillowcase
[x]comforter
-desk.. stuff...
[x]pencil
[x]eraser
[x]pencil lead
[x]highligher
[ ]pens
[x]stapler
[x]staples
[x]tape
[ ]tape dispenser
[x]graphing calculator
[x]desk lamp
[x]power surge
[x]laptop
[x]laptop lock
[x]calender
[x]scissors
[x]spiral notebooks
[x]binders
[x]filler paper
[x]coffee mug
-closet..
[x]hangers
[x]clothes
[x]running shoes
[x]flip flops
[x]laundry basket
[x]laundry detergent
-other..
[x]fridge
[x]bowl
[x]spoon
[x]fork
[x]chopsticks
[x]butter knife
[x]cellphone
[x]phone charger
[x]ipod
[x]ipod usb cable
[x]phone usb cable
[x]watch
[x]usb drive
[ ]headphones
[ ]jogging earphones
[x]kite
[x]paper towels
[ ]cleaner
[ ]umbrella
[ ]security blanket
[ ]freeline skates
packed into..
[x]luggage
[x]laptop case
[x]backpack
[ ]trashbags :P

my to buy list

Some stuff I need to get around to buying before college starts...

-A FREAKIN LAPTOP
-a basket thingy for shower stuff... maybe..
-my own bottle of body wash and shampoo/conditioner
-a big big (or a lot of) picture frame(s) that holds wallet pictures
-some sound canceling headphones
-some jogging earphones
-that stuff you put under your bed sheet to make your bed squishier
-more running shorts
-laundry detergent
-hangers (if i need them)

I'm bringing (so far)..

-sheets/blanket/pillows/etc
-my aunt's mini-fridge that she doesn't use anymore
-clothes
-toothbrush/toothpaste/a few razors/contacts and stuff
-my kite

Maybe a few weeks into the quarter, I might consider bringing..

-a hammock
-my army of bunnies and my body pillow (by request of everyone.. >.>)

I missing anything?

newer is better

That phrase does NOT apply to bedsheets. I got my dorm sheets a few weeks ago, and yesterday, I figured, hey, lets try them out. They're kinda rough, so I threw them into the wash, and out they came, still kinda rough. Sure, my old bedsheets were rough when they were new too, but they're nice and soft now, after a few months of sweat and fabric softener. So now I have to wear in these bedsheets, which sucks because my bed is a queen, and the bedsheets are twin XL.

So I stuck them on my sister's bed. She can wear them in for me. She's probably going to hate me too.

paper bunny!

Jono gave me an self-assembly paper bunny :D So this is what it looks like after assembly. Its a lot harder to put together than it looks. Took about 2 hours to put together D: Then again, I was supposed to use a razor blade, not scissors to cut it.


Final Product next to the instructions diagram.


I used a mug to hold it together while the glue dried (you can see the bunny ears stick out from under the mug) cause I was too lazy to. Use super glue, it dries faster, it stays stuck together.

Now I'm not sure what to do with this. O_o

new car!

I actually planned on updating while I was still test driving the cars, except I never got around to it. Bought this car over the Mitsubishi lancer because it has a quieter engine, its a lot lighter, and drives better overall.

Now there's all the small things I don't like too much. For starters, when we test drove cars, we tested the '09 model. When we hunted around for a better deal, dad bought the '08 model. It's a $5000 difference, go figure. I loved everything about the '09 model, and I think my dad expected the '08 model to not be so different. Well, unlike the '09 base model, the '08 base model doesn't have..

Power mirrors. Whatever, it's a pain in the ass to adjust the first time, but since I'm the only one driving, I don't think I need to readjust them anytime soon.

Power windows. Theres a plus and minus side to this. Plus side is I can open and close my windows without the engine on. So my mom thought I was weird when I had my windows open in the garage. Downside is when I'm driving, I can only open and close my own windows, since I probably shouldn't be trying to open my other 3 windows while driving. Funny comment from mom was, look, now when you drive your car into a large body of water, you can open your windows and everyone else in the same situation as you're in with power windows will die, see? useful! But until I drive the car into a lake or something, power windows > no power windows.

Power locks. Now this is my biggest cause of irritation. Even the old Mercedes had power locks. It gets very very annoying because I like to throw stuff into the back seats, and when I take those stuff out, I have to manually unlock the door, then relock it, or unlock it, throw stuff back there, relock it, then unlock it again when I want to take it out. So, no keyless lock/unlock. No alarm. No long distance trunk opener. Maybe one of these days, we might ask them to install it.

Ironic part is, when we started shopping for cars last year, dad said he wanted me to have a car with power windows, power locks, radio, and air conditioning. (Well, obviously, he wanted the standard safety options too, air bags, anti-lock brakes, seat belts, w/e. Most cars have all that these days).

Now what I like about the car.. (with mom's comparison to her Pilot)

It's light. Like, very very light. It accelerates fast, and stops fast, and is super easy to control. Mom complains how the car is too light. Well, it's less than half the weight of the pilot. Makes sense. She also complains how since my car is so light, it has a higher chance of spinning out than her pilot. Counter-argument, Pilot has a higher chance of tilting over.

Since I got home first, I snagged the Pilot's parking spot in the garage, next to the Mercedes that we probably will never sell now. The car is so much small than the Pilot, so I can actually fully open all the car doors, the car hood, and the trunk, and Spike can still run around quite freely in the garage. With the Pilot, we couldn't even open two doors on the opposite sides far enough to let a not skinny human out without it hitting either the kitchen door, or the Mercedes. Now the landlord's description of the garage being "very big" when we toured the house for the first time seems likely.

I have a AUX jack! I can plug in my iPod (or any other similar device) to my car. :D Except I normally keep my max volume limit on my iPod around 20% of the absolute maximum (hey calculus!) cause of super loud earphone. So I need to adjust that too. But it's nice, I have music on long drives.

Now the sad part is that my mom won't let me drive it, cause she wants to drive it. Which isn't half bad, cause she's helping me break in the car anyways. So if she wants to spend the next 1000 miles driving local or in traffic, without sudden acceleration or braking, or abrupt sudden maneuvers, she can be my guest. :P New car smell makes my head hurt too, dunno why.

vacuum cleaner!

So our old vacuum cleaner broke down. It went, hot hot hot, black smoke, black smoke, R.I.P. Everyone loves vacuum cleaners, you can suck up mosquitoes and spiders with them. So we got a new one.

When we used it, Spike went berserk, and started growling at it. He's fine now. That dog learns too fast.

So we try it out and see how much dirt we can pick up, since it's one of those clear-tank-empty kind. We suck up like 10 feet and our tank is already pretty full with dog hair and lots of dust/lint/dirt. Well the whole house is pretty much like that.

So everyone in the house pretty much jokes about the vacuum cleaner now. Conversations while using it pretty much sound like..

"Don't go farther than 10 feet"
"Why?"
"You'll overfill the tank"
"No I won't"
"If you do it might break and we're screwed"
"We could just return it and get another one, we do have 1 year warrenty"
"Yeah, and they will be like, Ma'am, this vacuum cleaner is for indoor use only"
"Yes I know, we did use it indoors"
"I find that hard to believe ma'am, it looks like you decided to stand on a pile of dirt and vacuum until it broke"
"Just replace it, we're under warranty"
"And by then the customer service rep will probably be horrified at how 'clean' our house is and how its able to break vacuum machines"
"Is that why you're vacuuming now?"
"House should be clean"
"Tanks full"
"No it's not"
"See this line, it says full. You're two inches above the line"
*sigh*

or..

"You know who would really like this vacuum machine?"
"Who?"
"Dad."
"OMG. It can be like, his new best friend ever."
"I KNOW"
"Then the whole day the only thing we'll hear is WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Boom."

or..

"Do you know what you're doing?"
"Yes mom, I know how to use a vacuum machine"
"Don't break it"
"You're the one in the family that breaks things"
"Still, be careful"
"WHAT?"
"I SAID BE CAREFUL"
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU VACUUM IS ON"
"TURN IT OFF"
clack clack clack
"What happens when I suck in a paper clip?"
"WHAT?"
"Nothing."


At least the house is cleaner now. Spike's dog hair still manages to tangle inside the machine though, at least it's off the carpet, well, most of it is.

watches

Every time I pass by a wristwatch display, I would go like, "oh, this one looks nice, that one looks funny.." etc. They're kinda like cars, all do pretty much the same thing (even more so with a watch), but are just fun to look at when they're on display.

Seeing how I don't own a watch, and constantly lose track of time, and am usually late...

When I was looking at watches a few days ago, Mom asked me which one I liked. So I was like, "oh, that one." So then she bought it for me, as an early birthday present, cause she wouldn't be around when it is actually my birthday. It's a Seiko! (lookie at picture above)

Well, it came with many extra links on there. It was big enough to fit a few few fat person, or in my case, my ankle. No one wears watches on their ankles. So I had to have a few links removed.

I'm still trying to get used to wearing a watch. Since I'm left handed, I'm used to wearing things on my right hand, which is fine and all when it's a piece of string or something that won't break when I knock it into something, cause I normally use my right hand for everything (except for chopsticks and writing and opening doors sometimes) because I just happen to live in a right handed society.

The watch feels funny sitting on my left hand.

Sometimes I put on my watch upside down and read the time completely wrong. Imagine my facial expression when I was at work waiting to get off at 7 and I read my watch as 12:50. (It was really 6:20)

Even when its right side up, it takes me a while to figure out the time.

I need to check both my wrists to figure out which one has the watch on it.

I still like it nevertheless.

new earphones!

Sometime last week, I broke my ipod earphones during track. Everyone knows they're pretty cheap, and break easily. I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did. Anyways, I was jumping or skipping, or something, and my ipod fell out of my pocket, and then it looked like I was playing tether ball with my ipod. Left earphone breaks. So I was stuck with only the right earphone for a while.


Well, today, my new earphones came in the mail. Sennheiser CX-300s. They're rather nice, sound quality hasn't degraded one bit from the switch. Actually, I think things sound a little bit better now. Maybe I'll go and test with my sisters ipod earphones to see if I can hear a difference.

They're also slightly sound isolating, not completely, but enough that my sister was standing right next to me, talking to me and I couldn't hear a thing she said. Everything is louder too. Before my volume max would be about 70% of the absolute max (which still doesn't drown out connie's singing, but it's loud enough to allow me to hear my own music). Now it's about 30% of the absolute max, and that sounds louder than it did before.

Only thing I don't like about it is that the cable is asymmetrical. Which is nice I guess. I'm just not used to looping my wire behind my neck.

edit: yup. pretty noticeable difference between ipod earphones and new ones. Other than being much louder and clearer for high quality music, low quality music is noticeable too. Like if the song wasn't well mastered (ie. most American rock music) you can actually hear the static in the background most noticeably with guitars, especially electric guitars.

track spikes

OK. These are my track spikes... or rather, what they should have looked like two years ago when I bought them. Yup, they're that color too. (horray for google imagesearch)

Now they're kinda reddish pink (from sitting on the track so much, the red from the track rubs off a bit), really muddy (jumps is a field event, theres naturally mud on the field. Plus, long and triple jump requires jumping into a, usually muddy, box of sand), with grass stains. Not to mention that there's a few drops of blood stains from all the times my spikes attacked me (ie. my right hand and my left leg).

Anyhoo, they're old enough to be considered old now, and old things tend to break. But before that, a quick lesson in high jump.



As the image says, this is a diagram (from google) of how a high jump run looks like. It's a weird J shape. The curve is there to help turn in the air, and to make sure momentum is going to carry the jumper over the bar, and onto the super squishy mat. Nothing specific there, since it doesn't really relate to the story. Well, when you run the curve, you tilt inwards (or, you're supposed to anyways), so when you plant, you can spring into an upright position from the tilt, and it gives a small boost in jumping height. Also when you plant, you're supposed to rotate a little bit, so your body ends up perpendicular to the bar, which then allows for the arch, etc. Hopefully that made sense. If it does, great. Now if only nooby high jumpers could understand also.

So.

Because I run at a tilt during the curve part, only half of the shoe would be on the ground. Imagine your shoe, then kinda tilt it sideways on a flat surface. Well, on the half thats not touching the ground, the rubbery part of the heel wanted to be flat on the ground, rather than tilted on the ground, so the stress would be put on where the heel connected to the rest of the shoe.

Well, after 2+ years of jumping high jump, that stress to that area started a small gash that separates the heel from the rest of the shoe, and it continues to get bigger and deeper after each jump.

The last step of the jump requires a "rotation" of the body. Well, you're supposed to rotate at the torso. Your foot isn't supposed to rotate at all until you leave the ground. Well, since my spikes aren't designed for high jump (which have extra spikes on the heel), they're middle distance spikes, which are more like general purpose spikes. If the floors slippery, the back of the shoe might slide a bit (look at the picture of my spikes on top, notice how they only have spikes at the front of the shoe, not at the heel). You;re not supposed to slide when you plant, hence the need for extra spikes at the heel of the foot to better prevent skidding.

These past few days, the school has been watering the field a lot lately (along with burying it with cow poopoo) so it looks pretty during graduation and next football season. That makes the high jump floor area wet, and since we start off our runs in the grassy area, the bottom of our shoes wet too. Water makes people slip. Guess what happened? Yesterday, I was doing my run, then right when I planted and was about to take off, I slipped. Gash between my heel and shoe gets a lot bigger, and my ankle gets a bit messed up (obviously this isn't the first time, so yeah, I have pretty messed up ankles). So I stopped, took off my spikes, put on my running shoes, and called it a day.

Today we practice high jump again. I don't exactly want my shoe splitting in half, nor do I want to buy another pair just to use only for the remainder of this season. So I grab some medical trainer's tape, and use it to hold the heel in place. Seemed to work OK. Horray for medical trainer's tape. Hopefully they hold out all right, cause I really really like these pair of spikes.

The above makes sense... right?

Did I mention that I really really like medical trainer's tape? Other than their obvious use of taping injuries, they're quite useful. We tape the floor/grass to mark things, yes, it tapes onto grass, quite well too, cause it stays on the grass until they decide to run over it with the lawnmower, and even then, it might still be there. They're really sticky. People complain when I tape up their shins and part of the tape adheres to their skin rather than the pre-wrap, cause then when they take it off, they loose lots of hair. Think waxing. The tape's streachy, and almost cloth like in texture, and behaves almost exactly like cloth. We steal boxes of these from the trainer, and they get mad at us cause their tape disappears.

---

I bought a set of sharpies from staples! 12 colors! weeeeeee. In preparation of yearbook signings I guess. Whats the point of yellow sharpies...?