Global Spending

Here is an interesting visualization of how different countries spend on items such as clothes, electronics, and recreation.

The things that caught my eye:
- USA spends the most on everything.
- Japan does not spend as much on electronics as you would think.
- Japan spends a lot on alcohol.
- Recreation is expensive!

You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?

You know what really grinds my gears? When my friends act like bonafide asshats.

Friend: "Hey, guess how much I overpaid for this phone?"
(Writer's note: upwards $700)
Me: "Oh let me see it."
Friend: "No, I'm not going to let you see it."

Well fuck you. Seriously. You think you're so cool cause you bought yourself a new phone. Great because I love technology as much as the next guy. But all I want to do is see it, and it's really that hard to let me have me a look at your overpriced phone? Really? Seriously? Go fuck yourself.

Give me one fucking reason why I should drive your cheap ass around town when it's so goddamn hard to let me look at your phone. Give me one fucking reason why I shouldn't toss your ass out in the middle of the street when you make no effort to repay me or show gratitude - not even having a look at your new phone.

Parking downtown - $17 bucks. All I ask for is four fucking dollars from each passenger. Two grown men - one of whom has a paying job, recently switched to a better job; the other one just returning from a 3-week vacation across Asia - "Sorry man, I don't have any cash on me right now. I'll pay you back next time. Oh stop here - we're gonna go play bowling now."

Really? $4? Don't have it? Going to play bowling? How much does a bowling game cost? Around $4? How the flying fuck are you going to brag about how expensive your phone is, when you can't even shell out a few dollars to cover to only partially cover the actual cost of chauffeuring your ass around the city? Fuck both of you, you goddamn pricks.

Now I'm not a money-driven person. That doesn't mean I like spending it, or like to spend it unwisely (occasional indulgences aside). But there's a difference between being cheap and being fair. All I ask is that you be fair. I don't like asking people for money, and sometimes, I'll be the one to pay the difference. But that doesn't mean I am in any way obligated to put up with your bullshit.

Seriously, guys - go fuck yourselves.

Don't get me wrong - on the surface, it's petty. Yes, I admit it. "Oooh he didn't let me look at his new phone." "Ooooh he owes me $4." But like I said before - it's the genuine asshat-ry that REALLY grinds my gears. You can goof around with me, that's fine. Anyone who knows me knows I like to goof around (with the occasional, yet defining explosion). But if you act like a dick to me, then I don't be surprised if I go off on you for being the dillweed that you are.

30 Rock Online Premiere

30 ROCK SEASON 3 EPISODE 1 AVAILABLE ONLINE
You can watch the new season premiere one week before the official television debut. I've been waiting a long time to for season 3. I feel so excited that I just might go buy Season 2 tomorrow.

First and foremost - NBC really needs to work on their website. The shows are in good enough quality, but everything else - the interface and the ads - need retooling. They need to work on synergizing backward overflow.

The first season is starting off real well. It's continuing from last season's storyline more or less seamlessly, although I think that some story elements move faster than I would like, since I think they're pretty creative.

The jokes are still quick and clever and have not lost any of its edge. Best of all, Tina Fey is as adorable as ever. After winning big at the Emmy's and riding high off her Palin fame, she's definitely riding high. I don't really have a sense of where 30 Rock is in terms of rabid fandom (I know shows like Heroes, Lost, Grey's Anatomy, and 24 are very highly regarded in their respective genres, but I don't think comedies don't typically get the same), but I hope this upcoming season will make 30 Rock a household name - if it isn't already.

First Truly Busy Week

As the title of this entry explains - this week has been the first, actually busy week...dare I say..."stressful?"

I say it like that because I don't believe that having work necessarily mean you've got stress. Sometimes, you just have a lot on your plate, but you go about them steadily and git'r'done. Usually, my busy weeks are like that.

With my supervisor gone on Monday, I had to "manage" every little thing going on. At times, it felt like I was wandering around in a dark forest, carefully pacing myself to make sure I wasn't staying in one place too long (lest the wolves jump me by surprise), but also making sure I wasn't rushing myself (lest I go too deep and get lost). I did so much work that day that when I showed up on Tuesday, it immediately felt like Thursday.

And as a result of that, each. and. every. day. afterwards. felt like a neverending Friday. And now it's finally Saturday and I'm still checking my work email.

I can easily see how people, once they get into this daily grind, end up getting consumed by their work. I don't think it's necessarily because of the money. God knows I'm not getting paid by the number of gray hairs I have/am getting/will get. I think it's because it's people's job, it's what they do - that's their profession.

PS. Friday was actually a pretty easy day. My supervisor took off late in the morning, so I got my stuff done and ended up spending most of the afternoon watching videos and reading blogs and schtuff.

Random Thought #1

For breakfast, I had an energy drink and a bag of Skittles(R).

-That's- how my day went.

Haha...Interesting...

I saw this entry on Engadget:
SonyEricsson Xperia X1: Unboxed, Played with on video/

Interestingly enough, I already got a chance to play with it when I went to visit Sony on my business trip. =]

8 Hours at the Airport

For the return flight from RDU, I was stuck at the airport for 8 hours due to limited availability of earlier flights during booking and consistently delayed flights.

The worst part of it was that I left my laptop charger at work, so I was not only very unproductive, I was also very bored. Due to my unproductivity, I had to stay up until 2AM to work on my presentation. I was surprised I wasn't late. But man, this whole week has been a roller coaster ride of only going straight down.

To be fair though, worse things are happening around the world, so I can't complain too much.

Saturday is great.

When It Rains, It Pours

A cliche, I know. And I'm not just referring to the fact that it rained for the better part of the afternoon today. It's just Tuesday, but the week's been pretty shitty so far.

On Sunday night, my mom called at 3AM asking me how to change the channel on the TV. =_=
That wasn't too bad, except the call killed off the last 5% of power I had left in my cell. As a result, my morning alarm did not go off and I overslept by an hour.

Rolling into work an hour late is bad, but rolling into work late with a deflated tire is even worse. During my lunch break, I drove slowly into the nearest gas station and took care of my tire. Fortunately, the tire does not seem to be leaking anymore, but WTF? Why was the air gone? Tires are expensive man...

On top of being nervous the entire day, I also felt icky cuz I didn't shower that morning. Monday = sucky.

On Tuesday (today), I found that my alarm only went off once. It's supposed to go off like 3-4 times! MAYBE it did. But it sure as hell did not wake me up. As a result, I woke up at the time I usually leave the apartment. But fortunately, I was quick about my morning routine and was only 10 minutes late - which isn't even "late" since work starts within a 30-min window.

But my car troubles weren't over. Apparently, the battery in my car key is weak or something and refuses to open the doors. I will have to resort of manual entry, which isn't horrible, but damnit - another thing to take care of?

Factor in the fact that I have my official 3-month presentation to take care at the end of the week, and barely any time to "practice" for it due to travel this week - and it'll be a pretty rough week.

Even with all the shittiness, I don't even think my life is too shitty. I don't usually complain about the things life throws at me, but this had a different flavor to it. Dissatisfaction level = 7/10.

PS - To top off my the shittiness of my real life, my virtual life is also taking a hit. In Travian, an enemy alliance is most likely going to wipe out my original (thus my most sentimental) village. Lame. =[

Top 5 Anime Gunfights

I spent a good portion of the day reconnecting with my inner otaku, and I found this little gem:



This video is this person's Top 5 Anime Gunfights. The order here is:
5. Hanai vs. Harima [School Rumble]
4. Revy vs. Luak's Gang [Black Lagoon]
3. Spike vs. Vicious [Cowboy Bebop]
2. Alucard vs. Alhambra [Hellsing]
1. Ryushuna vs. Setsuna [Grenadier]

My point here isn't to dis/agree with his/her choices, nor am I here to spaz about how awesome the gunfights are, etc. The point of this entry is really to attest to the quality of each respective series.

For starters, at #5, School Rumble isn't even an action anime [not really, anyways]. It's a parody anime whose encompassing theme is about young students in a comedic web of romantic crushes that never get anywhere. The fact that a gunfight that only exists metaphorically in the minds of 2 confused boys is on this top 5 list only highlights the "jack-of-all-trades" quality of this show.

#4. Black Lagoon is to anime what Crank is to movies. 90% of the this series is adrenaline-pumping pistol/rifle/bazooka/missile/grenade/chainsaw/knives/katana/you-name-it action. This particular scene takes place relatively early, and even to this day, I remember I "rewound" the video to watch it again.

#3. To be honest, Cowboy Bebop never made much of an impact on me as a whole. It's a pity though, because it is very highly regarded. However, after watching the scene in the video, it was a pretty damn good fight - minus the distracting music.

#2. This is the only gunfight that I hadn't seen. I think this was from the newer, remade Hellsing OVAs - the ones that take so long to release [every 6-12 months] that I easily forget to keep up. Hellsing features the gunslinging vampire, Alucard, and his awesome sidekick Seras Victoria, in their ongoing fight to kill the monsters created by Neo-Nazis, all while stepping on the toes of super-elite Catholic and Protestant warrior-priests. So...what's not to like?

#1. This was a MAJOR surprise, and the one that convinced me to write this entry. Grenadier was one of the animes that spurred my addiction to anime a few years back. On the surface, it looks like another superficial anime that features a blonde, big-boobed bimbo on a generic adventure. To be perfectly honest - it is. But that's really not telling the whole [cheesy] story. Underneath, there's actually a pretty deep and prevalent theme of peace [preaching peace in a wild west-inspired gunslinging show = cheesy story] - but as this person's top 5 gunfight video suggests - it also has a ton of intense and unique gunfighting scenes with a lot of comedy that makes this series really enjoyable [for guys?].

Blog Revision Log

From this point on, I'm creating a "Tina Fey" category, and a "Random Thought" category.

Tina Fey gets her own category because she deserves it.

The Random Thought category will be done similar to how The Truth About Cars does their "___ Death Watch #" series. It has occurred to me that throughout the day, I have random thoughts, insights, and ideas that could very well be worth something. And thus, it is in my best interest to write them down.

Cheers!

Bailout WTF?

I am stunned that Congress did not pass a $700 billion "rescue" bill because that was the "will of the American people" - because the people did not want their money to bail out Wall Street - yet they manage to pass the even BIGGER $850 billion bill.

I always knew that a bailout bill (I refuse to call it a rescue bill just because John McCain thinks so) would be passed, but I always thought it'd be for less than $700b, just because it's been receiving so much flack.

But to give out 20% MORE than they originally asked - money that we don't even have, mind you - is just another example of how out-of-touch politicians really are.

Holy shit.