mahalo.

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah

I heard there was a secret chord
That david played and it pleased the lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you
Well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

Well your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

Baby i’ve been here before
I’ve seen this room and i’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before i knew you
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
But love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

Well there was a time when you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show that to me do you
But remember when i moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was hallelujah

Well, maybe there’s a god above
But all i’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
It’s not a cry that you hear at night
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

2004’s almost gone. can’t say it’s been the best year, but 2005 will be… interesting. new job, probably a new place, and who knows what else. i’ll be 25, aging faster than ever.

tonight, i finished season 3 of the west wing, so now i’m just going to sit here patiently until season 4 arrives on dvd.

one thing about the west wing, it sometimes has some really nice, beautiful music. for example, since i’ve started watching, i’ve picked up “ave maria” as sung by celine dion, sarah brightman, and a generic version - i think i like the sarah brightman version the best. i’ve also been listening to jeff buckley’s “hallelujah.”

additionally, mary louise parker is cute. i’m glad to see that she’s still part of the cast and will be making appearances in 2005. i wonder if her disappearance in 2004 was for the filming of angels in america.

and also, not quite as attractive, but maybe just because they gave mary louise parker’s character a more witty personality. emily proctor (white house deputy counsel) was just a nice, country girl. and she can now be seen on CSI: Miami.

(from imdb)

been out for a while, mostly just watching the west wing and doing random stuff like going to tahoe. tahoe was okay, but it started snowing really hard the last day, and it ended up taking 8 hours to get home, which was a little painful. i geeked out pretty hard there because i took my laptop, and on the second day of skiing, i opted to stay in the lodge and play with it. they had free wireless wifi in the northstar village lodge and i intended to take full advantage of the situation.

while there, i snapped a picture of my current desktop background:
.

(this picture is now showing pretty ponies… long story that is explained better in a september ‘06 post)

it’s actually a macrozoomed picture of the sheet of snow that gathered on the windshield of our car while we were skiing. the blue effect was created by shooting with a white-balance meant for incandescent lighting, so the colors are shifted more towards a blue hue to compensate for the usual orangish effect given by lightbulbs. a gray version of the picture is at gray ice. The gray effect was generated by, well, shooting without any white balance compensation.

wasted almost an entire day! but i am done with the first season of the west wing! starting season 2 tomorrow.

i also noticed that a couple of actors from CSI and 24 have been on the west wing. jorja fox from CSI is zoey barlet’s secret service agent. richard walsh (don’t know the actor’s name) from first season of 24 is the head of the secret service or something. reiko aylesworth (michelle dessler) from 24 is lori’s friend from law school. additionally, the actor who plays “Q” from st:tng is some numbers guy from california.

here’s something i’ve learned. if you’re looking for an easier game, go play at the bigger name casinos. if you want a good, tough game, play at a smaller place.

this time around, i played at imperial palace, where the entire poker “room” was probably about 6 or 7 tables, and while i was playing, there were only 3 tables being used, and all of them were 2/4. but i gotta say, the toughest 2/4 game i have ever played in. it was rare that the game ever came down to a showdown, and you rarely had more than 5 people in to see the flop. you also actually had a lot of people who are actually willing to fold after they put in a bet and then are raised… which is something you don’t see too much at looser tables. basically people are more able to anticipate and read hands and know when they’re losers.

anyways, i thought i played pretty well, but i still ended up down $30 some… i think i was there for about an hour… and i didn’t win any drawing hands, so it was okay. had a tough loss with pocket aces once. i raised pre-flop in about mid position and narrowed the field to about 5 players. the flop came with a K and two other trash cards, nothing good for a flush or a straight. the player in early position bet and i called… waiting to raise on the turn since i figured i was pretty safe unless the guy had KK, which didn’t seem that likely. on the turn, another trash card comes out and the leading player bet and i raised, and he called, and at this point it’s heads up. on the river another K comes out and i figure i’m screwed… since it seems highly doubtful that a guy in early position would bet into a pre-flop raiser unless he had paired up on that first K and was counting on me having a QQ or AQ of some sort… which he probably realized i didn’t have after i raised him on the turn. but anyways, he checks to me, and i bet… just in case he was betting on the middle pair or something. sure enough, he check raises and i have to toss my aces… so sad.

but yeah, i had thought about playing at the mirage last night, but it was a 3/6 game there, and i was under the impression that the guys playing at the mirage were pretty good. but talking to one of the guys at the table, he said that he played at the mirage the night before and it was supposed to be terrible. 3-4 guys calling to the river all night. which makes it tough because you have to get used to dropping your pat hand whenever cards that make a flush or straight come on the board. and it’s also really unpredictable because you could have all kinds of two pairs out there, whereas usually you would really worry about two pairs if they’re connector cards (i.e. 9-10) or big cards.

well, maybe as a possible cause of the last post… i still feel like crap… and it’s because i must be fighting the freaking cough from hell. it’s okay though, i went to the doctor today and loaded up on some ammunition. it some sort of cough syrup mixed with codeine baby. the actual name of the thing (because i know grace enjoys seeing her knowledge being applicable) is “promethazine w/ codeine” syrup. on top of that, i’m also taking some singulair and azithromycin. yeah baby. i’m gonna get me some good sleep tonight.

the summer after my fourth year in college, i went through a crazy, healthy, exercise-driven regime during which i lost and then re-gained (in muscle) 10 pounds, completely turned around my diet and was probably healthier than i had ever been (i would say even healthier than my water polo days because i was eating better).

what motivated me to do this was driven by a number of factors… self-image, concerns regarding health in general (i sort of felt like i was growing too old, too quickly), but more than anything, i think it was seeing old pictures of me when i was much healthier and than realizing what a sad shape i was in at the present day.

in the end i was running pretty much 4 miles 6 out of 7 days, going to the weight room at work 4 out of 5 weekdays. i was also eating high-protein, low carb, low fat foods. at some point during all of this, mcdonald’s actually became repulsive to me - whether i was afraid that it would cause me to regain all my weight, that just that the number of calories scared the heck out of me, that it tasted too heavy for me compared to what i was eating… i actually didn’t want to eat it.

all of this was actually maintainable (i pretty much kept this up for 6 months… quite an extended dieting period) because i started slowly and just slowly felt the urge to push harder. i think i started off by running a mile everyday, which i knew was just a little bit of a push for me at that time. after a while, i decided that i should go for another lap. and once i got started increasing the distance, it was really easy to push all the way to 2 to 3 miles very quickly. it wouldn’t even say “push” because it was like i actually wanted to do it… it felt like it was almost a waste if i didn’t keep moving forward. at the point when i was running 4 miles, i would save wednesdays to check my sprinting speed… and i would seriously sprint for about half a mile and then finish off the rest of the mile… at the peak of all of this, i was getting close to 6 min/mile, which was faster than anything i did in high school.

anyways, i was just thinking about how nasty i feel today after eating all that crap, and how i think that i’m finally at the point where my stomach is a little too soft and too big on the sides for my liking. i tried to do the healthy thing a couple of months ago, but i think that basically failed because i underestimated the difficulties i would have trying to go to the gym that often after work. and i also don’t think i was at the point where i was motivated (out of shape) enough to do it.

but now, i’m really starting to get there. it’s unsettling that while i used to take 4 miles with ease, now i’m hesitant to run with christina for 2 or 3 miles through oakland or around lake merritt. while i used to have a lot of energy and was willing to go out and have the energy to run all kinds of errands, now i’m a lazy homebody who doesn’t want to move from his chair or do chores. while i used to worry more about coordination while playing hockey in oakland, now i’m worried about power and acceleration - and i can’t help but think that i wouldn’t have hurt my knee if i had been in better shape.

just in general, i know that i’m getting older, but i feel like i’m acting older than i should be. i think i just need to actually put down an initial easy plan and schedule in paper. i think what i need is about 6 weeks of real dedication to that schedule. so what i really first need to do, is get myself up in the morning again, and i think that will be easier to do when the idea is more concrete than abstract - that’s why i’d like to get it on paper. and i’ll start of by running 1.5 - 2 miles a day (pretty sure i can do that) and work my way up. hopefully be at 3 miles by the fifth week. then obviously, hope that by the time 6 weeks is up, that the momentum will maintain itself for however long it can.

i don’t know when this will all start, but probably not anytime in december… too tough to keep a schedule in december with all this stuff going on. it’d actually be easiest to do if i move out, because i’ll be able to make exactly what i need for food, and be too bored out of my mind to do anything else.

had house of prime rib saturday, then sunday, stuffed myself with kfc and mcdonald’s fries. on top of that, i have a cold… it sucks being old. these colds were nothing to me when i was younger.

anyways, going to head into tellme tomorrow for orientation… looking forward to it actually… good to have something to do.

went shopping this afternoon and then got caught up with ER, the OC, and the Apprentice.

i was watching ER, and recently, there’s been a storyline with ming-na wen and her father. thing is, there’s a lot of dialogue between them in mandarin, that is never subtitled, and i dunno. do non-chinese speakers miss out on it? or is it readily understandable just by the context of the scene? i tried to figure out how you could infer some of the things being said, but i’d think that it was tough.

also, that social services worker played by mädchen amick… she’s pretty cute. although, looking at some of her other pictures online, she didn’t look as good in the past.

played our first game of the season for the thursday division tonight. we ended up winning 6-0 and i had a hat trick. given, however, that this was the team that finished last in the division last season. although, they have beefed up a bit and picked up a few new players.

looks like the NHLPA submitted a new proposal that would enact a 24% salary cut across the board. that alone, i agree with the league, is not enough. it’s a one time fix that doesn’t address the issues that caused salaries to inflate rapidly in the first place. however, checking out the rest of the proposal, linked here: ESPN, you actually see that the NHLPA has put in a provision for luxury taxes and revenue sharing. luxury taxes to the point where teams that spend in excess of a certain dollar amount on salary for three years will pay 70% on the dollar above that amount…. that actually doesn’t sound too bad to me. i wonder what the league wants. i’d guess either to raise the tax amount, or lower the bracket boundaries. i’m not sure how a cap would be much better. this would allow teams that have money to spend it if they really need to, and at the same time, help the struggling teams. if you put a cap in place, all it does is force poor teams to play with a capped payroll, with no real help for their financial woes.