I wish my job was to play poker all day

Currently Playing: OZMA - Restart

Well, let's start off with my new job. I am working at the UCSD Bookstore, in the Textbooks section. My first day of work was Wednesday. It was only an orientation/training day, so I was only there from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. We spent the first hour and a half walking around the store, following my supervisor around while she explained to us everything we needed to know. I got really, really sleepy during this, and I had to suppress many a yawn. It got so bad that my ears started plugging up, like what happens when you drive up a mountain and your ears need to be popped, except that I couldn't make it go away this time. She finally finished giving us the tour, and sent us up to the administration to fill out the necessary paperwork. That took about half an hour because they had to explain to us every single sheet that we were signing. After that, we came back down and the lead student showed us how the computers worked. There was only half an hour left when she finished, so we were allowed to take our 15 minute break and then just shelved a few books and were allowed to leave. All in all, it wasn't a bad three hours, especially since I got paid for doing nothing.

One thing that might be bad however, is that four or five of the students that have been there for a long time are leaving in the next week or so. My supervisor seems to always emphasize the fact that they're leaving and we're here to replace them, but it doesn't seem like she expects as much out of us. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. My supervisor is a really nice person, but she seems to be very attached to the old students, so much so that it might take some time for her to trust us to do anything. Oh well.

I worked again on Thursday from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. I mostly just shelved books for the whole time, which is fine with me. I don't mind shelving books, and I'm insane so I like seeing the books all nice and lined up. Tiffany came to see me at around 4:00 pm, so I took my break then. After that though, there was nothing left to do because all the books that could be shelved had been shelved. So, I basically just sat around for 30 minutes, every once in awhile getting up and walking around. I got so bored that I went through half the store straightening out the textbooks. It wasn't much to do because there aren't many people that come in the late afternoon during the summer to buy textbooks, so not much could be messed up. Oh well, again I got paid for doing pretty much nothing. Good stuff.

Last night, I played poker with Arden, Jon, and two of his friends. We played No Limit Texas Hold-em tournament style, with an $8 buy in. First place would get $20, second $12, and third $8. Everyone started with $15 in "chips" (actually coins), and we would play until the last man was standing. It started out okay for me. I quickly built a decent chip lead, and soon Zack (sp?) lost, followed by Arden. Going into the top three I think I was down in chips, but it was still fairly even. By now, it was pretty late, and I was really sleepy, so I just went All-in on a pretty bad hand (J-7 I think). Jon called, and I ended up winning. This gave me a pretty big chip advantage, and Jon soon was eliminated. Again, I was down in chips going into the final matchup, but I won a few hands and soon had probably a two to one chip lead. Now I actually wanted to win, because $20 is quite a bit more than $12. Dan, the last guy that was left, went All-in before the flop, and I had an A-Q offsuit, so I called. He had a pair of 4's. This hand was pretty much a coin flip, though he had a small advantage. He ended up winning it with a set of 4's. That wasn't so bad because I was still left with a decent chip stack, and I felt it was right to call him with A-Q. The next hand however, would be my downfall. I had a K-6, and he had Q-4, both offsuit. I had a pair of 6's after the Turn, and he wasn't betting, so I raised a decent amount. He counter-raised me All-in, and I didn't think he could beat me, so I called. He ended up being on an inside straight and a flush draw. So the only cards that could beat me were a Q, any 5, or any diamond. Since four diamonds were already out, that left him with 15 cards that could save him. Since there were only 44 cards left in the deck, that only left him with a 34% chance to win. But, with my luck, what happens to come out but a 5, giving him the straight and the win. It wouldn't have been so bad if not for how he reacted to winning. When the 5 came out, everyone expressed their joy/sadness with their respective "ooh"'s and "ahh"'s, but the first words to come out of Dan's mouth were, "Huh? How did I win?" Now, I hadn't mentioned this before, but Dan is not very experience at poker, and he even needed a cheat sheet for the hand orders. So honestly, I think the real question of the night was, "Huh? How did I lose?"

Randomness: I had gone to Student Business services a couple weeks ago to request my refund because I dropped a Summer Session two class. They put in the request and told me that it would be processed the next day, and that I would get the check in a couple weeks. Well, now it's a couple weeks later and I still haven't received my check, and I kind of need it for rent, so I go back to SBS, and asked them how my refund was coming along. Guess what they told me? They put in the request and told me that it would be processed the next day, and that I would get the check in a couple weeks. Deja-vu anyone?

Goodbye

Currently Playing: OZMA - Gameover
 
R.I.P. OZMA (1995-2004). Goodbye OZMA. We knew you well. You were with us through the good times, and carried us through the bad. Thank you.

From www.ozmaonline.com:

Goodbye« on: 07/23/04, 10:01:31 pm »

Dear ozma fans,
I regret to inform you the band has called it quits. It's been a pleasure to get to know all of you at the shows and through the forum, you’ve all helped our band be all that it could and for that I am personally thankful.  It would be impossible to explain all the reasons for our decision due to their personal nature.  These problems have affected the creative and professional facets of the band to the extent that no one feels like continuing any longer.  Though I personally wanted to wait to make this decision and give everyone the opportunity to think things over, in hopes that something might be salvaged, certain members felt the need to end things as quickly as possible.  Therefore, I see no point in waiting even a few more hours to let all of you know what’s happening.  Again, I'm sorry to have to tell you this.  I'm telling you this without the consent of the other members of the band, though based on our most recent discussion less than an hour ago I believe the decision to be final and this to be accurate information.  Thanks for the memories and all the kind words over the years that kept us going.  Please continue to listen to the music as you always have and remember us as we once were.  The forum will remain in operation for the next 2-4 months.
Sincerely,
singer/guitarist
Ryen Slegr

I did not expect this at all. I mean, I saw them less than two weeks ago, and everything seemed alright. I had no idea that not only would this be the last time I would see OZMA in concert, this would also be one of the last times OZMA would ever play. I can hope for the band to get back together someday, but that does not seem very likely. I remember I started listening to OZMA freshmen year when some random guy came into my room and heard me playing Weezer, and he recommended that I listen to OZMA. After that, I downloade...I mean, bought some of their songs, and I've been listening to them ever since. Well, at least I got to see them one last time before they broke up.

On a lighter but related note, they lowered the prices on their merchandise because they're trying to get rid of it all, so you can grab some t-shirts for relatively cheap.

Goodbye.

Capri Sun

Currently Playing: Flow - GO!!!

Me: Do you like the Orange Capri Sun?
Tiffany: I like it, except when it runs out.

Well said.

Straylight Run, OZMA, and Rooney

Currently Playing: The Carpenters - Superstar

On Tuesday, July 13th, Tiffany and I went to go see Straylight Run, OZMA, and Rooney at the Soma. We didn't decide to go until the last minute because we found out that tickets were still available. We drove there at 5:30 pm to buy tickets and wait in line for the concert to start. They let us in at around 7:00 pm, and the concert started probably an hour later (I didn't have my phone with me). While we were waiting for the concert to start, I heard them play the new Taking Back Sunday album (at a Straylight Run show??).

I was thinking of buying a Straylight Run t-shirt, but was dissuaded by the $20 price tag on them. I remember a time when shirts were just $10. What happened to those days...? Although, I do also remember a time when gas was under a dollar, so maybe I'm just getting old.

I was surprised to find that the concert was not full at all. They had sectioned off at least a third of the back, and even then, only half of the remaining space was full. Granted, that's still a lot of people because Soma is pretty big, but it just looked pretty empty. Since we got there early, we got to get the seats on the ledge on the left side of the stage. We were pretty close and we were able to see everything.

Straylight Run came on first, though I don't think many people knew who they were. Of their six demo songs, they played "The Tension and the Terror", "It's for the Best", "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making", and "Existentialism on Prom Night". They also played a bunch (and by bunch I mean 4 or 5; they were the opening band after all) of songs from their upcoming album, which they said would be released in September. Michelle actually sang the lead part on some of the songs. Some of the titles of the new songs that I can remember were "Toolsheds and Hot Tubs" (sung by Michelle), and "Sympathy for the Martyr". I really enjoyed their set, and really look forward to their album.

Random Rant: One thing that was annoying though, was when we stood up on the ledge, some guy just sat down pretty much right in front of us. He took up all the space, and after the set when we tried to sit down again, we had half as much space. Not only did he take our seat, he kept making frantic hand gestures to the girls he was talking to, and when he would leave the seat to go do something, and we would try to scoot over a little, he would just jump back into the seat and force us back over. It reminds me of the Masquerade at Anime Expo, when we stood up from our seats to try to catch some t-shirts they were throwing out, and when I tried to sit back down again, I was very surprised to find two girls standing in our seats, jumping up and down. At one point they even elbowed me in the head trying to catch a t-shirt. People are stupid.

Anyway...

OZMA played next. They played a pretty long set. I was disappointed because they didn't play "Korobeiniki" (more commonly known as the "Tetris Song"). However, they made up for it by playing a cover of The Carpenters' "Superstar". Star actually sang the song. It was the first time I've heard her sing, and it was actually pretty good. She also had to play to flute for the same song, so she had to keep switching between her flute, keyboards, and actually singing.

Rooney headlined, but it was kind of sad because it seemed like there were more people there to see OZMA than Rooney, although Rooney did have many more screaming girls. They were pretty good, although I still don't have much of an opinion on them. I only really like the song "I'm Shakin'", and that's really only because they played it on The OC.

All in all, it was a good show, and definitely worth the $15 admission price.

Randomness: I'm closing in on the 60,000 mile mark. The odometer now reads 59,891.

Randomness

Currently Playing: Taking Back Sunday - New American Classic

Since I have quite a few random things to write about, I've decided to dedicate a whole entry to randomness:

1. The "If the door is closed and the lights are on do NOT come in" rule has been implemented for the bathroom at my new apartment, being that it does not have a lock.

2. While number one (1) technically isn't actually something that is wrong with the apartment, the fact that the lock on the door to my room does not work is. You can prevent someone from pushing the handle down when you lock it, but it does nothing if that said someone pulls the handle up. Also, it seems that either the garbage disposal does not work, or that I just can't find the right switch for it.

3. Our "new" microwave is so dinky and old that it still has one of those knobs you have to turn to the correct time in order to work. It can barely fit a medium sized plate inside and takes two to three times as long to heat anything as it should normally take.

4. You have to flush at least twice to get anything, even toilet paper, to go down the toilet.

5. $10 "Not" lamps from Ikea are cool.

6. We finally got around to cleaning up the apartment and unpacking everything. We have so much more space now! The whole designated dining area is empty. We don't have anything to put there yet, but we were thinking about buying a regular table from Ikea and a poker table cover thing. But then we would need chips and stuff, because the coins that we use now probably wouldn't be good for the felt...

7. I want to try out that new self-drying car wash thing. If it works, it's genius.

8. That one guy on Jeopardy now, that Ken guy, is sick. He needs to be punched in the face...repeatedly...by me. He's something like a 28 day champion and has won a total of $920,960. He's also tied the one day record of $52,000. He's gotten so bored on the show now that he writes is name in block calligraphy and in Final Jeopardy, when the answer was Lois Lane, he drew the Superman symbol next to his answer! Makes me sick...

9. If you haven't noticed, all of my "Currently Playing" songs lately have been Taking Back Sunday songs. I downloaded their new album, "Where You Want to Be", a couple weeks ago and have been listening to it ever since. It is quite good and I would encourage everyone to buy it come July 27th.


YAY!

10. The Student Business Services office is slow...I went to them to get my refund for second session, since I had already paid for a class and then dropped it, but they said they'd put in the request today, and I would get my check in a couple of weeks! Jeez. I dropped the class almost 2 weeks ago too...

11. My dad somehow got me one of those fluorescent Miller Lite signs that you see in bars and stuff. It is now hanging over my window. It's very cool, though a little loud when on.

12. I want to play the Prince of Tennis video game for the PS2. Supposedly it's like Virtua Tennis except with all the Prince of Tennis characters (of course) and they all have special moves! Too bad it's only found in Japan and sells for $40 on eBay. Maybe I'll buy it after I start my job...

13. Which reminds me, I start working Wednesday, July 28th at 1:00 pm. I need to remember to bring my social security card with me and two other forms of identification or else they'll send me home.

Thirteen is a good number, let's end on that.

July 4th Weekend

Currently Playing: Taking Back Sunday - Slowdance on the Inside...

Okay, so...July 4th weekend:

Friday, July 2nd. Tiffany and I were supposed to go to Warped Tour, but when we looked up the bands, we realized that more than half the bands we wanted to see weren't even going to be playing! Matchbook Romance, Motion City Soundtrack, The All-American Rejects, Rufio, Allister, Sugarcult (for Memory), even Good Charlotte...all ditched us for the East Coast. This discouraged us greatly, and we at first decided just to not go at all, and go to Anime Expo (AX) in Anaheim instead. We had already planned to go to AX, which runs from Friday until Monday, but we were going to miss the first day because of Warped Tour. But, I had signed up for the text messaging service where band times for Warped Tour get sent to your phone, and we found out that Yellowcard and Taking Back Sunday weren't playing until 8:00 pm and 7:30 pm, respectively. We planned to just go see them so we wouldn't completely waste our tickets...but we ended up going to IHOP with Lien, Jean, and Julian instead (which is also good). Although I swear the prices at that IHOP were jacked up just because it was next to Disneyland. I paid nine bucks for a sourdough melt burger thing! Anyway, after eating, we went to Downtown Disney to walk around for awhile. We saw some of the Disneyland fireworks, but we missed the end because we tickets to see Spiderman 2 at the movie theater there. I thought Spiderman 2 lived up to most of the hype, and it was significantly better than the first. Maybe just because I like Doc Ock more than Green Goblin, but meh. I would definitely recommend the movie to pretty much anyone.

Saturday, July 3rd. We woke up at around 11:30ish because we wanted to get the AX by 2 to see Yoko Ishida's concert. Oh, for those of you who don't know what AX is, it is the biggest anime convention in the United States and it takes place every year on July 4th weekend. This year, there were over 25,000 people attending. There are concerts by Japanese singers (usually anime music), anime screenings on a big screen, many cosplayers (people who dress up as anime or game characters) and a Masquerade where they present skits and show off their costumes, and of course, lots and lots of anime merchandise. Anyway, the Yoko Ishida concert was pretty good, and lasted until 3:00 pm. After that, we went to the exhibition hall to look at all the anime merchandise that we shouldn't buy. We found Lien and Jean, who were working for one of the dealers there, but they were just leaving for lunch, and we didn't want to infringe on their eating time. So Tiffany and I just walked around the hall until it closed at 6:00 pm, buying some random stuff along the way. Tiffany bought me an Al (from Full Metal Alchemist) cell phone fastener (yay!).

We then went to one of the screening rooms to watch what we thought would be episode one of Full Metal Alchemist. But when we got there, no Full Metal Alchemist was to be found. They had changed the programming, and instead, showed an unsubbed version of episode one of the new series Samurai Champloo. The episode was pretty good, I mean, besides the fact that I couldn't understand anything that was said. I had already intended to watch this series, and had already downloaded the first four episodes (which ended up being a good thing because when we got back later that night Tiffany and I watched all four of the episodes). The series is made by the same person who created Cowboy Bebop, and so far is pretty good. I would recommend it to anyone who either 1) likes sword fighting, 2) liked Cowboy Bebop, or 3) just likes anime in general.

We really went to the screening room however, because right after the supposed Full Metal Alchemist episode was the movie Tokyo Godfathers. Tokyo Godfathers is the comedic story of three homeless people(an old bum, a transvestite, and a teenage runaway) who find a baby in a trash heap and then try to return the little girl to her mother. The film follows the trio as they traverse Tokyo, following clues and leads left behind by the baby's parents. A nice string of luck is their constant companion, ensuring that they find what they need and that the plot keeps moving despite the apparent hopelessness of the quest. What makes this movie so good and so funny is the depth of the characters. All the characters are equally as interesting, and you want to find out more about each of them, though admittedly being a transvestite makes for much more comedy. Anyway, I would definitely recommend it as a fun movie to watch. I think I have seen it available at Blockbuster for rental, so go watch it!

After that, Tiffany and I went to Del Taco to pick up food and just relaxed at home for awhile, where I promptly fell asleep at 12:00 am. My family didn't come back until 1:00 am, and apparently they even came in and talked to me for a bit, but I remember nothing of the sort.

Sunday, July 4th. Oh, I forgot to mention that Tiffany, being the silly girl that she is, bought me an iPod mini. It's the green one and it's the coolest thing ever. I converted all my songs to AAC format, and after I put all the songs that I wanted on there, I still have almost a gig left of space. And there is a click wheel Arden. Stupid. I don't really deserve such an extravagant gift, but I love you and thank you so much! Anyway, I was playing with the iPod pretty much at any spare moment of time I had the whole weekend.

Back to AX. After eating lunch with my parents, we left for AX at around 1:00 pm. We got there and basically just walked around the exhibition hall for a couple hours. Oh yes, and I also forgot to mention, many of the anime licensers (including Bandai and ADV), were all there in the exhibition hall. And yes, I wanted to firebomb every one of their booths. For those of you who don't know who anime licensers are, they buy the license to an anime to release it on DVD in the U.S. What this means to us is that usually groups who fan-sub anime episodes stop subbing them after an anime is licensed, which means we have to wait until the DVD is released before we get to watch the anime. For example, Bandai waited until the last few episodes of Gundam SEED to license it, leaving many people in a state of panic. Luckily, some rogue fansubbing groups took up the project and I was able to finish the series, but not before an intense hatred (shared with Kevin) of Bandai began.

That night was Masquerade, which sadly meant that we would miss the fireworks. But Lien, Jean, and Julian were able to score VIP seats because they were part of the "industry". So not only did we not have to line up to get a seat, we were able to sit in the fourth or fifth row! Good stuff. Now, Masquerade is very very long, running from 8:00 pm to 12:00 am. They started forty five minutes late, so we ended up staying there until about 1. There were a total of 55 acts, the most memorable to me being the big Gundam cosplayed by a guy from Japan, complete with weapons that had different configurations, and a huge 8 or 9 feet tall Optimus Prime. The Full Metal Alchemist group was also pretty good. Overall, I thought the Masquerade was interesting, though a little long. The seats weren't that comfortable so my butt hurt a lot after.

Some pictures of the mechs (stolen from Jean's LJ):





Monday, July 5th. Tiffany and I didn't leave until 12 because we kind of woke up a little late. We wanted to get there a little earlier because it was the last day and the exhibition hall closed at 3:00 pm. It ended up being okay, because we still had plenty of time to walk around and buy a bunch of stuff. I wound up buying a Naruto pencil board for myself and two for my brothers. Tiffany bought this cool bag with chibi Kenshin on it. She also bought some Naruto stamps and these two posters drawn by some independent artists that had a booth at AX. Near the end, some of the booths started throwing out random things that they couldn't sell. The ADV booth was throwing out t-shirts, but I was off to the side and couldn't get one, though I did let one slip through my fingers. Some of the other booths were just throwing out random figurines and things I didn't really care to get.

Anyway, this is too long already, so I'll end it there.

Randomness: iPod mini's are so coool.

Moving

Currently Playing: Taking Back Sunday - Set Phasers to Stun

I've been kind of busy, so I haven't been able to update in awhile. There's a lot to tell, but I'll start with when I moved to my new apartment.

I moved on June 30th. Arden and Kevin are in Taiwan and at home, respectively, so it was up to me and Jon to do all the work...Luckily, John offered to help out, and even took the day off work to do it (thanks John)! Also, my family came down and helped out as well, which was good, because without them, I don't think we would have finished anytime soon.

The day started off bright and early at 8:30am, when Jon and I went to go pick up the rental truck. We ended up getting the 15' truck to save us some trips. After that, I had a lab class that I couldn't miss, so I went to that until 1pm. I also had a job interview at the UCSD Bookstore at 1, so I didn't actually get back to the apartment until 2pm. I did some last minute packing when I got back home, and then loaded my computer and clothes into my car. John and my family came at around 2:30pm, and we started to move things into the truck. Well, actually, we didn't actually start moving things into the truck until later. First we moved everything out of the apartment to in front of the gate. When everything was in our apartment, it didn't look like we had much stuff, but when everything was piled up out in the street, it looked like we had two times the amount of stuff I thought we had. Finally, around 3pm, we started to move the stuff into the truck while my mom did some last minute vacuuming.

Tangent/Rant: Something that would have been very useful (and would have saved us much time) to have known beforehand, I will share with you all now (and if you already knew this...you could have brought it to my attention earlier!!): Pack everything in nice, big boxes! Do not leave everything in little, open boxes! Even if you have to pack the smaller boxes into bigger boxes, do it! Moving all the little boxes took so many extra trips because you couldn't carry that many of them at once.

Okay, anyway, we started by moving the mattresses in first, and then piling all our little boxes on top of them. My dad was doing this, and I swear there was no empty space in the back of the truck. If Tetris was a game in real life, my dad would be the supreme champion. Because of his amazing packing abilities, we were able to fit all the rest of the stuff into this one truckload. We finished at exactly 4:17pm, and it was then that I realized the leasing office for La Regencia (my new apartment complex) might close soon, and we had yet to pick up the keys to the new apartment. We hadn't picked it up earlier because I had to wait for my dad to come with me and get a money order, because for some reason they require one for the first month. I tried to call them, but no one picked up. So we drove over there to see what time they closed. Luckily, they didn't close till 5pm that day. We left to go get the money order, all the while I was trying to call them to let them know we were on our way. Still no one picked up. Since the bank is slow, we didn't actually get the money order until 4:47pm. Now I was worried because when I would call them, the answering machine would say that they were closed. We got there at 4:53pm, only to find their door locked. They were still inside, and being the asses that they were, did not open the door for us, and even went as far as to shrug their shoulders. My dad and I were like, "WTF man?" Then we saw someone leave through the other door, so we ran around the building, and caught the door as it was closing. They tried to tell us they were closed, but my dad and I and this other couple that just showed up just walked in, saying that it wasn't 5pm yet, and that they could not close yet.

We got the keys, although the guy was still being an ass. And of course, being the ass that he is, he did not tell us our assigned parking spots, and he only gave us two sets of keys...Ass. Anyway, to not drag this out any longer, in order to move everything up to the third floor, George and my dad moved everything off the truck while Peter and I moved everything into the elevator, brought it up, and unloaded it, while Jon and John moved everything from the elevator into the apartment. We finally finished at around 8:30pm, went to eat at Tofu House, and then slept. Oh yes, but not before I realized my dad had driven off with the keys to the truck, which was definitely not a good thing because I had to return it by 7:00am the next day. Luckily he realized before he was too far on the road, and turned around.

Randomness: I just got a call today from the bookstore, and I did get the job and will start on July 28th, if I don't find a better job by then.