| Navigation |
|
Home Pictures Quotes |
| Me |
|
About me Resume |
| Discussion |
|
Rants He said She said Forums |
| People |
|
Links View Guestbook Sign Guestbook |
| Everything Else |
|
Recordings and Tabs Random |
| Rants and Discussion |
|
September 30, 2001: So I recently have a pretty lengthy conversation with Mia on some pretty weighty Christian issues. In particular, the way people in the world view Christians. Being a Christian myself, I was rather interested in what she had to say. For the most part I know that people think we're all hypocrites who talk a lot and judge people and all that, but I was shocked to find that some Christians feel the same way towards other Christians. I still don't understand it but a lot came out in this conversation. Whats it mean to have a Christ cnetered life? We can't pray for 24 hours a day seven days a week. How can we be joyful when things just plain suck? Its all in the Bible somewhere and this will probably be a question I'll have to deal with for a lifetime, but its interesting hearing other viewpoints. Like 1) Christians shouldn't not surround themselves with only Christians. I firmly believe this since examples from Jesus are pretty darn self-evident. 2) Never force our beliefs on others. I don't really know where to draw the line between spreading the gospel and not imposing our beliefs on others. I mean really, we shouldn't ever compromise our faith, because our faith is what we're here on this Earth for, but I guess I really think that we need tact. Not everyone is Christian, and the point that was brought up to me was saying grace before a meal. If there are non-christians at the table, should we say grace out loud? I personally thought we should, but tonight's conversation let me see that a lot of people are really put off by this or feel awkward. I dunno what to do about this because I really feel that spoken prayer is part of the christian life. Well, I really could use your comments on this or anything about Christianity or anything conceptions you have about Christians. I just want to know what people think okf me in particular as a Christian. September 29, 2001: Today I was reminded by a friend that some things in life are more important than girls. In fact, a large portion of the things that we currently enjoy are far more important than girls. The example that came up today was a little thing we call NHL 2K2. Here's the play by play: Myself and a (for now) unnamed friend were playing NHL2K2. I happened to be schooling him but thats another story. Anyways, he gets an IM on his comp from a person who I have heard is quite cute and available. I'm also quite positive that my so called unnamed friend is not NOT uninterested in her. So I'm not saying he's interesting, but he's definitely not NOT interested. In anycase, so here my friend hasta make a decision: Hockey? or Pritty Girly? Well, if he chose the girly, I wouldn't be talking about anything here so you know what he picked. Just goes to show you, women are LESS important than video games. If you're a girl, I'm just kidding. Please disregard all of what I just said. If you're guy, you know that I'm keeping it real. In other events, yesterday night was pretty interesting. Several nonstop hours of EA Sports 2K2 were followed by several nonstop hours of starcraft in the company of Ben Poon, Brian Chew, and Dave (who I just met). Anyways, afterwards we had pizza and what not and this topic came up: bottled water - Why buy it? Alright, I gotta admit... water is good for you. It does all this great stuff. Nevertheless, there's this handy little thing that someone invented a while back... lemme think now... I believe... (I could be wrong) that there's this thing called a "Britta Filter." Its an interesting technological device that takes FREE tap water and converts it into great tasting and healthy drinking water. Now, again, perhaps I'm mistaken, but this should essentially make bottled water obsolete. Just as obsolete as an intel 386 processor these days. "But Kelly," you might say, "What if I want to bring water around?" Well, thats a good question with a simple answer. 1) Buy a bottle. 2) Fill it with the drinking water from the brita filter. 3) Give the money you save to me. See how simple it is? It's great. Yet again, I hafta juggle roomates. Since the economy isn't going so well, Jason might not be able to get a job in the area, which means either I hafta live here alone or I hafta fine a new roomate. As of right now, Ben Poon is considering living here if Jason can't stay, and possibly a couple of Ben's friends. Guess there's not much more to add about that. Just wanted to let all you folks know. Oh... I had mentioned that I school David Shih in hockey. I believe the final set was 4 games to 1 game. (Me being 4). Hrmm... I woulda won a playoff series with that. September 28, 2001: The first cs164 midterm got handed back today and I got a 53/60. The crappy part about that is I really coulda gotten a 56/60 but I was stupid. Argh... oh well. I think its good enough. Anyways, I just woke up from a nap (its currently 7:44 pm) and I feel really really gross. Sleeping too much is BAD. Ugh. Incidentally, I'm glad to be hearing that people read these rants on mine. I'm rather surprised that even a couple people actually check back here regularly. Well, anyways, I'm starving, so I'm gonna hunt down some food. September 27, 2001: I recently had a rather lively conversation about girlfriends and, more specifically, my lack of one. Evidently, people have been getting the image that I'm complaining because there are no cute girls and that I'll never get a cute girl. I can see how that might be coming across through my rants, but realistically, this is all I'm saying: 1) I am not boyfriend material 2) cute girls continue to remind me that I am single, 3) girls think i'm neutered. Explanation for item number 1) I am not boyfriend material because I'm just not tall enough. Furthermore, I don't pull in the bank or dress well enough. As for dressing well enough, really, if there were EVER a double standard it'd be here, but before you jump to conclusions, lemme let you know what most people think. A lot of girls in particular feel its just unfair how girls hafta pile on makeup and buy nice clothes to impress guys. Psh I say. PSH! Girls buy clothing more for themselves than for anything else. But girls have no shame when it comes to commenting on how guys need to dress up. Especially engineering guys. Irritating isn't it? Now lets just say for once I said to a girl, "you need to wear more makeup or dress better." Do you know what that would make me? A chauvanist(sp?) pig. Now THATS a double standard. Shoot, I just know I'd get slapped or something for saying that because, "of course" we're not allowed to say that to girls. Explanation on point 2: Every time a cute girl walks buy hanging on the arm of some guy, I think to myself, I don't got what he has, namely a girlfriend. Its just irritating knowing that I just don't cut it and all these other guys do. And of course there's number 3) Girls don't even consider me in the set of guys that are dateable. For all they care, I could be a neutered dog that just sits and stares at them as they walk by. I'm just not within their realm of possibilities because of what? I dunno, I think I lack a lot of confidence and I'm far too shy. Anyways, if its been coming off that I'm a jerk who's really picky about women, well, you're half right, but you're also half wrong. I'm picky, but not really superficially. If you really want to know, I'm sure I could explain it in the next rant or something. For now, I just want to get rid of those misconceptions. Don't get me wrong though, I like a cute girl as much as the next, and I really do believe physical attraction is necessary in a romantic relationship, but really, thats not all I'm about. September 26, 2001: Midterm status: I finished in about 35 minutes. Either that test was REALLY REALY easy, or REALLY REALLY hard. I'll tell you more about it when I get it back. Either way, it was pretty weird cuz I finished really early, and then I didn't know what to do. So I just turned it in and left. Oh well. Anyways, Enterprise just premiered today, and let me say, there were some GRATUITIS(sp?) scenes in there. Needless to say, the vulcan girl is hot. She's on the cover of Maxim this month, but in the shot, they cut her hair off so she's weird looking. Oh well, she's more attrative than seven of nine so its ALL good. Oh, lemme replay the gratuitis scene for you. So these two people were exposed to some fungus so they needed to apply this vaccinating creme all over their bodies. So uh... you get the picture. Lots of rubbing with a shiny lotion. Just goes to show you that even nerd shows have sex appeal. Rather, nerd shows are nerd shows because of the sex appeal. Anyways, the major disappointment I had was that the intro sequence of this series sucks and the music has words to them. All the previous Star Treks had only instrumental intros. Oh well.... September 25, 2001: Today's rant is a little different. I was working at the self paced center as usual (more on that later) and I went out to get some lunch, so for those familiar with 310 davis, i walked out of the selfpaced center and to the right so I could go to euclid. Well, right by the stairs I saw all these yellow bug thingies. Normally, I don't like bugs, but for some reason, this time, it was really peaceful looking. Just a lot of these white winged butterfly-ish looking insects floating up... they were all floating straight up. Its like watching Soda bubbles except in the air. I actually paused to look for a while, it was really nice. Anyways, I guess it was really refreshing because all the places I go these days are sterile. Computer labs and what not are just a very non-pretty place and it was a good eye opener to see something beautiful every now and then. Boy, this is sappy... alright.. back to kelly normal rant mode. Anyways, UC Berkeley continues to taunt my singleness. Yet again, a cute girls comes to the self paced center. One of these days, I'll find someone, and I know that time isn't now, but stuff like this just sucks. "Look but don't touch." Its really kinda sucky. Dude... and I know some of you out there know what I mean when I say they're OUT OF MY LEAGUE. In fact, they're so far out of my league that I don't even really wanna think about it or even try to make an analogy. If you've ever wondered why I play a lot of video games, here's the reason why: 1) I get to beat someone else i.e. pretend I'm better than someone, and 2) its better than thinking about all my inadequacies. All in all, I don't think I'm a bad guy, but if I get too much free time, I start mulling over past regrets and what not. These days, I just spew those thoughts onto this page. Journals are great. Well, anyways, I got a midterm tomorrow that I'm gonna studdy for in a couple hours. Maybe I'll come back and rant some more after I'm done taking 5 practice tests. September 23, 2001: Every now and then I start thinking about dating again. Specifically, the lack thereof. I get sort pensive and just wonder: Will I ever meet someone who will make my heart flutter and my mind race for words to put into a dribbling mouth? If you haven't heard me say it before, you'll hear it now -- Its the final season. No... I'm not talking about some sport, (though some might *ahem*) but rather about the final season to find myself a significant other. I've talked to some people and really, the consensus is I shouldn't think about it that way. For now, just be a good guy. Its assumed that you'll meet someone. I find it hard to believe just because so far, my track record for "meeting people" is pretty bad. On top of that, I've talked to some girls about it, and it just seems that a lot of girls are out there who just want to date for fun. As much as I like "fun," I don't think that kind of fun would be healthy for me. All in all though, I can't imagine what it would be like to "date." Its an abstract concept for me, which is why I'm so dang curious. People tell me all thist stuff about it and I see good relationship and I see bad relationships, so I don't know what to think. Heck, who knows, I may not be mature enough to have a gf anyways, and all this talk probably isn't helping me. I don't kno why I'm so concerned. I'm sure there are single girls out in the work force. Probably more than there are at college. I just wish I knew who it is that God has set aside for me, assuming he HAS set someone aside. If he hasn't, then I had better get used to bachelor-dom. Which really, so far, hasn't been bad. Its pretty relaxing and I have very few obligations. Its got as many pluses as having a gf. I guess its all about how you look at it, but its like they say, grass is always greener on the other side, and before I say that I like one better than the other, I'd like to see for myself what this dating stuff is all about. P.S. If you would like to assist Kelly Cheng discover the merits and/or faults of dating, please contact him on IM at ChrisKC01 or ICQ him at UIN: 13148399 September 21, 2001: I've now completed hw2 of cs164, a.k.a the lexer. Seems like after looking at it, it wasn't so hard afterall. Then again, everything is easy in retrospect. Well, to make a good day better, Dave happened to get NHL 2K2 today and I WHOOPED HIM TODAY. PUT THE SMACK DOWN!!! MUAHAHAHA. Well, not that badly.. they were all one goal games.. but I won like every single one except maybe one. He did win all of the shoot outs though. Oooo... a quick note for thoes who plan to get it, it has a COOL breakaway thingy where the camera follows you and you can totally see the net well. Anyways... EA musta spent a lotta time on it cuz the skating dynamics are totally weird now. It just doesn't feel right anymore, like the characters aren't skating but are just sorta floating there. oh well. September 16, 2001: I have this ridiculous cs164 project due on friday. Its basically just the lexer (for those of you who've taken it) but its all in common lisp. The funny part is that the project is amazingly well documented but its still hard to understand. There are all these weird little things that hafta work together and I can't really figure out where to start. See, I get the impression that Professor Fateman really really tries hard and means well as a professor but he's just not that good at providing helpful handouts on the project. Anyways, if you have any ideas on how to help or are GREAT at reading common lisp code, I could really use your help. For the rest of you, I'll be grateful fo ryour pity. I'm currently trying to learn a song on guitar: Christina Aguilera - Contigo en la Distancia. Its really pretty and has some great riffs written for classical guitar. I'm trying to figure out the chords atleast but its got all this dimished augmented stuff in it. Any musical geniuses out there? Gimme a hand. I'm sure a classically trained pianist will have no problem figuring this stuff out. I'm just not that good. Anyways, IM me or something, you know the drill. September 14, 2001: Quiz time: Which group of people have the least chance of getting along: A: A group of mixed company B: A group of just girls C: A group of just guy Answer: Group of just girl. Wanna know why? Girls have this habit of being manipulative so as a result, they have to have people to manipulate. Now, see, girls can't mainpulate other girls as easily, cuz the other girls see thru this scheming. As a result, all those girls will have dirty thoughts at each other. Now, a convincing argument I've had is that the mixed company will have the most problem, mainly because the guys in the group will be the playthings and the girls in the group will compete for manipulating power over their minions. Well, I'd ALMOST agree with this, except for guys, we think everythings cool, so when we see two girls going at it, we typically try to play peacemaker or try to make it sound not so bad. As a result, guys relieve tension. Women are too complicated I tell you. Nevertheless, I'm still in this stupid dilemma because, a) I like girls, and b) they'll use me like manslave and toss me in with their dirty hygene products when they're done with me. Yeah, not pretty is it? My stories alwways have morals and real life applications. Feel free to try and analyze all of that and find the moral. September 13, 2001: This week has been pretty crazy. What with the bombings on the east coast, its just been a weird couple days. I don't really know what to think about all of this. The US is primed for war and the military is on high alert. I dunno what to say, but Dave Shih brought this to my attention. The last person to attack us in a similar fashion was Japan, and we nuked them. Interesting isn't it? I'm not sure whats gonna happen, but I was pretty angry with this. Attacking civilians... its just wrong. I can't believe any government would even consider harboring whoever's behind this. I say we go after them and nail 'em. Well, hopefully without sounding callous, I really would like to talk about something less disturbing. So it seems the semester is in full swing now. Got me a couple projects and my project partners are all squared away. I currently have around 12 cans of safeway select cola on my desk. Seems my collection is already beginning. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get around to cleaning. I've already missed 4 or so classes. Man... and I was hoping to be a good student. Considering my light work load (cs164, cs186, stat 2) I should be able to do well this semester. Anyways, thats all I have for now. September 7, 2001: Well, I went in for tutoring today for a couple hours, and I dunno what it is, but there always seems to be this one hot girl in cs3s every semester. So anyways, there was one last semester and up till now, I hadn't seen a really cute girl come in for cs3 yet. But today, I saw the token cs3s-cute girl. Now the thing is, she looks awefully familiar so she probably went to MV. I'm also guessing she's a freshman. Bah.. oh well... to young, but dang... she's so cute. Now, its good that I get to have eye candy for a while, but the lame thing is I bet she'll be dating a business major before the end of the month. Grr... business majors get all the luck. 1) Employers fly them out to extravagant hotel stays and expensive dinners. Engineers get Zachary's. 2) Business majors get all the pretty girls. Engineers haven't seen a girl in quite some time. 3) Business majors make about 10000000 times more than engineers. Engineers stay up about 10000000 times more than business majors. Dangit, I knew i chose the wrong major when I saw the Haas campus. I mean dangit, even the birds know not to poo on the Haas concrete cuz its doo darn nice. Stinking Haas. Oh... if you're a business major, I'm not really angry at you guys,... just the general business aura. Heh. Anyways, I would really like it if I were suddently surrounded with smart, attractive girls. Yeah, alright, I know its unrealistic, but hey, I can dream right? September 6, 2001: There was a job fair today at the Pauley Ballroom and since I'm graduating this may, I decided to take a look and drop off some resumes. So I got up at around 9:30 AM today to print out a resume and make some copies. So I get to the place and start looking for some companies. I start walking around and talk to the NSA, Siebel, newporte, some random other companies including Slam Dunk etc. Anyways, I got a free basketball hoop which I donated to the self-paced center and some other random junk. But the weird thing was that was I was leaving, I had this revelation: Job fairs are meat markets. Freaking, we're inviting these people to come to berkeley to size us up! Isn't that jacked? And the funny part is, everyone knows the economy sucks! So if you read between the lines, a lot of companies tend to say "we don't currently have a position but I'm sure one will open up in the fall." Translation: "We're here for public relations purposes to make sure kids know who we are even though we're far too poor to hire you." September 1, 2001: Today happens to be Carol Hu's birthday so if you talk to her or see her, wish her well. We've got some plans tonite that involve dinner and dancing. Me? I'll all for dinner. Food is great. Dancing? Well, maybe. Seriously, I was born with 2 left feet and an absence of any sense of rhythm. Its gonna be interesting. Anyways, on with the ranting. Read this article. Its pretty ridiculous. Its talking about zero tolerance and the ridiculous things its done to our schools. For once, I think i hafta agree with the media on this one. Its pretty worng to be convicting kids of stuff in the name of fairness just because the law says you can. I understand the arguments that hafta follow the rules and this is just a precaution to protect other students. Alright, fine, but I realy haven't ever heard of zero-tolerance actually stopping a kid for a good reason. Well, you can read the article and decide for yourself. Just a word or caution. Its VERY biased. It makes the school system look ridiculous, which it isn't. The zero-tolerance thing was a good idea. It just went a little far and doesn't allow for different circumstances of the infrations. September 1, 2001: Well, it looks like some guys have all the luck. For those of you who know a certain -=FRIEND=-, let me tell you a little story. Here it is. -=FRIEND=- is on crack Don't believe me eh? Ugh.. the guy seriously has the darndest luck. For example, he's told me recently that he's got the pleasure of being two CS classes with this particular girl. Who's exceptionally attractive. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the CS or EECS department at berkeley, let me share with you. It if very unlikely that you have pretty female friends in EECS classes. Why? If you're a girl, stop reading cuz you'll be insulted. There are two types of girls in the EECS department. 1) The studious ones and the 2) leeches. Alright, a studious one is you're stereotypical asian nerd. A female who excels at spending countless hours studying and doing the work timely and accurately. The second type is the one you must fear. FEAR because they will LATCH ON TO YOU for projects and screw you over making you do everything by using their female wiles to ensare you into.... well.. anywyas, you get the pictures. Now typically, if you see a cute girl in a CS class, they fall into category 2. Why? Its hard to get a guy to do stuff unless you're fairly attractive. Well, anyways, to continue with my story. -=FRIEND=-'s in this class with this girl who's got the mix of both worlds. She's a freaking genius AND she's cute. Freaking A. THIS NEVER HAPPENS. Me on the other hand? Alright... i'm in cs164. I know 1 person in there. Total. I'm also in 186 which isn't so bad so I can't really complain. Anyways... for those who haven't noticed, this rant section is becoming more and more like a journal. This idea was l33ched from Sammy (the cs150 TA). Anyways, there's more. So anyways, it is currently the final season. And you might ask "Kelly. What sport are you talking about?" And I might be inclined to say something like "Fishing." Why you ask? Why? Cuz its the freaking last year I have to catch me a wife. "Kelly," you say, "You've got plenty of time after college." PSH! Little do you know of the ways of CS corporations. I've had a total of 3 internships so far. In my sum experience, the ratio of guys to girls in a CS corporation is typically 1 to 10. This INCLUDES the HR people. Darnit. Freaking A. Anyways, to top things off, I've never had a girlfriend. NEVER. And, as far as I know, no one has ever been interested in me. I'm not worried really, but engineers like to follow trends. So based on the past, I'm in for a really really single life. You know, I really wish my life was a bit more like an anime. Shoujo manga to be exact. (Shouja manga is a term that refers to japanese comic books written for girls) Why you ask? Well, in shoujo manga, the protagonist is typically a nerdy/dorky/geeky guy. A guy that's down on his luck and has no social skills. By some random luck or chance, he always meets the hottest girl on campus who happens to be perfect in everyway except one thing. Typically, the one thing is like "hates his guts and likes to punch him." Or something like that. Through a random set of events (a very LONG set of random events) they typically fall in love and they get together at the end. Isn't that just perfect? I love those stories. Man... its too bad real life doens't work out so easily. Ugh.. anyways.. more on this later... maybe. * Note: Names have been omitted to protect all parties involved as many would love to inflict bodily harm on a person who knows a cute smart girl in EECS. August 28, 2001: CNN posted another great article a couple days ago. Its about the disparity in SAT test scores among minorities. My minorities, they're saying hispanics and blacks. The survey shows that for the last couple years, whites have been improving their scores while minorities have been trailing away. The article goes on further to blame the public education as a problem. Alright, I admit, it IS the schools fault, but by no choice or their own. CNN says thats the schooling is unfairly prejudiced against minorities and I would have to disagree. This is largely inaccurate. The schooling is not intentionally biased. Instead, it has a lot more to do with socio-economics. Many minorities live together in very poor neighborhoods where the schooling is poor. As a result, the property tax in that area is also low which means the local schools get less money. Less money means less power to attract good teachers and acquire good supplies for their students. Blaming the schools is retarded. If anything, blame the government that set up the schools. Its not the school system's fault that things are like this. I really think too many people are far too quick to point a finger these days. And this really shows it. Schools want all their students to do well. On another note, a lot of schooling begins in the home. If parents take a role in the education of their kids, things would go a lot smoother. Again, many minorities are poor and have to work unreasonable hours to maintain an income, and as a result, their kids suffer academically. This is no fault of the school, and the blame, if there is any, should be given to someone else. What really bothers me is that if you blame the schools that they are teaching unfairly, then the school has a couple choices. They can a) try to teach more fairly by focusing their attention more on minorities, or b) continue doing what they have been doing which they feel is fair enough. Both situations suck, but one is more insulting to minorities. If a teacher is instructed to spend more attention on minorities, that just implies that minorities are less capable than other races. This argument is reminiscent of the ebonics debate a couple years ago. The argument then was that blacks find it insulting that ebonics considered mainly because they felt black students were just as bright as any other student that has trouble with english. Anyways, you can read more about the article here. August 18, 2001: As most of you know, CNN is the most common catalyst for my rants. And again, I happen to read something on CNN that just boggles my mind. Here's the article. To summarize for you, the UN is calling India to discuss the caste system in their recent discussions on racism. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the caste system in India, I can tell you the basics. Basically, castes are groups of people, and these groups are people are essentially ranked in the social ladder. The social ladder is extermeley important to Indian culture, but as a result, inter-caste marriages are taboo. In fact, its so severe that people are quite often killed or disowned when inter-caste marriages occur. Now, the United Nations wants India to discuss this caste system since its to an outsider, it looks like racism. India's response? "You cannot equate casteism with racism." Alright. Fine. I mean, we're all smart people, lets look at it objectively. Lemme see, lower castes get less justice in the judicial system. Many arrests being arbitrary. Safeguards to the memebers of the lower castes are largely ineffective. Hrmm.... and they're heavily discriminated against. Alright, fine, its not racism. Its extreme discrimination based on a groups ethnic identity? I mean, you can sugar coat this all you want. "It has to do with the Indian culture blah blah blah." "This is an internal affair blah blah blah." The fact that India is unwilling to even open up discussions on the matter is suggestive that the caste system is indeed racist. I can't imagine how anymore can fool themselves into thinking its not. This is akin to the tobacco company knowling say that nicotine(sp?) is not addictive. I dunno if I should be mad or anything but from reading the article, you get the feeling that, yeah, the media is trying to portray this to show India as a villain. Fine, India's now a villain, but the caste system, while not inherently wrong, has produced a lot of racism that is a direct result of the castes. Some of India's neighboring countries are attempting to end their caste system. We'll see how it goes. Argh, it just angers me to see people knowingly lie to us. Technically, the caste system is not racism, but it spawns an aweful lot of racial discrimination, so what more do you need to know? Opening discussions is a minimum, and I can't believe India wont even consider that. August 15, 2001: I'm reading CNN again and came upon this article. Its basically the NAACP issuing a statement of their demands to the television networks to provide more television staring black actors and actresses. They say stuff like they wanna create more opportunities for "people of color" and "minorities." But their tone of voice suggests that minorities aren't really the main focus. Thats fine, they're a black rights group. It just angers me that the way they go about pushing their point. You see, television is a business. Its not like the television industry is deliberately snubbing black heritage when they play shows starring a predominatnly caucasian cast. They do it because it makes money. More white people watch television than any other nationality. Heck, I don't even think there's a comparison. What angers me is how much attention the NAACP gets for stuff like these. They call Chinese people the model minority because we DON'T ask for special treatment. At minimum, we don't ask for it as much. Seriously, I think the NAACP has some issues to work out. True, they're supposed to promote black rights, but issuing ultimatums around to business is not the best nor most efficient to get your point across. In fact, for anyone who's gotten into a log of arguments, you know that once you insult a person or threaten, you'll never get your opponent to concede. This is the same situation. These NAACP members resort to threats and so the natural reaction for anyone would be to say, "forget you," or perhaps "go to hell." I really don't understand where they're coming from. If you want to get more black television, the way to do it is to show the television industry that you'd WATCH those shows that already star black people. If you can get a lot of people watching black television, then there'll be more television aimed for them. Well, maybe I'm being a little racist here. I'm not really sure, but it angers me when minorities demand special treatment. For example, when they had that Chinese guy in jail for supposedly spying, the Chinese media just ATE IT UP. They called it all sorts of racist things. Man, some people just think whenever someone from their race gets in trouble, its racism. If its not white person getting arrested its probably gonna get labeled as racism. Well, anyways, its time to start thinking about colleges again. A lot of us are about to graduate and hafta think about taking LSATs and GMATs and GREs and MCATs. Doesn't that just suck? Well, good luck to you people. If anyone knows how to study for the LSATs, gimme a ring. I need some help. A lot of help is more like it, but I'm trying to stay optimistic. For those of you who wonder why I want to go to grad school of any kind, I have three words for you. "I am single." I have currently 1 more year in undergrad for which to find a wife. hahaha. Laugh at me if you will, but seriously, you think I'll meet girls in Programming firms? I didn't think so. So if i don't get it soon, I gotta go to grad school and check out my options. Anyways, wish me luck. August 8, 2001: I just perused Hat Rack which is Orson Scott Cards official website. And I came across the original short story that started the Ender's Game saga. If you wanna read some of the best sci-fi available, this is it. Its enjoyable and actually has a lot to say besides just the story. The full novel has a lot of political commentary thats quite interesting. Anyways, take a look. Its a really quick read and its GOOD. Even if you don't like sci-fi, this is a pretty good short story all on its own. July 31, 2001: Oh crud. I over slept today. I was supposed to go to work but when i woke up, the clock read "11:24." Darnit. So now I'm at home and I don't wanna waste the day but everyone else is working so what do I do? Someone? Anyone? Play with me? Yeah.. right... Its 12:45 pm and I'm doing pretty much nothing. Anyways, if you wanna do anything, gimme a ring. If you don't know my number, chances are you can get it from someone who knows it. Unless you're a stranger, in which case, don't call. July 31, 2001: Dude... for everyone out there that knows me, I tend to keep up with asian pop culture. Well I was frequenting Bronx's Junkyard and I saw this:  She's pretty hot eh? WRONG. That there picture is of a GUY. Thats right... plastic surgery can make anyone look good. And this hasta be the crowning proof of that. The person in the picture was once a male. Ugh... this is so disturbing. July 29, 2001: I know I already had a rant, but I just couldn't help it. The cover of TIME magazine features an article on how spoiled the children of today are. Well.. DUH! For crying out loud, America has so much money, we don't know what to do with it. The first 2 paragraphs of the article said it all. A 17 year old girl (notice that this is a FEMALE) was driving drunk while talking on the cell phone when she hit a 16 year old female student. The 16 year old died. As a result, the 17 year old drunk driver was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and manslaughter. The judge gives her a trial date, and then -get this- her parents ask the judge if its okay for their daughter to spend the summer in Paris like she does every summer. GEEZ, have these parents no SHAME!? I mean seriously, this is ridiculous. I mean, I know some spoiled people (cuz anyone who's talked to me for more than 10 minutes knows who I'm complaining about) but this is insane. Your daughter killed someone and you want to know if its okay to send her off on a multi-thousand dollar vacation? As for the daughter, I'm not saying she's off the hook, but its already assumed that she's an idiot and totally at fault for the incident. But its the parents who are totally acting like children. I mean, who in the right minds hears that their daughterer is a murderer and then asks if vacation time is okay. Freaking parents these days. And they blame the KIDS for todays problems? They think OUR generation has problems? Think again. The articles in Time goes on to say that no other generation of kids has had such access to information from the internet. They try to convince readers that as a result, kids are able to twist the information they obtain to suit their needs. In addition, the advent of console games gives children a measure of control that they cannot receive in the real world. Thus, these incredibly naive children obviously have a hard time dealing with reality. Now, I don't know about you guys, but when i was in 2nd grade punching away at my Nintendo Game, I didn't think that when I had full life, I could poke my digital sword out and fire a flashing shadow across the screen, thereby killing my enemies (see Zelda). As much as people like to blame stuff on the internet and on video games these days, it just doesn't hold up. Several years ago, the general concensus was that video games made you more violent. Why? Well, monkey see monkey do right? Whoever did this research must have been fairly inept. New researchy points so far in the opposite direction that it makes the original findings a joke. Evidently, there is a high correlation in people who play games to have better grades, better concentration, better hand eye coordination, and -get this- MORE SOCIABLE. Thats right, you heard it. Games don't make you into anti-social people. In fact, if you think about it, this shouldn't really surprise us. I'm sure we all know plenty of people who play games. I would confidently say that all of my male friends have, at one point in time, been fairly "addicted" to a game. Even the REALLY big addicts aren't anti-social. In fact, how many anti-social gamers do you know? This isn't to say that people who play 24/7 have social abilities, because thats probably a little hard to imagine, but games, and the internet are becoming the standard scape goat these days, and THAT is simply too easy to say. Its like saying the evening news is the problem with society because it proliferates poor information to the eyes of the youth. July 29, 2001: Its a sunday evening again. I got work tomorrow and I don't wanna go. Not only do I not want to go, I don't even want to go to sleep now so that I can be ready to go tomorrow. I've got exactly 2 more weeks of work to go and then I'm outta here. I'm gonna relax for the last couple days before school starts. In other news, Iraq has stated that they, infact, did NOT attempt to shoot down an U2 spy plane. Instead, they stated that they attack was made on an F-15 fighter. Now, call me stupid, but I see two things that don't really make sense. 1) Correcting the US on its statement about which type of military craft they were shooting act doesn't really help their cause, and 2) the US bombs Iraqi facilities regardless of the presence of a reason. I can't imagine what this stunt it for, I mean, we've been attacking Iraqi facilities for a while. Well, as stated by a friend of mine, Iraq is just a big training field used for the US Armed Forces ... aka target practice. Today's sermon at church today talked about how we squander our free time, and I'm forced to agree. I mean, if you look at what I do on a given weekday, it probably goes along the lines of work, eat dinner, play video games, sleep. Repeat as necessary. Somewhat sad isn't it? Well, hopefully I'll break out of this cycle and do something useful in my life. By the way, thanks for spending my birthday with me guys. It was fun...hehehe. For those of you who haven't heard, on my 21st birthday, my High School buddies got together to celebrate the birdays of myself and Jennifer Lui. So we got some liquor and stuff. Man... some of that stuff is vile tasting. I'm glad I don't really like the stuff because even after a couple shots, I was getting pretty woozy. Stinking Asian blood makes me totally susceptible to the affects of alcohol. Thanks to Garrett for getting me the books. I now know some things that every man should know.... about sex. Thanks to Jeff for the absolute and to Jen for the facial care products (cuz geeeezz... do I ever need it). And last but not least, thanks to Dave for making me the all powerful dicator of a small 3rd world island nation (Tropico). Now for some hockey talk. The off-season this year was pretty wild. A lot of big-name free agents got traded around. The Sharks picked up left-winger Adam Graves who should work well in a tandem with either Selanne or Nolan. The big problem is that the top 4 teams in the western conference ALL got better. Detroit picks up Robitaille and Hasek. St. Louis Picks up Doug Weight. Dallas picks up Pierre Turgeon. And as for Colorado, its not like they needed any improvement anyways. They resigned all their big time stars. So now, little ol' San Jose hasta battle up a crazy hill to fight for a spot in the playoffs this coming season. Actually, a playoff spot isn't all that hard, but getting past the first round will be tough. I personally hope we get the 4th or 5th seed and play the Blues in the first round. In my opinion, even with their all star defensive pairs, their goalie situation still makes them the "easiest" first round choice. Imagine the sharks playing the scoring power of the Avalanche with Patrick Roy in net or trying to find the net againt Hasek. The stars still have Belfour and Modano still does triple axels and what not on the ice to make us look funny. St Louis though? They've gotten better... but not THAT much better. Here's hoping for a 4th seeed. With luck, we'll get past the 2nd round. On the hockey note, I plan to go to a hockey game this winter. If you guys have any preferences on which games to go to, go ahead and tell me. I'm rather interested in the Panthers right now and see the Bure brother light it up (and still lose) but light it up all the same. July 27, 2001: At work again and I just read about a family who is selling the name of their not-yet born child. More specifically, they're auctioning off the name to the highest bidder. Its on ebay and yahoo for a mere $500,000 minimum. Now, not only do i think this is a pretty outright get-rich scheme from people who were imaginative but greedy, but this kid is gonna have problems. Being named Kelly was bad enough. Can you imagine a name like "Coke" or "Klipsch" or maybe even "Napster?" This is ridiculous. The parents think the kid will be fine, but I can say fairly confidently that a child's name is pretty darn important. Anyways, the poll on CNN about this reports that 80%+ of their readers think that this is a bad idea. Yeah, I'd hafta agree with them. Man... its really disturbing what people will do for money these days. July 27, 2001: I just got my Grave of the Fireflies DVD and watched it. Its gotta be the saddest movie I have ever seen. I'm not exactly a sensitive guy but this movie made me get a lump in my throat and all teary eyed. Its an animated film set in Kyoto Japan around 1945. Basically, around the time of WWII. It tells the story of a 14 year old boy and his younger sister. They have lost their parents to the war and are struggling to survive. Its really emotional and above all its sad. Everyone seems to know that Japan did some nasty things to the Allied forces but this gives an interesting glimpse at what the Japanese saw. Admittedly, I think this film was meant to be a tear jerker, but who cares... it's so good that I don't mind. If you ever wanna borrow it to watch, just ask me. I'll be happy to lend it to you. I dunno how many people have been following the news recently, but a teenager was recently convicted of shooting his middle school teacher in the head. According to the teen, he didn't mean to shoot him because he thought the gun had its safety on. Now, granted, he should be punished, but the prosecutors were trying to get a life sentence on the kid. Now, if you ask me, putting a Jr High student in jail for the rest of his life is sorta idiotic. Many of the defendant's attorney's pleaded with jurors to consider the defendant's age when deliberating, and get this. This is the prosecutors response: "Any of you who have dealt with 13-year-olds, or have one, know that they get stupid on us." This is just about as insulting as it gets. Seriously, this guy needs to either 1) watch what he says to the media, or 2) grow a brain. 13 year olds are smarter than you think. They're just picky. And in my honest opinion, 13 year olds are a lot more pure than middle aged men who try to sentence jr high students to life in prison. Thats just my take on it. Its currently about 1:39 AM now. I'm sorta tired but not enough to motivate me to get into bed. I hope these rants reach someone, otherwise, I'm just writing on an overgrown piece of scratch paper. Anyways, hope you found this stuff interesting. July 25, 2001: Alright. Its time for my first rant of the webpage. As some of you know, I'm working at this place called Rise Technology. Let me tell you a little secret. Do NOT work there. Well, at least not as an intern. Seriously, its the most boring job I've ever had. Picture this: You sit down for another day of work. You open up your source code because you've been assigned to figure out what it means. Lo and behold, there it is! In all its undocumented glory, it is 5 megabytes of raw source files. Now granted, 5 megs is pretty much a drop in the bucket these days, but for an intern? For one person, this is ridiculous. Its all about video and audio encodying/decoding technology. Stuff I've never touched before. So of course, I'm here trying to learn how this code works when I don't even know how its SUPPOSED to work. "But Kelly," you say, "Can't you just read a book on that mp3 or mpeg stuff?" My response would be - For anyone who has taken ee20 and understood what it all was, then my hat is off to you. For anyone else, try reading through a manual of ALL DSP stuff. Conolutions and Discrete Cosine Transformations. I have no clue how this works. They've even thrown me some Huffman Decoding stuff, which I thought I knew thanks to cs170, but nope. I'm an idiot there too. So back to the subject, I'm looking at the code and I don't know how any of it works. I don't know where to begin and I don't have a clue what questions to ask. Sounds fun eh? On the brighter side, I've had a really good week. Just finished VBS or Vacation Bible School at my church: Daesung Presbyterian Church. It was really great. Ask me about it if you wanna know in more detail, but suffice it to say it was a great experience for me and the kids. Also, I'm ending work on August 10th, which is less than 3 weeks away at which point I'm gonna bum around till school starts. I've started going to the gym again today too. Which is good, cuz I REALLY need to excercise. Special Thanks to Jennifer Lui for dragging my butt out of my chair to go to the gym. Speaking of which, it was Jen's b-day a couple days ago, and mine is also in a couple days. Both of us are gonna be 21. I'm now officially OLD. This rant is pretty long but I don't expect future rants to be anywhere near this length. Mainly cuz I don't actually have that much going through my head in any one instant, and sitting through a day trying to rant is kind of a waste of time. Anyways, if you feel bored again, check back later. Hopefully I'll have more up. July 25, 2001: Not much here yet, but just wait. I've got lots of stuff to blab about. Current Rants |
       |
|
|