update on my herniated disc. the inflamation doesn't seem to be improving. i left a message for the doctor on friday, and he never got back to me. i think if the inflamation just went away, i probably would be able to go back to work at least, and just take it easy. until then, i'm just on my stomach in bed, mostly grinding my teeth. but luckily for me, i have a lot of things that can distract me away from my pain. well, what have i been doing at home you ask? lucky for me, i'm a big media junkie. i have endless amounts of movies or tv shows.

~200 DVDs

just about every legacy arcade game available though mame.dk.

the internet accessible through my wireless keyboard+mouse through my TV

All the episodes of:

NewsRadio

Smallville

CSI

CSI: Miami

24

and if I don't have it, I can get whole seasons of just about any show through Kazaa Lite in a few hours.



i have all this, but i have to admit that I'm bored. too much of anything does that to you. what i miss the most is having the ability to go for a walk during my lunch hours at work. my friends joke that i'm having a grand ol' time staying home, watching tv all day, but the truth is that i'd rather be at work rather than be in pain all day, no matter how good the entertainment is at home.







tonight's episode of simpsons made fun of 4 domains that were probably not registered. so i did some investigating and it looks like FOX at least got to register the first 2. they couldn't register the edu one. and they were a little ambiguous about the last one. upon further inspection, they did register the 4th one, but if you were not paying close attention to the domain name on bart's laptop, you would have missed the -'s. so i registered the one without the -'s because that's what i thought they were referring to after watching it numerous times.

principalskinnerstinks.com <-registered to FOX

skinnersucks.org <-registered to FOX

shavetheskinner.edu <-you can't register .edu names

skinner-in-a-shredder.com <-registerd to FOX

skinnerinashredder.com <-registered to me.



i'm just adding to my simpson's collection.

the symptoms were quite severe today. much worse than yesterday, or the day before. so i just stayed in bed, waiting out the pain. i hope tomorrow is better. but what would be better to hope for is that it doesn't get any worse than what i am dealing with today.

went to see a sports medicine doctor today. and he verified that it was a herniated disc. the good news is, that i don't have any numbness in my toes and the back problems are gone, so it's not severe and won't need surgery. still, he said i should expect about 3 months of recovery time. i'll play it by ear, and just take it easy and minimize the compression in my spine. until everything feels alright, i'll have to stay away from the gym. i'll play it by ear. until then, i'll have to change my physical focus from getting fit and body building to just doing everything possible to help my back get better sooner. and i'll have to adjust my calorie intake to adjust for the low activity level while trying to keep my metabolism at a good rate.



yesterday was a good day for standing and walking around. today, i can't seem to walk, but sitting seems a lot more comfortable. damn, i can't plan my days ahead because i don't know what i'll be capable of.



is it just me or has it been a really bad month for a lot of big things? i have a really bad injury. a coworker's brother is suffering from mysterious seizures. and my friend's pet bird of 5 years just died yesteray. and someone mentioned to me that all these bad things were happening to people around them. it might just be a freak coincidence, but watch out people. don't take anything for granted.

well, how was this weekend for me... well, this post probably will be painful to read, so stop here if you don't want to hear it.



in short...a combination of excruciating and miserable. what my injury is turning out to be is a herniated disc. old people between 40-55 usually get it, but i you can always have a freak accident now and then, which is what happened to me. and it's a 6 month recovery process for old people...but i'm young, and otherwise in good health so it should be much shorter. probably for a full recovery, it's more like weeks than months. i think its not a serious case where it needs surgery (thank goodness for that), but still it's been one of the thoughest physical injuries i had to deal with so far. it makes me wonder, how do people cope with chronic pain/fatigue all for all that time? so i should be happy that i still have all my limbs, and i will recover from this eventually. and with everyone with colds and flu's quit yer whining.



so with that, here are the list of events since friday. i took off early to try some acupuncture. and i have to say it was more of a negative experience from a good one. i'm not sure what the needles and the electrodes did to me, but it felt like at least my right leg had ran the marathon + with all the pain i was currently having. i got back in my car, and tossed and turned in the car with pain and agony for about a good 45 minutes before i could drive home. contemplating if i should just call one of my friends to pick me up the whole time. needing to stop by the market, it was a miracle that ray was still at work late on friday. so i got him to pick me up 3 things that will help with the inflamation. OJ (vitamin C), Epson (aka Epsom) salt, and bengay. on a side note here are some non natural remedies fto cure inflamation.

-vitamin C

-hot bath with Epsom salt.

-bengay

-omega 3 fatty acids (found in fatty fish, almonds, olive oil)

-avoid any dairy products including meat, lactose (milk)

-avoid spicey foods



so friday evening i was fatigued from the pain...popping double the amount of advil than it was recommended in 24 hours.....woke up saturday with a little OD'd from advil (numb feeling on the tips of my lips and tongue). saturday was all about reducing my intake of advil, lying in bed sweating from the pain and fatigue from whatever the acupuncture did the day before. in contrast, it was an excellent day for downloading CSI from winmx. i got a good number of shows, and i watched about 7 episodes of CSI and 7 episodes of 24 that i haven't seen before. so at least i had that. towards the evening, i came to the realization that i should do some reasearch on herniated discs, and i found this website that had illustrations on how to do exercises for herniated discs, and those simple exercises have been providing me more progress and pain relief than all the spine adjustments (chiropractor), acupuncture, and medicine combined.



sunday, i realized that if i can just do those exercises i had found, i could actually walk around somewhat normal....so i decided to my laundry that has been piling up for more than 2 weeks. and damn, that damn near killed me. but i had to do it. after that, i was absolutely wiped out and passed out for a good few hours. and woke up feeling like i had made some progress...i might have just been imagining it, but it felt like the internal injuries were in the stages of healing. then i got a call from erik around 7pm, and troubleshot a exchange server problem at work from home. nguyen joined me at 9pm, and we finished up at about 2am. that's 5 hours of padding for my slowness coming to work for this week.



today i was in the shower, and i realized that if i just tightened my stomach and back muscles while i'm standing, i can stand semi comfortably, which is a big improvement. but driving to work was excruciating..even though it was a 10 minute drive at most. and then i sneezed at work, and now some of the pain that was gone is back....sigh......

so the war is in full gear.....



yesterday, i went to the chiropractor and we made some major breakthroughs. we were finally able to crack this one part of my hip that hasn't budged the past 4 visits. after that cracked, i was able to walk around the block in normal posture. pretty amazing. but, as this injury has proven, as things get better, other things get worse. the pain in my right leg is so severe right now, i'm amazed that i made it to work. yesterday was the most uncomfortable night in a long time. lyring straight hurts so i had to basically twist my lower body 180 degrees from my torso so that i can sleep without pain. but still must have woken up a lot because i unknowingly shifted because i am pretty drowsy today. so my back and pelvis is perfect. just the pain from the nerve inflamation is really severe. i'm going to see the acupuncturist tomorrow. since it is just inflamation, i hope that's all its gonna take to end this misery.



about the war, since bush has proven that yes, you can infact go to war without the UN or the USA backing you if you are the president of the united states. who knew? so if the public was so unsuccessful at getting him to not go to war, then you won't be much use protesting to stop a war that has already started in iraq. to all the protesters, stop being so damn useless and do something more effective. so now that we're pretty much knee deep, i do think there will definitely be some positives out of this. one, we will help an opressed country. establish ourself as the undeniable super power. which is a good thing for us. because about 8 years ago, people were saying it was obvious that the US wasn't no longer in charge any more. its more important than just bragging rights. having this presence is a big preventive measure. i'm sure if we were in this position before 9/11 happened, they would have thought twice than to attack the sleeping giant. which is now more like the giant on steroids.



after the chiropractor yesterday, i went met up with casey and ray and got some greek food at cafe athena. i gotta admit, i enjoyed aesop's tables more. aesop's had more meaty dishes. then we came back to my place and watched american idol. corey clark almost got the boot. i'm sure he'll be out of there soon. tommy says he's got a great recording voice at least. i'm saying he's got nuthing. not sure what the judges been hearing, but i did not think any of his auditions where good. i think clay should take a chill pill. i dunno why he worries about getting the boot. i think he has nothing to worry about for at least 4-6 weeks when its between ruben and clay. and i think clay will be victorious when it's down to the last 2. the reason that clay was the wild card in the first place was because he went up against the 2 best vocalists, ruben and kimberly L. but clay picked up an armada of fans in the wild card show, there's ain't no stopping him now.



tonight, if i can work up the momentum, i'm gonna attempt to do some of the laundry. maybe i'll only do a load or two just to get by before i get totally better. and i also have 10 episodes of CSI and 7 episodes of 24 i need to get to. its great having stuff to watch at your finger tips.

the last 2 nights of sleep have been the worst by far. there is heavy pain running down the side of my leg at all times. even lying in bed. so i woke up at 3:30am and felt like i had a major kink in my leg...so for about an hour, i tried to unkink it by using some creative unorthodox methods....which included wrapping my ankle in a towel and jamming it in the opening so i can push off with the other leg. with all this craziness, i realized today that the pain in my lower back is pretty much all gone, but the discomfort has just moved to my right pelvic area and all down the right side of my leg. so it has been more uncomfortable to even walk, sit, or lye down. yet at the same time, i do feel like i'm getting better. i'm not sure if its the medicine talking but i think the abrasive pain at the whole right side of my leg will be under control and it looks like there's a good chance i'll make it tomorrow.



today, my dad came by. he was wondering what i've been eating...so i showed him my stack of protein bars and he freaked. so he wanted to get me some real food. about 40 minutes later, after having gone to vons on the other side of my block, he returns empty handed and says there is absolutely nothing to eat there. if i wasn't so much in discomfort i would have busted out laughing. this is coming from a man who has eaten non asian food maybe twice in his life. once at a vegas buffet. and once at a hometown buffet. other than that, he's never had non asian food. and really, in his eyes, i could see why he would return empty handed after spending 40 minutes at a non asian market. so he dragged me to zion market in balboa. and basically wouldn't take no for an answer when he kept asking me what if i wanted something off the shelf at the korean market. so he bought me a whole mess of food. lots of korean already seasoned korean bbq meats, soups, and other food items. its really hard to pick non starchy food items at the korean market, so i did my best to stay away from noodles, and fried battered items. he also gave me a cocktail of medicine that his acupunturiust in torrance perscribed for me. funny looking pills. i hope my dad didn't blow $60 on a week supply of sugar pills. i also realized that i wasn't treally being a good son when he was trying to help in his own way. he's not really good with expressing concern, so he does it by getting mad. and that tickes me off. so i took a step back and tried to be less confrontational and just tried to make the best out of his recommendations on unorthodox back pain relief and dietary recommendations.



i also feel really guilty about not being able to work. i know a lot of work has to be done, but what can i do when i couldn't even sit for long periods of time? well, still feel guilty. and hopefully i'll make it into work tomorrow.



i have been putting off a lot of stuff because i can't really get to them. i have the biggest pile of laundry i have ever collected in my life. and another one is...i need a friggin hair cut bad. tomorrow, when if i show up to work, i'll might be wearing some raggedy clothes looking like one of the beetles.

i went to Best Buy Computers in Chula Vista yesterday. that was quite an adventure. when i saw the map, and saw, the 5, L street, and Broadway, i did what probably most san diegan would do...which is head to downtown san diego. and by doing that, i saw some interesting sites of SD i had never seen before. when i got off the freeway around M L king drive, i saw a community of homeless people. just lined up on the street in tents like they were waiting for a parade, but with no float in sight. so i did find 1016 Broadway in down town san diego. but couldn't find the store. so i called them, and i told them where i was, and they told me to drive down broadway. so that's what i did, and i ended up in some kind of a drug dealing neighborhood. drug deals were busting out right in plain sight. i would think they would have invented more clever and less suspicious looking way to do it. but nope. it was just like in the movies. a car rolls up to the house, rolls down the window, and a teen ager in a white shirt and jeans walks up constantly looking around and over his shoulder. so about an hour and a half later (my back is absolutely killing me by now), i get some guidance from nguyen, and i finally get there. and as predicted, they didn't have the 250 or the 200 meg drive in stock. but they had 120 gig hard drive at pretty descent price. or so i thought. i found out today that compusa is also selling it...and for $5...and with a $40 rebate. totally missed out. anyway i bought 2.



so i spent the weekend installing it. my main computer now has 320 gigs total...200 gigs free. this should be enough for now. i have 24, smallville, newsradio, and select movies on demand now. plus a big playground for winmx, and bit torrent.



today, rick tsai decided to drop me a visit. we were going to eat at the cottage, and it was really packed when we got there. so we went to the broken yolk, and that was even more packed. so we decided to drop the whole brunch idea and went to the star of india at PB. there was a buffet lunch there. definitely not as good as the one in la jolla. after that, we went to tapioca express. met eric lai there. then we went to star bucks. then i spent the rest of the day managing files on my computer.



my back is still in bad shape. i'm going to see the chiropractor on monday. i'm gonna prep for it this time. preparation includes 600 mg of advil and at least an half an hour stretching. i hope they can fix it tomorrow.

4ENSIC_C(SCI)E



because i need to stay in doors, i decided i should catch up on all the CSI (season 1 and 2, 1/3 of season 3) episodes i missed. i have been downloading them steadily over winmx. i've seen about 8 episodes so far. about 50 to go. which is good. i'd rather have shows i want to watch rather than trying to find something to watch.



went to the chiropractors yesterday. they still weren't able to get at the kink that is the root of all my problems. they will try again monday. i definitely feel better. still limping like i did my taxes...which i haven't. i'll have to do that as soon as i get better. right now, i'm in no mood to fish out all the tax deductions i have stored in my filing cabinet aka plastic bags. i definitely feel more mobile, so i'm going to get a new hard drive today. i found a local place that does advertise some kick ass prices, so i'm going to go there and see if its just another hole in the wall computer shop advertising something they don't and will never have in stock.

forgot to mention how my back got to where it is now.



I did work out the day before the injury that put a lot of stress on my lower back. But I felt fine after the workout, and felt fine at work next day. Then I squatted down to put in a CD in the morning, and there was a slight pull. When I stood up, I realized something was wrong. The pain wasn't too bad, but I was considering asking Erik to go home, but I thought if I can just walk around it might become better. Then I went back to work, and when I sneezed, it amplified the pain about 10x, and I had to tell Erik because I realized I needed to get off my feet asap. I barely managed to drive home. It would have been smart to ask someone to drive me home but I guess I was stubborn not to considering I only live 5 minutes away.

interesting how everything takes a back seat when you are injured or sick. a year and 3 days ago, i started this blog.



i woke up today actually with more pain than yesterday. but at least my spine is straighter. so i do feel like i'm making progress. i'm going to the chiropractors again for another adjustment this late friday afternoon. if i'm not better by sunday after readjustment, i am going to consider acupuncture. i've seen it work 1 day miracles for my mom. that is all the proof i need.



sorry for the lack of content but i've mostly been laying in bed eating protein bars all day. can't blog without material. man, i would love to get some pho. i think i'll do that first when i get better.

went to the chiropractor. my spine was pretty damn crooked. but she said that there wasn't any degeneration or disc slippage, so that is excellent news. she just did some adjustments, and most likely that will let my body heal itself. i still feel like crap. but the pain has gone from spinal pain to muscular fatigue pain...which is good. but still painful. if i'm at least 70%, i'll probably make it into work tomorrow. if i'm below that, i think another day off work is the smartest thing to do.

not feeling too much better today. i am going to the chairopractor this afternoon. since sitting causes the most discomfort, i will keep this short. that is all.

damn, i think i pinched a nerve in my back or slipped a disc or something. i've been in bed alll day today. and hopefully i'll have shown signs of some improvement tomorrow morning. nguyen called and said when this happens, a good thing to do is go on a 20 minute walk on level surface. and after my walk was over, i went from being in pain to being in a lot of discomfort. that is still a big improvment.

friday

after work, i met up with eric, kristine, nik, barbara, and jeff at papachinos. had way too much lasagna and meat ball (singular). after that, we went to get coffee and desert at the pannikin that was in the plaza. i had never been to coffee store quite like that before. i gotta admit i did feel a little bit like i was in a dave chapelle sketch. hehe. now i know how minorities feel in boba houses. after that, we came back to my place to watch Equilibirium. well, maybe there was too much expectation after reading overrated reviews on imdb, but we all did not find it to be the jewel that everyone else on the internet found it to be. the movie moves incredibly slow. you think a movie without a story line would just have non stop action. but this movie dragged its heels for about the first hour. and jeff was ready to bail half way through it. then it started to get a little better. just enough for him to stay. there was one fight scene in the movie that was worth mentioning. the fun/karate fight scene with the american psycho and robert the bruce. it was pretty innovative. imagine a kinfe fight you've seen in a steven segal movie except with guns. the problem with making a movie about how monotone and dull life and your surroundings can be is that it takes away all the cool sets that you expect from a movie. you would think the future would have really cool things and interesting furniture. not a square white block for a chair. after the movie we watched some episode of strong bad emails on homestarrunner.



saturday

i woke up early to get my car serviced at cush honda of san diego. yea, its quite a bit farther than pacific honda. but i think it is definitely worth it. every time i go to pacific honda, it feels like i get swindled into doing maintenance on something that seemed perfectly fine. for example, they told me i should get the $90 heppa air filter. i told them i didn't think i needed it. and then when i drive home, my air conditioning smells like mildew for the first time. coincidence? then the last time i took the car to get serviced, they told me that i had 3% left on my rear brake pads, and just barely scraping by on 20% on the front brake pads. worded like that, how many people do you think would be reluctant to change both front and rear brake pads? well, they were gonna charge me $500 to change my brakes, so i just decided to get my rear brakes done for $180. quite a ripoff. considering jeff told me that a set of brake pads are about $40-$50 for my car. and when jeff examined my front brake pads, it turned out that half the brake pads were still there. also, i wanted to buy Honda Care (extended warranty) at pacific honda. they quoted me $1600, while everyone else was quoting at least $400 less. also, when in the market to buy my car, pacific was quoting me a price that was about $2000 more than what i bought my car for, and they weren't willing to haggle. plus, pacific honda is the only honda dealer in the 30 mile radius that doesn't wash the car for you after they service it. so you can see why i'm willing to drive an extra 20 miles just to get an oil change. 5 strikes for pacific honda. i should write a complaint letter to honda of america. so when i dropped off my car, i was expecting a call from honda saying that i need this and that, but when they called, it was because car was good to go. so that was a relief. during the time my car was in for the 37,500mi maintenance, i met up with ray and went to guitar center.



he's in the market for a Taylor guitar (a reward to himself for finishing his masters). he was looking for a specific model that they didn't have out on the floor, so when he asked for it, the guy brought it out, and told us that the guitar had never been outside its case and incase we were wondering, it was a virgin. hehe. afterwards, the car still wasn't ready yet, so we went to go pick his gf up at the air port. then they dropped me off to pick up my car. i went home and tommy came over. we watched Super Troopers on divx, then we headed out to Phil's BBQ for dinner. we met up wendy and her friend at Phil's. ate some kickass ribs as usual. then we went to tapioca express. then we went to go watch DareDevil. the movie was okay. pretty dark like batman 1. and when a super hero gets stabbed in the shoulder, they should be able to shurg it off in no time. not come close to death. and what's up with this stretchy claymation crap? claymation should only exist in animation that involves clay. like celebrity deathmatch. claymation was the nail on the coffin for Blade 2 in my opinion. Blade 2 started off okay. and then it turned into celebrity deathmatch...



sunday, i went whale watching with ray, jen, jeff, mark, and trish.



i always thought that whale watching was a big scam. they would charge people to take them on boats. and even though these whales might exist, it is probably really rare that people ever get to see one. but they would always see dolphins. but since dolphin watching would not be good seller, they make it seem like you are going to go see whales, but you just end up finding some dolphins. and this is usually true for people that i have discussed whale watching with. but that wasn't the case today. i actually saw my first whale today. yup, never been to sea world.



in this picture, you should be able to see the fins.



after whale watching, ray, jen, and i went to go eat sushi at sushi deli 2. we wanted to go to sushi deli 1, but it was closed. but sushi deli 2 was really good today, so it was all good. after dinner, all i wanted to do was get home and take a nap. and then i took the wrong freeway exit and ended up somewhere in El Cajon. just a little south on the 805 where the 8 meets the 805. I have never been to El Cajon before but it looked like a pretty dangerous neighborhood. and when i saw group of thugs on the street, it pretty much confirmed it. and damn, you would think getting back on the freeway from an exit would be easy. not this one. there was one exit, and no freeway sign in sight from the exit. so i drove around for a while, until i saw a freeway entrance. one problem. i was looking at the freeway entrance from street that was intersected by a gas station, with no ramp to the gas station (a dead end). since i knew it was going to be pretty damn hard finding this street again after being lost, i just decided to just jump over the side walk (they were relatively low profile), onto the gas station, then get on the freeway. after i got home, i took a nap, and planned to go to rimac. but the nap turned into a 5 hour nap instead of a 2 hour nap. so that's why i'm up at 4am blogging. that's my weekend.

geekness



my jusspress.com account just got more user friendly. whenever someone makes a comment, the JussPress msn messenger account will message me on my msn messenger. totally cool.



not too much went on today. work gave me a new 60 gig hard drive cause my original 20 gig drive was crunching away at something. so i spent a good chunk of my day in the last 2 days putting this drive in, formatting, and installing. it runs so clean and fast now. hopefully i can keep my computer junk free.



today at lunch, it was a nice day, so nguyen and i decided to take a lunch outside, somewhere close to the beach and close to campus.





the carne asada burrito was one of the best carne asada burritos i've had. the meat was really tasty and grilled. it reminded me a lot of the burrito we had at that taco shop in Rosorito. it didn't have any of the cardboard taste that i was used to from el cotixan.



after work, i met up with ray and jeff and went to go eat at taste of thai. ray finished up his masters on tuesday and i wanted to take him out to celebrate. we must have went there on a good night cause the portions were larger than usual. the food was really good. everyone left there happy. after that, we came back to our place and watched american idol, the good, the bad, and the ugly.



i'm putting some serious thought into walking to work (50 minute walk) for health reasons primarily. i'll walk to work monday and wednesdays. maybe even fridays.... walking is one of the best ways to burn the stored fat. it will be great to cut up for the summer. i'll still keep the A permit though. cause i love just having it and crusing the campus with it. you got a phat benz and a yellow permit? ya, you can ride in luxury to the regents lot then take the shuttle into campus. heheheh.

here is an interesting thought. why is it that we need to install drivers after we have installed the new hardware? when you install a piece of hardware that the computer doesn't know about, things can go wrong, getting in the way of a driver install. for example. say you get a new video card. you put the new card in. the computer is now whacked out, and the screen appears to be in some alien cryptography. now they expect you to run a CD by clicking through it? why not let us install the driver first, insert its files to the list of drivers it has built into the OS, then let us install the hardware?



2 things i eventually want to get to is the history of michael. i might seem like a kid born out of the subarbs with a pertty normal family. but that's not true at all. i came from a family that struggled in many ways. when i was young living in a city in korea where a massacre went on just 1 or 2 years ago, our family was hit with a major financial blow. we all moved to the US, years apart from one another. i grew up relatively poor in comparison to almost everyone i've known. i've had a step mom. my family was disfunctional. i went to school in gang infested neighborhoods and tried my hand in being a juvenile delinquent. my dad was sometimes physically and regularly emotionally abusive. my real mom somehow ended up nursing in saudi arabia. then the IRAQ war started. but somehow we did eventually move to the subarbs. my dad made a complete 180 degree turn in how he treated his family. and my parents did remarry eachother just a couple of years ago. not your usual life story eh? don't forget on top of all that, i still had all the struggles of a teenager of fitting in at junior high, and trying to find myself in high school.



another thing i want to get to, even though an abundance of them exist on the web is a Rubik's Cube solution page. i have been pretty obsessed with playing with the thing as i first learned to solve it this last week. there's a big misconception about Rubik's cubes. its not as hard as everyone makes it to be. i admit it is antimidating at first, but all it takes is a very minute amount of spatial skills and memorization skills. practice will help you solve it faster.



i'm planning to go visit where i grew up from when i was 8 to 14 yrs old. i lived about a half a block from my elementary school. i wanna get out, and walk around. even though its not the a great neighborhood. the LA riots happened 4 blocks away from where i lived. maybe i'll just drive through it slowly. i also want to visit my junior high. i took the city bus for 2 years to go to John Burroughs Junior high school. a pretty ghetto school. but about a mile or two away from beverly hills. yeah, LA is pretty crazy like that. i wanna go visit Beverly Center, where i watched most of my movies and hung out whenever i got the chance to.



yesterday, i went to go lift even though it was rather cold. and i was not feeling 100%. so i lifted. and somehow injured my knee doing the rowing machine...... i was supposed to meet up with ray and go to the mardi gras celebration. but it was cold and raining. as i felt my knee starting to pound at the thought of it being exposed to cold wet jeans, i had to make the right decision. plus, i was running late to meet the group and would have held up everyone. i am in the mood to get really wet and just let loose in the near future, but yesterday was definitely not the night to do so.



today, my knee still hurt. i missed my pilates class for the first time. after work, i met up with my small group at church, had tofu at the convoy tofu house, then headed to bible study. while running out the door, i realized i forgot to set the vcr to record american idol. damn. first show i missed this season. but i heard clay made it! yes! he gave an amazing performance last night. and there was no doubt that he wasn't going to make it.

Why is it that if you type:

Michael Ma

in google, you end up with the category:

Health > Fitness > Pilates Method



not much went on today. i saw part of married by america. and i gotta say it is right up there with "am i hot". just plain stupid. reality shows have really gone overboard. they went from being innovative to just being ridiculous. it was the real world, road rules, and survivor that started it all. those were quality shows. but now they are trying to come up with new stuff, and they are really just going for the shock factor with no point to the show at all. i hope in a few years from now we will realize how ridiculous reality tv had gotten during this time. but i think the reality is that there is no change in trend in sight. what we (the audience) want in our participation with media is for it to be more interactive. currently, there is nothing better than live TV that has the capability of interacting with the audience. is it the wave of the future, or is it a trend? i think the only hope in getting rid of some of these shows is to find a better way for the audience at home to interact with the shows. currently, that technology doesn't exist yet. until then, there is still more potential for reality tv, and i hope more innovative shows come out than garbage like "am i hot", "joe millionaire", "married by america". i hope the growing trend of bad reality tv dies as soon as possible. i am a big fan of American Idol. AI has a purpose. it is interactive. it does good to people participating and watching. and it is entertaining.



i found an awesome link for people who like to dine in san diego.

Tim Pipher's Discovery Dining

you can get some incredible deals. and if you don't want to buy online, you can go buy it in person at boarders books. it's like 50% of at some of your favorite places to eat! i wonder what the catch is. almost seems too good to be true.



what the hell is this guy wearing? let me guess. j.crew? i got a good reality show for the execs. why not let the audience vote on live tv whether we should use humane or inhumane methods to interrogate this guy? and then we can watch it as it happens! not!

need to go to sleep soon so here are is the run down.



thursday, i got into work before scheduled for the first time in a long time. after work, i worked out, and met up with eric lai. we went to korea house.





the few times i have been there, the food was mediocre. and they weren't any different this time around. i got nak ji bbok kkum. which means spicy sauteed squid. it was very disappointing. after dinner, we walked over to tapioca express, and watched "Am I Hot"



i think this has to be the most shallow show to this day. i couldn't really watch too much of it. half way through the show, we decided to head back.



friday. me and nguyen decided to install a server in the la jolla professional building. if i worked here (where el torito is) my commute to work can be as short as a minute and a half. that is including parking.







after that, we hit up flame broiler for lunch.





friday, i spent the night at home. i got some el pollo loco take out, and finally got to some bit torrent downloads i've been meaning to watch.

-married with children reunion special

-inside the actor studio, the simpsons

i must have ate too much chicken because i passed out early and woke up about midnight. and didn't get to sleep until about 6:30 am saturday. i woke up with only 4 hours of sleep.



saturday. jeff called me up, so we dropped his celica off at this car shop because it wasn't passing smog.



after that, we got in his GTR and he showed me his new addon. the g meter.



it looks like we hit a pretty good turn on a freeway on ramp. the m/s^2 means acceleration. 1 g is about 9.1m/s^2. and the screen displays g's in the incremet of .1 g's. we went to get boba at tapioca express. then we cruised around for a bit. and while we were driving by UCSD, a 5th gen honda accord pooled up and this guy started making noise like he was going to bust a nut in his pants starring at the GTR. after that, jeff helped me put some air in my tires because it looked a little bit low. and then we met up later at my place so we can go get pho and watch cradle to the grave.



the funnies moment of the night was when jeff felt like getting some sweets right before the movie theater. so we went to coldstones. and got a waffle cone. and somehow snuck it under his shirt into the theater. i thought he pulled it off pretty well. but it was damn funny. after the movie, i went to work to do some quick troubleshooting on one of our servers.



sunday. i went to work because the server's connection had gone down again. i diagnosed the problem a little more in detail, then headed to costco near fashion valley because the one in the clairemont area really doesn't have anything right now. last time i went, they were out of basically everything i wanted to purchase. i don't think they had a single bottle of shampoo. and no almonds. which is bad cause almonds everywhere else cost more than beef jerky. and it has become a necessary part of my everyday diet. luckily the costco i went today had everything i was looking for. it wasn't the first time they ran out of almonds, so i decided to take a precautionary measure and buy 4 bags of almonds (12 lbs).





i decided to take up another thing to boost my metabolism and improve physical performance. chewing gum. yup. you heard right. here is a copy of the article.



How to Chew Out the Drug Companies.

A spate of recent studies suggests that schewsing sugar-free peppermint gum (25 cents a pack) may do more for your health than $100 worth of prescription medications. Some of th ehealth benefits of regular chewing:



Dental health

Sugar-free sweetners in the gum encourage the production of saliva which helps fight cavities and sweeten your breath.



Nausea relief

Compounds in peppermint show stomach contractions, helping you feel less queasy.



Weight loss

Repetitive jaw movement helps you burn calories spiking your metaboslim by up to 20 percent while you chew.



Motivation anxiety reduction

Peppermint scent inproves your mood and helps you work harder at the gum.



Memory improvment.

The chewing motion increases bloodflow to the brain, boosting memroy by as much as 35 percent.



as funny as it sounds, most of it makes sense. since i like to do things in big steps, i bought a lot of gum today.





i went to the gym after costco, then went to nguyen's house to join nguyen, michelle, chris, and sang for some spring rolls.





and that's my weekend.