Magic!

I have gotten back into Magic: The Gathering recently and realized how much I missed it. M:TG includes strategy (playing the right cards at the right time), resource allocation (tap that mana!), and weighing pros and cons (block and die or counter attack?). (And yes, I am proud of being a Nerd. I have been one my whole life and that probably won't change any time soon.)

I have gotten some flack from people I know about the game, but I don't understand it. People generalize and think that we dress up and act as wizards, but in reality, we drink beer and eat indian food or burritos as we play (and occasionally make nerdy jokes about "tapping" our beer glasses for "mana"). Why do people make fun of a game (and the players of it) like M:TG. Perhaps their childhood wasn't as good as mine. Who knows?

M:TG doesn't only entertain me, it reminds me a time where things were a lot more simple. I would play for hours on snow-days with my friends and family. I didn't have to worry about work the next day, or how to make sure my wife is happy. I could just play and worry about the 6/6 flying Hellkite Dragon that my enemy had lined up against me and how I was going to have to block it.

I don't think I ever was one of those kids who thought, "Man, I can't wait to grow up!" (perhaps I was, and my memory is deluding me).

No, I was pretty content being a child, knowing that my elders would supply the food for me and wash my clothes. That my biggest responsibility was getting my homework done (yeah...about that) or making sure I caught the bus on time. That I could spend 8 hours of my day asleep, 8 at school, and the rest generally doing what I wanted. Life and responsibility come to everyone in time (the alternative is not a great option).

But I don't want to be one of those adults that thinks, "Life was so much better as a kid." It was certainly easier, but not better. I have a wife now, who I adore more than anything (although if she keeps making fun of M:TG, we'll see how long that lasts). I have a good job in a field that I enjoy. I am able to travel, which I didn't do overly much as a kid. I have a cat, who is perhaps the dumbest thing alive, but still manages to be loved.

And I know who I am way more than I ever did when I was younger. I am a nerdy, game playing, math and science fact knowing kid at heart.

Ranting...

I don't typically like to rant and rave, but sometimes you just have to let it out.

I am sick and tired of people playing their music loudly on the BART, in the bus or just in general.

First, we will start with public transit.

They have things called headphones. They are quite impressive bits of technology. They take your annoying Kanye West album that you are listening to, they miniaturize it, a la Willy Wonka's chocolate bar, and make it so that I don't punch you in the face.

Quite amazing.

Also, why do you have to sit right by me. When I get on the BART on the way home, there is absolutely nobody else on it besides me and the 16 year old kid with music blasting from his iPhone. Why, in god's name, must you sit near me while I quietly read my 20th century British novel? I agree that is, in fact, slightly boring, but you playing "Power" is not going to make it more enjoyable for me. I promise.

The bus is much worse. There is no escape on the bus, unless I want to get off, wait 20 minutes and then get on another one with the same exact song playing loudly on that one. At least on the BART, I can get up and wander to a new car.

The only real power I have on the bus (which I do employ as a first measure on the BART as well) is to glare at the offender hoping that they see the rage behind my eyes and connect this with the music that they are playing. It has only had an effect once. On the way home from work, I sat down in my own private car. The next stop, an older lady and her two grandkids (kids?) got on and sat directly across from me. The son, about 8 years old, had his own iPhone/iPod Touch and decided to listen to some music. I used my super human glare, not on the child (as he had no experience with a grown man with a look of hatred in his eyes), but on the grandmother. After several minutes of my laser eye death stare, the grandmother noticed.

I think she even knew why I was staring daggers at her because she said to her grandson, "We should have bought you some headphones, huh?" I don't think her grandson could even hear her.

Oh well, I tried.

On to private transport. Several months ago, I lived near a grocery store parking lot. Every once in a while, I would hear the beautiful sound of somebody's 12" Sony Xplodes rattling their trunk like there was a 5 foot tall cell phone on vibrate in there. I am all for loud music in the privacy of your own home/car/whatever, but if it sounds so bad that you can't even hear the music any more, you might want to turn it down a notch.

To each there own, I guess, unless your rattling wakes me up in the night. Then, you lose the priveledge to your own.

Many people, my wife included, don't really mind the musically enhanced BART ride or vibrating vehicles, or at least they never mention it. To me, it's just more proof that people don't really notice or care about the people around them.

If you watch Black Swan, you might actually want to see a Ballet

Last night, I went to go see Black Swan with some friends after a wonderful dinner at Salt House.


I wasn't 100% sure what I was getting into, knowing that Darren Aronofsky's works are typically dark, depressing, but always entertaining. I have watched all of Aronofsky's other movies (except "The Wrestler", which I will watch this week) and have thought after every single one, "That was amazing, but I will never watch that again." Little do I know that a short while later, I will start thinking about his movies again and want to watch Max take a power drill to his own brain.

I didn't know the story behind the ballet "Swan Lake" going into it, but I had to assume that the story lines would intertwine. Aronofsky is too clever for that. Too bad I don't watch ballet...yet.

The movie was shot in a very black and white sort of way. There were colors in the film, but the emphasis put on the distinct black/white separation between characters, scenes and moods put more "color" into the film than any actual color could.


Natalie Portman (Nina) has some problems with perfection, which is seen pretty early in the film. She does a good job of portraying the emotions that go through the story. She doesn't look her best in the movie, but I suppose that goes along with portraying a ballerina.


Mila Kunis (Lily) was not in the movie as much as I thought she would be from the previews, but her character is a good contrast to the straight laced Nina.

Vincent Cassel (Thomas) was a great director in the film, showcasing the power and energy that a director has.

Winona Rider (Beth) made a surprise appearance (for me), as I had no idea she was even still making films.

The movie was beautiful, both in cinematography and in the story. There are definitely some points that will make you squeamish, jump and (as a friend of mine did) actually scream, but all in all, I will probably want to see this again in a few months.

It's been a while...

Sorry...I sometimes forget that I have this blog. I'll work on updating it more often.

A well planned engagement

Recently, Lily and I got engaged. She was completely surprised, which is the only way to do a proposal.

I took her to a very nice dinner at Bella Trattoria. We have been there before and we were very impressed. They home make all of their pasta and gnocchi, which is the only gnocchi I have ever liked. They are super friendly and we, once again, got free dessert!

After that, we headed to the Sundance Theaters to go watch a movie. Inglourious Basterds. I know, not very romantic, but if I had taken her to go see the Time Traveler's Wife, she would have known something was up. It turns out the movie was sold out anyways, so we couldn't go see it there. We decided to head to Daly City to check it out there, but I told her there was something that I wanted to show her downtown before we went to the movie.

I took her to the Palace of Fine Arts:



We walked around and were nearly the only ones there. The timing couldn't have been better. As the only other couple left the area right underneath the dome, Lily was looking up at it and slowly spinning around to look at the view, I went down on one knee and as she finished her turn, I waited just a second and asked her the question. It was a response of shock (that's what I will tell myself anyways). But she said yes. We held each other for a little bit and then got her out of the cold.

We decided that we were going to not go see the movie after all. But, I wasn't thinking, so we ended up driving there anyways and decided to see the movie.

It was a great night. I couldn't have been happier with the way the night turned out.

Now...to plan a wedding.

A new blog, a new post♦

I have decided to update my blog. I haven't done it in quite some time, but I really though that it was time.

For those that don't know, I have moved out to San Francisco after a long journey from Thailand to the Philippines to the Appalachian Trail. It was a great journey, but for now, I must settle down a little bit and figure out where I want to take my life.

Lily and I moved into a nice apartment together in the very southern part of SF and we love it here. We have 4 roommates. Kara, a children's fashion designer and also a baker (which I enjoy). Nate, a food nut and warhammer player. Curtis, a video gamer and programmer. And Navid, a project managing powerlifter. All in all a good group. We have a great big apartment (a whole floor of a building) where we all like to cook and eat.






There is also Kitty.



I have gotten a few jobs since being out here. My first was working marketing for a appliance company. The job was fun at first, but I felt like it was draining the life out of me. I had to work both weekend days and it was a 1-2 hour drive to get where I was going. I never want to commute that long again.

I also got a job as a swimming instructor at Anderson Swim and Scuba. I love it there. I get to teach all sorts of kids from age 3 to 17 how to get comfortable in the water all the way up to competitive strokes. Its a lot of fun and the kids are (mostly) great.

Most recently, I got a job as a warehouse manager for Forgotten Shanghai. They do imported "antique" furniture and silks from Hong Kong. It is a good job because I get to do a lot of organizing and shipping which I miss from my Best Buy days.

Lily has been posting about some of our vacations out here. Check out her blog to get more info on that.

The Buntanding - a really really cool fish!

Wow! What an amazing thing to experience. Swimming with something the size of a small bus. Being the not amazing writer that I am, I am not sure if the words that I use can describe it, but I will try.

The trip from Manila to Donsol takes a long time by bus. I left at about 4:30 in the afternoon and got there at about 6 or 7 in the morning (I was too tired to remember). Not sleeping much on the bus, I needed a nap, so that meant swimming with the whale sharks had to wait a day. I heard it was best to swim with them in the early morning, so I wasn't too disappointed.

The next day, at about 6:30, I woke up excited and scared. I am afraid of sharks. It is one of my biggest fears. I don't like the idea of them sneaking up behind you while you are riding a wave. I don't like that they can sense me without seeing me. They are evil, evil creatures. :) The good news is, Whale Sharks don't even eat fish, let alone people, so I was a little more confident.

We got a good boat with a fun driver and a couple of other tourists. We took the catamaran out and drove around for a good hour or so before spotting a dorsal fin sticking out of the water in the distance. We rushed over to the spot where it was and got in front of the path of the shark. We jumped in over the side of the boat as we were still moving. It stretched my shoulders out when I landed in the water as I was still kind of holding on to the side. Somebody else landed on me. Not a great first go, but I didn't have time to worry about it.


I swam around looking, I was right behind the guide. We couldn't find it, and then, right in front of me a huge black and white mouth appeared out of nowhere. It was easily a meter across and only 3 meters away. Pretty scary to see, so I swam to the side, pulling others with me so the shark could get through. It didn't even seem to notice us. The shark was a medium size one, about 6-7 meters long, but it was big enough for my first one. We swam alongside it awhile, but it was much faster than us and could swim a lot deeper too, so we lost it. It was beautiful with black skin and white spots on top and a completely white stomach.

We got back in the boat with huge smiles on our faces and started the search anew. I spotted the second one about 100 meters away and we rushed over to it. We jumped in again and swam next to it. This one was slightly bigger, but started to dive down right away. I kept swimming with it anyways, diving down myself so I could keep an eye on it. I was so close at one point I could see it's eye looking around. It was kind of freaky. After going down about 5-10 meters, it came back up and surfaced right next to me. I saw the dorsal above the water and the shark below at the same time. The movements were completely smooth and peaceful in the water. It went back down and I was able to swim alone with it for awhile, but then it went too deep again.

Again, we got back in the boat and started our search again. We didn't see anything for a couple of hours, but I did get a good sunburn. Then we ended up "chasing" one around for about 15-20 minutes. It would surface off in the distance, we would rush there only to see it surfacing somewhere else. It was fun and irritating at the same time. Eventually, we caught up with it and were able to jump in with it. It quickly started going under (it must have been really shy). As it did though, while we were all swimming right next to it, it slowly turned over so that it was upside down (belly up) and went down like that. As we got out, you could see an extremely large smile on the guides face. He said he had never seen any whale shark doing that before. I later heard him telling other guides about it too.

Once again, we got back in the boat and searched around. We noticed several other boats congregated together and went over by them. They had crowded a butanding and had way to many swimmer next to them (there is a limit of 7, but there were at least 20 swimmers). So we backed off. Eventually, they lost it and it surfaced nearer to us, so we jumped in by it. The water was perfectly clear at that point, so when it appeared in front of me, it was amazingly bright and a perfect view. It had a good 20 or so remoras sparkling and swimming next to the whale shark. It was really amazing to see up close.

After that, we headed back in and got some food. It was one of the most amazing days of the trip and I was glad to have it right at the tale end of it. I also no longer hate sharks, but I am still afraid of some of them.

We head back to Manila now and next, we go home.