a trendy name

Hero and such3
chris lin posted in Movie, Personal, Reviews on August 27th, 2004

I went with a friend to watch Hero today. It was released in 2001 in China and I didn't realize until halfway through the movie that I had already seen it before. Good thing I didn't remember any of it though, it was just some scenes that I remember distinctly since it was so out of the world. For all of you who don't know, Hero was brought over by Quentin Tarintino to the US since it was a China only released. It was a good thing too, since he left it subbed and didn't have any dub the movie. That would've been a crappy experience for me then. Go watch it, it's similiar to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon since both have the same martial arts where you fly around and do some crazy swordplay.

I loved that sorts of movies when I was a kid and just watching it now reminds me of all those other movies I had watched before. We all know it is fake, so who cares? There's no need to express your feelings in the movie theaters, no one really cares. I understand when people where like 'WTF' and that's impossible when they saw Crouching Tiger but there is no need to say it in this one, you saw the commercials and you should have expected. Americans need some more edumakation in old school Chinese movies. For those curious, the plot outline is "A series of Rashomon-like flashback accounts shape the story of how one man defeated three assassins who sought to murder the most powerful warlord in pre-unified China" (IMDB).

I have my first essay coming up on Monday for English. Well, it is more of a draft but the final is due Wednesday so I will think of it as a final. It's something about education and I should do good on it aside after filtering out all the grammar problems I have. The joy of English, I spent my entire life learning it yet I can't write a proper essay without it being riddled with grammar.

Hrm, site updates? I won't be doing one bit of coding on this layout anymore as I am working on a new one. This will probably take a month plus since I don't have much time anymore (note lack of blogging…or maybe I'm just lazy) plus I am going graphic intensive on this one and making sure it validates correctly. I will probably make it only xhtml transitional to ease my pain but eventually I want it to be strict also. I don't even know why I code up to standards, it is not my job or anything that makes me money, must be good practice or something.

Thoughts on class7
chris lin posted in Personal, School on August 20th, 2004

I am so tired. On friday, I only have one class and that is from 7:45 to 9:24AM and then I get to go home. It's for my math class since we can't have enough of it but I would rather go to school at 6:30 in the morning on MOnday and Wednesday and get today off then go three days a week. I don't know, just something I was thinking about when I woke up today, tired and cranky.

I went to my first ever baseball game yesterday and watched the LA Dodgers get beat by the Atlanta Braves. I wouldn't have gone if my friend didn't have free tickets for the game. Something about the word free that enticed me to just go. It wasn't really interesting since I am not a fan of baseball, the only fun part was when the stadium did the wave 4 times around the whole stadium and this guy sitting behind us cracking jokes at the outfielder. Clever man, but got repetitive after the 20th time.

Class is going great for the 4 classes out of 5 that I have been in. Math and English are going to be HARD. I check ratemyprofessor.com and the reviews said both were hardasses. Plus I felt it when I was going over the syllabus (the grading system, what they expect of you, etc). All I do now is pray and study. My Philosophy (Intro To Ethics) will be quite interesting, the teacher is really good (or so I've read) and it just seems like a fun class to be in. My Psychology class will be a breeze, the teacher has so many oppurtunity to get extra credit and the grading scale is like weighted; 87.5% to recieve an A in her class…freaking awesome!

Thanks to all who commented, the internet loves you.

Time to get started, again.18
chris lin posted in Personal, School on August 16th, 2004

Crap.

Tomorrow I start my Fall semester.

Damn. I will be taking 19 units this cursed semester; Math 80 (calc 3), English 3 Honors, Psych 1 Honors, Ethics Honors and Intro to C++. I just, ugh, this sucks. Summer was already ruined by Calc 1 and 2 which I got a B in both classes, the only good news I have recieved ever since I started the class. I got so happy when I heard I got a B in Calc 2 since I thought I had bombed the final (which I probably did, but not enough to get me down to a C).

Anyways, moving on. On Monday/Wednesday I have class from 7:45AM to 1:30 PM, spilt between 3 classes; Math, Psychology and English, in that order. Then on Tuesday/Thursday I have a 12:30 to 2PM class on Ethics. ON friday, I have my 7:45-9:24 for Math and Saturday is set aside for a 5 hour class on programming. Somebody shoot me. It's strange, we start so early and get out later then most UCs and cal states. It's like finishing a 20 mile run only to start another one right after.

Also, I am deciding on changing my domain name. lat3nt.net is being picked up as some weird genre of sites on search engines, mainly due to my e/n days. Because of that, some libraries or anything with those netnanny filtering systems block my site. I don't want that to happen. All I know is, my new domain is utlizing the .name suffixes and it's just going to be sweet I wanted ismy.name and use chris.ismy.name as my personal space and what.ismy.name as my main site leading to all the people I am hosting but sadly, someone owns ismy.name. So maybe I will get justanother.name. We will see.

Rich Dad Poor Dad1
chris lin posted in Book, Reviews on August 15th, 2004

Throughout this week, I have been reading the Rich Dad Series. Here's Amazons review of it…

Personal-finance author and lecturer Robert Kiyosaki developed his unique economic perspective through exposure to a pair of disparate influences: his own highly educated but fiscally unstable father, and the multimillionaire eighth-grade dropout father of his closest friend. The lifelong monetary problems experienced by his "poor dad" (whose weekly paychecks, while respectable, were never quite sufficient to meet family needs) pounded home the counterpoint communicated by his "rich dad" (that "the poor and the middle class work for money," but "the rich have money work for them"). Taking that message to heart, Kiyosaki was able to retire at 47. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, written with consultant and CPA Sharon L. Lechter, lays out his the philosophy behind his relationship with money. Although Kiyosaki can take a frustratingly long time to make his points, his book nonetheless compellingly advocates for the type of "financial literacy" that's never taught in schools. Based on the principle that income-generating assets always provide healthier bottom-line results than even the best of traditional jobs, it explains how those assets might be acquired so that the jobs can eventually be shed.

Ever since I finished reading the first book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, I have been more open minded about the financial world today. It's funny how our teachers teach how to study hard and make us work for our money when the rich just do the exact opposite and have the money work for them. Most people will never accept that reality since it is just easier to accept something everyone does instead of something so…surreal.

Just some random things6
chris lin posted in Personal on August 4th, 2004

1. I won't be online as much next week, dad is coming home and he doesn't like me being online.
Join notitle forums, it's my relaunched forums geared toward bloggers. Help it grow

2. Are you using a site powered by Wordpress? Join the Wordpress Topsites (no porn :P). Something fun plus you can find out other sites that are powered by wordpress also.

3. Any bloggers out there use a photo gallery? Leave me a link in the comments, I am shopping for a new gallery script for my photos I take.

4. I actually have a few hostees that are going to move in within the month. Amanda just recently moved in so go check her out. I am still looking for hostees who will use their space, I just upgraded so hostees usually get more space/bw than other free hosts.

5. Elise is cute, but I only have so many pictures of her. Here's another one.

6. Ever hear of those free ipod sites? It's actually legit and there areactually sites that teach you to get it. Sign up under me if you join ok?

7. Kimberly, I am taking 19 units in the fall, not summer. That's just freaking insane.

I am done blogging for today, I'll blog tomorrow in case I miss anything that I should've mentioned.

Movies, work and school; my week4
chris lin posted in Personal, School, Work on August 3rd, 2004

Man, blogging seems like a chore again. Maybe it's because I have been so…active this week and I didn't really feel like telling anyone about it. Or rather, write an entry about it; I don't mind talking, that takes less brainpower.

Grace and Elise came down last week and stayed down until yesterday. Little Elise has grown a lot since I have seen her. I went to the my aunt's house where they were staying last Sunday and Elise didn't even recognize me when she saw me. Oh well, I need to give it a couple more months. She does however speak though; not fluently of course but it's really cute when she is trying to talk. I took some pictures of her playing in the sprinklers which was so cute since she gets all excited when she touches the water. Beto called it the poor man's pool or something along that lines.

That Sunday I also went to watch The Bourne Supremacy with my cousins; it was SO FREAKIN GOOD. Ignore what the people say about how you need to watch The Bourne Identity before this film, it is a really good standalone film. You should watch The Bourne Identity when you have time though, that is a really good film but never got that much hype.

Work. What to say. Oh, it sucks. Who the heck likes to do their job anyways? And if they do like it, they probably aren't making that much money. If they are making a lot of money and loving their job, 95% of America envies them. I just don't see how our boss could be so cheap. Yes, he makes a lot of profit but at the same time he probably has the highest turnover of workers per year compared to all the other Coldstones. Which is why we all hate him. He needs to realize that his workers are important and provide better care of us. He works us like dogs and he pays us minimum wage.

I can promise you if everyone got an immediate increase in their wage his profit would go up higher since we care more about keeping our job and making our boss happy. Since you can get any other minimum wage job anywhere else, there's no incentive in working hard. Look at In-N-Out, most of their workers are always hard working and happy and that's probably because everyone wants to keep their job which starts around 2 dollars above minimum wage excluding the benefits they get. I don't know, I hope I can own a business one day and test out my theory.

I know Ford did that when he started his mass production line by paying the workers 200% higher than any minimum wage job for doing something so simple. I bet all his workers wanted to stay there and worked hard trying to keep their jobs. Anyways, a little off topic rant -.-

School is over this Friday and I get one week before I start my Fall session. What the heck is that. You figured the school would give me two weeks of rest before starting but I only get one. Study well in high school kids or you will end up like me, taking 19 units of Honor classes just to get into a good UC.

Server moved1
chris lin posted in Site Updates on August 2nd, 2004

Umm, I didn't know that DNS changed so quick and that my weekend would be so hectic so these files are what I currently have backed up.

Subdomain hostees: if you need to get a files off the old server, please email me or IM me. If you cannot login, please email me with your password since I never did write them down.

Anyways, if any part of the site doesn't work, leave a comment and I'll check up on it.