Ynoa!

So I've been sifting through the Sickles an BP A's prospects lists, I think they're kinda nuts, but that's just me. Anyway, I came across this interview with Eric Kubota at BP, and its free! What got me was this part:

DL: Can you address Michael Ynoa?

EK: He's the kind of guy that any scout who just saw him play catch would almost get goose bumps over. I mean, he's this special talent who, literally, I was very excited just watching him play catch. Anybody who has seen him would say the same thing, I think.

That seems like the consensus on Ynoa right? People drool over the kid. But they drool only once they've seen him. Goldstein still likes him quite a bit it seems, and I remember last year he wrote something similar to Kubota's quote above. Sickles seems pretty cool on Ynoa, but then again, I doubt he has seen the kid throw. What I want to know is, why is it so mesmerizing watching Ynoa throw, and does this mean anything. I mean, is there something to this? You'd think that if there was one team in MLB to not be fooled by how good a kid looks in a baseball uni, it would be the A's, yet that's the only thing I can find when it comes to what makes Ynoa a great prospect. He's young, great arm, strong bloodlines, what have you. Nothing concrete since he hasnt played a game. It makes skeptics out of internet bloggers (myself included I guess) but believers out of "witnesses." Pretty much this whole post is trying to say "I want to see Ynoa throw sooooooo bad. Not some crappy youtube video, lemme see him throw in person!" I want to see in him what made the A's spend over 4 million in such a young kid. But that won't happen. Hopefully he doesn't flame out in the low minors, I really want to see this kid throw a damn baseball some day.

While we're on the topic of gifting Seattle talent...

Lets just give Milton Bradley, cranky yet talented outfielder, to them for Carlos Silva, cranky yet zero-talent pitcher. What the fuck man, just what the fuck. Maybe the M's new front office does know what they doing, only make deals with complete fucking idiots. Rebuilding and competing is a breeze when you get free top flight talent given to you fucking weekly; oh and also the idiots agree to take on your franchise crippling contracts. Seriously, what the fuck man.

It's late...cut me some slack...

but have you ever google'd yourself? I just tried it. Pretty boring. Lot of old ATDP rosters. But there is this gem. I stared at it for a while. Like. wtf is this? Then I remembered, I took debate for a year in high school! It even has my record! Apparently I was 3-6 for my career! Fucking awesome! I don't even remember ever winning a match! I thought it was amusing. I think one win was because my opponent didn't show. Let's just pretend I was awesome for 3 debates though...and ignore the other 6...

Taylor for Wallace

I've been trying to rationalize it. Still can't. Closest I've come was this Neyer post. Yea, we have a shit load of infield prospects. And it probably was incredibly optimistic to think Wallace may stick at 3rd.

The way I see it though, we have a suuuuuuuuper crowded outfield. Sweeney was awesome last year, he's going to play. Rajai played quite well last year, he's going to get a shot. Cunningham is a fantastic prospect, he's going to get a shot. Travis fucking Buck is still alive and begging for a outfield spot! Scott Hairston, as much as I hate him, probably will get a starting spot in our outfield. Sean Doolittle, even though he really is a 1st base prospect, will see time in the outfield, if only because he won't beat out both Barton and Carter for the 1st base job. Eric Patterson, who I guess conceivably could play 2nd, is very much deserving of playing time in the outfield.

And let me just mention, that is simply our major league ready talent. Our system is fucking flooded with outfield talent, Brown, Demel, hell even Sulentic could turn into something. 3rd base though, we have nothing. NOTHING. Be it in the bigs or in the minors, there is no one to play 3rd. If there was any slim chance, I mean any chance, of Wallace being a 3rd baseman, I prefer him to Taylor. Taylor is a fucking giant who suposedly plays a decent left field...I'm just saying, doesn't take much to play a decent left field, and that body is not built to run year after year. Health record isn't exactly encouraging seeing as he is diabetic. I believe the difference between positional adjustments from 3rd to left field is something like 10 runs. You have to be pretty bad at 3rd to give up one win. Yea, I don't like the trade. I guess the front office is just positive there is zero chance of Wallace sticking at 3rd for the time being.

As a depressing closing note, fuck the Phillies. Why the fuck did they just hand Cliff Lee to the M's. Merry fucking Christmas seattle, I wish we could get a free ace.

Bayonetta

I played the Bayonetta demo. I fell in love. Holy crap is that demo fun. Game appeared awesome before I played this, now that I've played it, I'm afraid I'm going to have to part with $60 in the near future. That combat is so fucking smooth. I can see it getting kind of easy with the dodge button, seems kind of imba, but I trust Kamiya to bring the challenge. Man I cannot wait for the American release.

I'll say it Again: FUCK SCHOOL

One final down. Did well, tho seeing as I have a D in the class, dont know if it matters at all. Makes me angry, actually studied this time, I'd be surprised if I don't get at least an A on this test. Well what's done is done. Two finals left on Thursday. Couldn't study at all today, emotionally drained is a fairly accurate way of putting it. Well, physically drained too. Tomorrow (or today I guess) = all day study day. Tired of this study thing. Looking forward to happier thoughts come Thursday post-finals time.

M's

Everyone seems to be applauding the Figgans signing by the Mariners. I suppose the contract itself isn't so bad, he is a good player after all. Actually, let me remedy that: in a vacuum, the contract isn't so bad. But this is clearly a win now move. They give up their first round pick for this guy. The AL West should be weak again next season. The M's have sucked for a while now. They want to win, I can understand this. I fucking hate this move though.

Figgans is going to be around for a while now, and he isn't young at all at this moment. The M's have a very middling roster. There isn't much talent on it outside of Ichiro, Felix, and now Figgans. Their farm system also, from what I can tell, is crap. Pretty much how I see it is that the M's are paying Figgans this long contract for a shot at next year, and that's it. I don't see how they can realistically compete after 2010. Ichiro is great, but must get old someday. Felix is great, but will get expensive as fuck sooner rather than later. Figgans is good, but old and comming off a fluke good season. Gutierrez is a fine player, but he also had a fluke good season last year. The big league team is mediocre at best, and the minor league system is crap. They just gave up their first round pick in the next draft for an old player comming off a career year.

Compare now to the rest of the division. Angels, pretty much always good, and have the money to maintain their roster. Plus they've been gifted first round picks like halloween candy recently thanks to free agent compensation, their system is improving. Rangers had an encouraging showing this year, and their system is still comparable to anyones in the bigs. A's, while we all know I'm biased in their regard, also having encouraging signs at the bigleague level, as well as an incredibly strong farm system. Bascially, by 2011, we are looking at 3 very strong contenders. Not contenders like we have now, these have the potential to be really strong teams, I'm thinking 90+ game winnners.

What I'm saying here is that the M's cannot compete in this cycle. They should not be signing type A free agents. If I am Zduriencik (...spelling?), I am looking to trade not just Felix, but Ichiro as well. Felix has immense value, even heading into arb I bet he could land a Haren-esque package. Ichiro is old and expensive, but some team will bite, given he still has that superstar label. Rebuild is what I am getting at here. The roster simply lacks talent, and unless they think they can compete with the big guys in the free market, this roster needs to be blown up.

I have not been impressed with this Mariner front office at all. They make encouraging moves (acquireing Branyan, Gutierrez, under valued folks like that), but they make quite a few short sighted retarded moves as well. Griffey comes to mind. That one actually isn't even shortsighted, just plain retarded. It screams emotional attachment, the quality I want absolutely least in my GM. I don't care if Ichiro is the face of the franchise, he needs to be traded before his value goes to shit. I don't care if Felix is a super prodigy and the only exciting player you have, he needs to be traded before his arm falls off/costs 100 mill a year. Putting your hopes into a few fluke season/luck with run differential is not the way to win your division. The other 3 teams in the AL West seem to have a very strong plan at getting that title, the Mariners, in my mind, are simply treading water, and in the shallow end of the pool.

ARGH

I am, without a doubt, happier here than I have been in a good many years. Yet whenever I sit and think to myself, I still feel miserable. My grades have been in a steady decline since last year. I'm starting to worry there really is something wrong with me.

Lincecum Cy

WOW! That was totally unexpected. I thought for sure Wainwright would win it, if only because he had a ton of wins and voters seem to not like voting guys in consecutive years. Awesome that Lincecum won though. He was, after all, the best pitcher this year not named Grienke. Does anyone else find it slightly exciting that the two Cy winners this year had only 16 and 15 win totals? This was the second crazy awesome year Tim has put up now, I'd feel pretty confident in saying he is the top pitcher in mlb heading into next year. Really between Tim and Doc Hallady at this point in my mind, but I'd give Tim the edge if only because he's younger and seems to be improving. I kind of hope the Giants get him on an extension soon, that poor team would be nothing without The Freak.

Bailey ROY

Normally this sort of award would warrant a happy post, but as I am in a wretched mood at the moment, prepare for the opposite. Brett Anderson deserved to win the award. Bailey was great, but Anderson was simply incredible. People are making a big deal of how Bailey skipped from AA to the bigs, well guess what guys, so did Brett fucking Anderson. Anderson was not only the best rookie pitcher, he was one of the better pitchers in baseball. He had a 3.69 FIP, 23rd in MLB. That's better than Matt Cains supposed "break out year" and over a full point better than Mr. 3rd place Rick Porcello. Retarded. Andrus was certainly good this year, but Anderson was nearly elite. Porcello simply sucked. Niemann was alrite, but I don't see much argument for him over Anderson. Baseball awards are retarded, or rather, the voters for them are. Normally wouldn't care enough to do this, but again, bad mood, anger needs to be vented somewhere. With that said I'm gonna do the unthinkable, turn in before 1 am. How long has it been since I got to bed this early, I wonder.

Life Loves to fuck with me

Summary of my weekend:

Saturday: awesome

Sunday: GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

It's a horrible cycle I'm realizing. If I didn't procrastinate, Saturday wouldn't have been so great, but then again Sunday wouldn't have been so bad. In hindsight I'm still glad I chose to take a break Saturday, but still Sunday felt like a huge step backwards.

Apocalypse Avoided

My computer crashed yesterday. I was really sad. The screen all of a sudden freaked out, pink lines crossed everywhere, and then it rebooted. Well, attempted to reboot, it simply turned off, turned on, and failed to load windows. I ran a emergency windows repair scan and managed to salvage it, except whenever I start it, the screen has horrid and indiscernible graphics, and it eventually freezes anyway and I am forced to reboot. I figured it was probably a video card issue, and pretty much assumed I was fucked. But then a stroke of genius! I remembered I specifically bought the high end model of this laptop so I could get that stupid dual graphics card switch so I could, on the fly, go from game mode to stamina mode! After 3 years I realize it was probably a stupid idea, I never use stamina mode. BUT! I thought, maybe, just maybe, the high end graphics part of the card crashed, but perhaps the stamina part still functions?! And guess what, so far so good. Man did I luck out...at least I think I did.

Fuck Curves

I'm currently failing psych 10. I don't go to class (tho i did today!) so it should be expected I guess, but I'm slightly angry. My first midterm I got a 16/30 and recieved something like a D+/C-. 2nd score that I checked just now I got a 18/30 and got a straight D. What the hell. yea the score is still shit, but come on. god, now I gotta actually study, rape the shit out of the final, hopefully get a C in the class. still cant figure out why im in psych in the first place. for a top academic school, this place has some really stupid policies.

3rd Base

Read this little guy and was a bit surprised. I kind of just figured we would plug some random dude (i.e. adam kennedy, joe dillon, etc.) in until cardenas or wallace looked ready. And hell, maybe that's what the A's mean when they say they looking to acquire a third baseman. But my reaction was pretty much just "Brandon Wood please." If Wood is available, I want us to get him. I've no idea why the Angels hate the dude so much, but he just keeps on mashing down in AAA. The Royal boys I'm not so interested, Alex Gordon is gettin expensive soon (plus hes been pretty shitty) and Josh Fields is very meh. Wood however is young, cheap, awesome (I know the bat is awesome, is the glove good too? I remember he was a shortstop not too long ago...maybe good at third?), and inexplicably hated by his organization. If they do resign figgans (pleeeeeeease do so, i'm talking multi-year bank breaker) they will pretty much have no use for Wood. Doubt it happens though, somehow I doubt the Angels would be willing to a) sign figgans to a long term deal and b) deal Wood to a division rival. I hope they do though, its gonna suck if the angels finally realize how good that kid actually is.

1 full year

on this web log. It looks exactly the same as when I made it too. Makes me kind of sad, I wanted to make a banner involving some curry I made back in the summer, but then I realized curry looks like poo. Not just any poo either, like diarrhetic poo, an lets be honest folks, not even the sickest people want to see that. So the log continues to look meek and boring. The content remains mostly the same though, lots of baseball ramblings, video game wishlists, a fair amount of school rants, a few depression posts thrown in during finals times for good measure. Been thinking about new tags to create, but I'm not sure what they would be. Kinda happy with "Indiscriminate," covers all bases nicely. Well, change is best applied slowly...or quickly if you prefer it, doesnt really matter. I'll try an spiff up the feel of this place here in year 2, try an see if that stupid fangraphs app is fixed or somthing.

MVP = Matsui? ...seriously?

I like Japanese ball players. Irrationally so, I'll defend Kaz Matsui's spot on a mlb roster any day, even if in my heart I know any AAAA scrub could do what he does. I don't care about award voting, especially not post season award voting. But seriously? Matui barely even played rite? I thought they were platooning his ass. I dunno, maybe he has been playing, I havn't followed the playoffs at all really, but I thought that A-rod or jeter or sabathia or someone who was actually like playing awesome would get the award.

Matsui winning the award isn't what really bothers me. I think this just makes me sad because, in the last few years, I've taken some enormous leaps in my understanding of how the game of baseball works. I look at a slew of different statistics when trying to evaluate players, and I read constantly about statistical analysis of the game from other sabermetric inovators in hopes of further expanding my understanding. And yet this stupid award pretty much tells me the rest of the country is still in love with rbi's. I get that most baseball fans are ignorant of sabermetrics or just dont care. I really don't care if they believe in more advanced statistical analysis or not. But the rbi bugs me for some reason, in the same way the W-L record bugs me, in that it is so obviously useless when evaluationg player talent, yet it is still used like the fucking bible.

W-L record is starting to crack, you can see even traditionalits admitting it is a team statistic, not a pitcher stat. rbi not so much though. The thing about these two stats, as a 10 year old who fell in love with the daily boxscore in the sporting green, I could see how fucking stupid they were. I used them to evaluate palyers, I didn't know any other way (well not really true, I thought ERA was the perfect pitching stat and I loved batting average, homers, and runs scored. Don't know why I liked runs scored, I think maybe because its called a fucking "run" it sounds super valuable.), but I could see that they were more circumstance then skill. And I was 10! How can full grown adults, hell how can "baseball people" who have been working in the game all their life not see what I saw as a pre-adolescent?

I hate to go this direction with this post, but heres the bomb I've been waiting to drop: RBI's are the reason I have no fucking hope for humanity. Hyperbole, maybe, but think about it for one second. There is no way a rational person could accept that rbi's are an accurate indicator of one's offensive skill. Real quick: Kurt Suzuki had 88 rbi this season. That is a nice number. I love kurt to death, but he is not a good hitter, I don't think he is even league average. Lets find someone with a lower total...say Justin Upton. Upton had 86. Not that big a difference, but my point is that in no sane world are Justin Upton and Kurt Suzuki's offensive production comparable. A baby could tell you that, everyone in the fucking world knows that Justin Upton is fucking awesome and that Kurt Suzuki is merely awesome by catcher standards(also he's Japanese, no wait for it, Hawaiian Japanese).

Why would such a stupid stat hold such a place in our hearts then? Groupthink? People are retards? Both? It's mind boggling. How the hell did rbi's become so popular? Who invented this dreadful statistic, and how did he market it so damn effectively? It's on par with Hitler brainwashing Germany into thinking they needed to off everyone without blonde hair. Completely and utterly nonsensical, yet people believe it! OK not that bad, rbi's arnt Hitler (yet), but what I'm trying to say here is, "wake the fuck up, people." It doesn't take a genius to figure out someone is bullshitting you, and the mainstream media bullshits us a billion times a day when it comes to baseball.

愛のむきだし

Wow. Really just wow, this movie was incredible. 4 hour epic, but every lasting minute is thoroughly enjoyable. Runs from hilarious to utterly depressing at the blink of an eye, and it just portrays these emotions so, well, its hard to say believably, but it is.

The strangest thing about it is that this movie starts out absurd, and it stays absurd til the very last moment. It never tries to be anything else besides completely and utterly absurd. And yet somehow that absurdity feels one hundred percent genuine and real. I feel like this is impossible to explain. You have to see it to believe, you would never know that screaming arguments over someone having a boner could be so intensely dramatic and heart wrenching. Seriously I'm convinced its pure genius. I mean all I could think during moments like this was "...wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf this movie is so fucking weird wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf..." and yet I was completely drawn into the moment. I hung on to every word, affected by every line and expression given by the actors. Without question one of the best satire movies I've seen, one of the best movies in general that I've seen in quite a while.

series

Yanks v. Phils it is then. Aggravating no matter who wins, so really, I'm hoping for Phillies in a 7 game epic with Joe fucking Blanton as series MVP. I can see the complete game shutouts and super duper clutch home runs already. I haven't watched a single game yet this october, I don't figure to start now either. 'Tis a long ways til spring training.

Brain

Just a quick note: it is fucking weird studying the brain. Cause like I'm sitting here reading this shit yea? And it's telling me what my brain is doing. An then I stop to think about that, and then that is explainable too. It totally fucks with my head. The concept that you can use your brain to analyze your brain. Not even the concept, the reality that is. Just kind of a WTF moment I guess.

Maybe it's because I've no television but

does anyone else find this years playoffs to be utterly uncompelling/boring? I really don't care. I kinda dislike all the teams, so I really haven't got much incentive to watch. As long as the angles loose, I could care less who wins. I really fuckin hate the angels, but yankees? meh, they are the best team after all, dodgers are annoying but I've no real reason to root against them. And the phils are just kind of that other team, pretty boring team except for Utley. Oh defending champs thats what they are, still don really care about them.

Tangent, we got a new suite (...correct spelling?) mate. The old one was alrite I guess, some military korean american. Well watever hes gone, new one is some mexican dude, who like has a heavy accent. But the point is, from my perspective, he seems bulemic. He's not, I think at least, but he always in the bathroom making these throaty cough noises. Kinda disgusting. I think he just hocking lugies (.....spelling on both those words...) but who knows, maybe he puking his way to a beautiful figure. It not working for him tho, he's kind of a big dude. I mention this, btw, cause hes doing his coughing shit right now. Annoying, I know.

My roommates went home this weekend. Have I mentioned my roommates at all? 2 of em, a vietnamese one (I think) and a korean one. I don't talk to the viet one much, though this mostly has to do with thte fact that he is never around. He says he always studying, though if that is true hes gonna go insane before the quarter is done. The korean guy i get along with pretty well so far, so that's been cool. I miss not having the ability to go home, actually. Bah like a month and a half before I can go back. That's if I can get a ride back too. I have a Japanese test the Wednesday before thanksgiving! fucking retarded. I wanna finish muramasa. I wanna buy demons souls. I REALLY wanna buy demons souls. that game looks crazy. but alas, i am still stuck down here. can't complain tho, this place kicks the shit out of santa cruz so far.

Fowler Jump

Didn't see the game, but this highlight is hilarious/genius. I love moments like this. There really isn't too much room for creativity in baseball, for position players at least, so moments like this always come as a bit of a shock. I mean, Utley recovered pretty well for having just been hurdled, but Rollins was just like WTF, totally missed Utley's toss.

NO, Don't call me an Animal

So I bought my intro to psych text today. Did I mention I'm taking an intro psych course? Apparently it's required of ling majors here, I no understand such logics. But anyway I'm reading the intro here, and maybe this is simply me being a douche from a different major, but I can't help but pick out some flaws here. The one that just bugs me is assuming that studies on animals will give us better understanding of our own behavior. I'm not one of them animal rights people saying lab rats are protected under the bill of rights or anything, but simply assuming animals and humans have similar behavior patterns seems like an offly dangerous and tempting trap.

It always seems like people enojy thinking of themselves as animals. It justifies us in some way. Our actions are easily explained. "It was just an instinct" or something like that helps explain why we ate that extra peice of pie or whatever. You see it a lot in literature or stories too, likening characters to animals or beasts, there's this certain fascination with animalistic behavior.

So here is why it bugs me, and again it is probably because I'm just an ignorant asshole with a different perspective. We humans aren't animals, at least not in the behavioral sense. And yea, you probably saw this comming, but what makes us different is language, a means of expressing ourselves that is far far far and away more complicated than any other method an animal can utilize.

We have this ability to precisely convey our thoughts, and it allows us to coordinate with those that surround us. Yea we have basic instincts like, "I'm hungry therefore I will eat," but I'll just go out on a limb here and say that most of our normal behavior is somehow related to interaction with others. And I guess my point is that these ineteractions occur through complex language, something that really isn't quite fully understood in its own right. I guess it just feels like, if we watch a mouse run through a maze, we can note its behavior and whatnot and try and apply that to humans. But how does watching a mouse tell us anything about humans? We can study tactics used in the American Revolution (stand in an open field and shoot red dudes), but it really isn't applicable to modern warfare is it?

Perhaps that's a bad analogy, I realize more and more I suck at making my points clear, but what I am failing to say here is, and sorry if this is fucking elitist but it's how I feel, we are way more fucking complicated than animals, chiefly in our ability to communicate and organize so efficiently with each other. To try and find reason for our actions in an animal that has only a fraction of a fraction of our analytical mind power seems like folly.

OK, I'll take a step back, maybe there is similarities between us and field mice. Maybe we are just mere animals with egos that make us think we are above all else. But to just simply assume animal behavior can explain human behavior just sounds way to easy an answer to me, and just tells me someone wasn't taking their experiments seriously. Then again, I'm just a lazy college student mouthing off about the introduction to his lower level psych textbook, soley for the purpose of procrastination. I'm really finding this school thing difficult guys, I hope I make it through this year.

Progress!

So I got really bored today. I get bored most days, but today is Thursday, so I spend my time being bored waiting for new jump manga. I got bored enough, and bold enough, to go ahead and read the jump manga in Japanese, rather than wait around for the translations. And you know what? Not bad. Obviously most of it washed over my head, but I had a fairly solid grasp of what was happening plot wise, either through inference or actual understanding. For the record I just read the translations now, and its fucking awesome because they just confirm what I thought was going on. I kind of liked reading it in Japanese, it just sounds much cooler in the language it is meant to be in, re-reading in English made kind of corny. So I dunno, just a nice moment, my studying paying off a bit, and something I enjoy got a bit better.

Season Ends

So this season pretty much sucked. We went in with optimism, only to very quickly realize that our players fucking sucked. But that isn't to say this was the worst season ever, there are quite a few positives I would like to reflect upon, the first of which being:

1) Brett Anderson. Holy crap did I not see this coming. Dude is one year older than me, and he just straight dominated the league. Posted ~20% K-rate and a 6% BB-rate, along with a GB-rate over 50%. His slider is just an obscene pitch, and the fastball had velocity that was, for once, even better than advertised. Brett Anderson is awesome, and seriously guys, he has tons of time to get even better.

2) Andrew Bailey. Came even more out of nowhere than Anderson. And really, started out awesome and stayed awesome, pretty much striking out everyone. I expect he'll give up quite a few more homers next year, but still a very useful arm.

3) Mikel Wuertz. This guy was just godly coming out the pen...pretty much every day. I really can't understand how we didn't trade his ass at the deadline, some idiot had to have wanted to overpay for him. Next year hopefully...

4) Ryan Sweeney. Sweeney had a really good season. I hate on the guy a lot, (and I think deservedly so! He's a fucking giant with zero power) but he did throw up some insane fielding numbers this year, and once again hovered around league average with the bat. Really, he was one of the bigger positives this team has seen in a while, and if he can maintain this level of performance (glove probably regress quite a bit, but maybe the bat will improve?) he could be a part of our crowded outfield for a while. God that is a depressing thought. Though positive, this guy was throw in for swish. A throw in! Not a bad return, really.

5) Raj Davis. I really don't like raj davis. I don know why, his game is just incredibley annyoing to me. From the "stumble across homeplate" move he has whenever he takes a pitch or the "trip on the base cause I'm running so damn fast to the next base" move he always does, he just annoys me. So yea, he fluked himself into a good season, awesome it happened for us, kinda hoping he's a defensive replacement/pinch runner next season.

6) Gio Gonzalez. Gio struck out a shit load of guys this season. Seriously, he struck out a shit load. Yea he walked a shit load too, but holy crap can he strike guys out. Plus he was super unlucky this season! Watch as I defend Gio with the following numbers: .369 BABiP! 67.8% LOB%! 13.9% HR/FB! (he has a career 9.2% HR/FB as per minor leage splits) Alright his walk rate is fucking horrendous, but other than that Gio had a nice little half season in the bigs.

7) Kurt Suzuki. Kurt had a bit of a mixed season, but overrall could be a step in the right direction, development wise at least. He basically forgot how to take a walk, but learned how to hit the longball. His offensive value held about static from last year, I just hope next year the power stays and the walks return. Still, as he is, Kurt's an around league average bat at a premeium position. And from what I can gather, his defensive reputation seems to be fairly positive. That is definitely a positive, especially at the price he comes at.

8) Dallas Braden/Josh Outman. They were fairly awesome until they got hurt. Do I think they can continue what they were doing pre-injury? Heavans no, but they look like they could be decent backend starters, and cheap servicable pitching is always a welcome sight.

And that about wraps it up. Not going to list dissapointments because I don't think that list would ever end. As it stands now at the end of the season, A's are tied with the Padres and the Jays for 9th worst record (I think, just quickly glanced at the standings). I've no idea how that works out draft position wise, hopefully we get 9, but 11 isn't bad either I guess. If only we had pick 11 last year...Jemile Weeks better be fucking awesome. But overall a strange fucking year! Tons of questionable moves, what with acquireing Holliday, starting Cahill/Anderson, yo-yoing Gio/Eveland/Gallagher, at the start of the season I wondered if this was still the same front office. But over time it was clear this ball club still knows very well what it is doing, and I leave this losing season with, as always, quite a bit of optimism. Who knows! Next year could be the year!

YES

I've been hoping against hope this would happen. All bullpen game! Our pen is so fucking awesome, I always wondered if we could just like skip a Cahill start or somethin an just throw bailey an ziegler an wuertz for like, 3 innings. Not economical, but with like 5 games left who cares? It's like insta-win with the quality of arms we got! Should be fun I think, too bad I can't watch tho.

...Why?

So something I just cannot comprehend is Trevor Cahill's abandonment of his curveball. It was totally hyped as his strikeout pitch last year, you always read about his awesome sinker and punchout knuckle curve. But wait, whenever I've watched Cahill this year, I can never remember him throwing a curveball. Like, ever. So I got to looking at some pitchf/x data over on fangraphs, mostly because it's fun and looks cool, but something just kind of caught me:



That would be Cahill's first start in the bigs (4/7). He was supposed to have used his curve quite a bit in the minors, I count three here. In his first start! I see 3 curves, 6 or 7 sliders. By his 4th start, he wasn't throwing breaking balls at all. Seriously, look:


So it seems like he wasn't feeling the curve even before this year, he barely threw it in his opener, and scrapped it completely shortly after. He now throws the slider semi-frequently, but it really isn't that good of a pitch. So I'm wondering, is it a confidence thing? Does it just not feel good to throw a slow loopy thing up there when even your hard stuff is getting hammered? Something kind of interesting, but maybe (probably) completely random and unrelated:






First graph is movement chart for Rick Porcello's first big league start (4/9), and the second is from the most recent start fangraphs has got (9/13). He threw some sweet bendys back in April, but look at that recent graph! Either his stuff has disintegrated (I'll bet he's tired?), or he too has scrapped the curve for a slider. WHY?! Again all I can think of is confidence, but it just seems so counter productive to totally scrap a pitch that has worked for you in the past. Do some coaches just have some bias against rookie curveballs? Do scouts just fall so head over heels with someones fastball that their praise gushes over to the shit secondary offerings? I really don't understand it.

Cahill has had some ("some" is generous actually, more like a few crumbs of) success this year, and to be honest, his fastball change combo seems to have so much potential that his breaking stuff probably doesn't have to be that great for him to be a useful pitcher. I just don't understand the lack of curveball action at any point this season, when it was hyped as a quality pitch not just a year ago.

List...Keeps...Growing...

So here it is, updated with new actual systematic (pun so not intended) approach, just in time for the holiday season spend-a-thon:

(10)Wii/GC
viewtiful joe 2 (gc)
zelda: 4 swords (gc)
pikmin 2 (gc)
pokemon (wii)
geometry wars galaxies (wii?)
link crossbow (wii)
mario kart (wii)
harvest moon (wii)
phantom brave (wii)
a boy and his blob (wii)

(8+)DS:
knights in the nightmare
Dragon quest V
Final Fantasy XII
Luminous arc
disgaea
castlevanias
kingdom hearts 358/2 days
mario kart

(8+)PS2:
god hand
RE: kingdom hearts chain of memories
onimusha essentials
persona 4
Katamari Damacy...or that sequel i think they made
xenosaga 3
devil may cry 2
sword of mana/children of mana/dawn of mana

(10)PS3:
ratchet and clank
dynasty warriors 6
devil may cry 4
disgaea 3
front office manager
little big planet
tales of vesperia
fat princess
demon's souls
bayonetta

(7+)PSP:
Prinny: can I really be the hero?
MGS: portable ops, acid 1/2
FF tactics: war of the lions
Jeanne d'Arc
Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth
patapon
Disgaea 2: dark hero days

(7)I wish...:
Chrono Cross
Xenogears
Vagrant Story
Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
Grandia
Ikaruga
Ico

Games to watch:
blazblue (ps3)
white knight chronicles (ps3)
SSF4 (ps3)
Resonance of Fate (ps3)


That...is over 50 games guys. I can't keep up with this hobby, at all. Time wise or finance wise. I like to complain a lot about how games are becoming generic-ized and how less games I like are being published but...that's over 50 games guys. Not much of a pecking order either there. Any of 'em. Well actually "I wish..." is top of the order, I wish I could find those games. Well, and not have to sell everything I own to get 'em too. Obviously some games interest me more than others, say like I know I'm gettin Bayonetta or Demon's Souls before I get Little Big Planet. I'll get a boy and his blob probably before any of those. But still, as a general list of games I intend to purchase, that...is over 50 games guys.

We Fucking SUCK at Tanking

At the start of the month I thought we had an outside shot at a top 5 pick, top 10 at least. Our fucking crazy land September has pretty much killed that, we looking at 11-15 range again. We can't do anything right. Try and win with vets? No lets all just fall off cliffs. Tank for a top 5 pick? No lets just all have fluky-yet-hopefully-maybe breakout campaigns. Frustrating team I tell you. At least Barton has been awesome, if he can recoup some of his value back that would be such a boon for this team. Sweeney starting to actually hit is a nice surprise too, even smacking a few extra bases here an there. So alrite, it's been fun following a hot team, but I'm miffed at the same time. How come we never get to draft a goddamn Buster Posey, always left with the 2nd tier college guys.

Passion

I need something to get passionate over. I've always had some kind of academic chip on my shoulder, but now that I'm here at ucla...I've started to stop caring. And you know what? It really isn't bothering me. Maybe I'll keep going, maybe I'll fail, but academics, at the moment, I could really give a fuck. All I want to do is take Japanese. It's all that really matters at this point to me. Linguistics? yea interesting stuff, but Japanese just feels so relevant to me. But I probably can't continue Japanese here...due to the gayness of this school and retarded transfering systems. So I find myself caring less about school by the minute. I wish I could draw good, or play sports well, or raise kittens in my desk drawers or something. Anything to captivate me, get me caring about life again. I just feel depressed. It's been commin on for a while, but I always shoved it aside as me feeling emo. I dunno, it kinda scares me. Something being wrong with me from a mental standpoint, that is. I play video games to escape this feeling usually, but right now it just doesn't seem appealing.

Parents always used to justify things by saying they knew wat was best for me. I always ignored that, always. How could they know whats best for me? Now I look back, they didn't have any idea, but I sure as fuck didn't either. And now I'm 20 and still haven't figured my shit out. Lifes too short to live like this, but I'm starting to wonder if it is even long enough to ever make sense of anything. Well, none of that matters, I'm prbly just hungry/over heated right now, this was a pointless post to begin with.

< /tired rant >

Iwamura

Don know how I never thought of this til now but, A's oughta make a play at Aki Iwamura. I do not enjoy Adam Kennedy, and I do not enjoy whoever it is we send out there if he can't play. To be completely fair, Iwamura isn't exactly a big upgrade over kennedy, if one at all. They both can put up a solid average, take a walk, steal a base here and there, play a bit of infield defense. The difference here is really age, Iwamura is like 3 years younger. Rays can't really use him since they got Longoria/Zobrist, so they kind of need to deal him this offseason. He's comming off injury to boot, so he should be able to be gotten cheap.

I guess I just don want us to have a wacky year next year where things actually pan out with the pitching and we still have two blackholes on the left side of the infield. Iwamura, it seems as if you can count on his production; Kennedy's year just screams fluke to me. No, it isn't an earth shattering move to rocket the A's into contention, but it is a move that would please me.

About Halfway

through Muramasa. That is to say, I finished up the story bit of momohime's part if the game. Loved every bit of it. Couldn't be more excited to get to the second story. So I start it up, and to my great displeasure, kisuke plays exactly the same as momohime, just with lamer animations. Yea, it's still fun, but I can't help but feel like I'm playing a shit version of a character I already made awesome, and that, frankly, sucks. I keep quitting and goin back to the other story because its just so much more fun at this point.

Unlocked that death mode or whatever, would try it out but you gotta start a new file to do that. See the flaw here, I'm already basically replaying the game in kisuke's story, kinda kills replay value. Figure someday I'll go back an play anyway, this game is by far the best wii game I've played. Which I guess isn't sayin too much. Eh to be fair mario galaxy is fantastic, but I sure do love me some 2D side-scroller, especially when the art is this sparkling.

Good News Bad News Time

Good news is that I'm not kicked out of school. Took four tries, but UCLA finally got my transcripts, so I will be continuing my academic career in about a week I guess.

Bad news is that pretty much every class is full, not that any of that matters since I have no idea what I should or am even allowed to be enrolling in. Their system is quite a bit different than santa cruz, so many different requirements, and since none of the class numbers are the same I really don't know what I have accomplished yet and what I have not. I guess I'll email someone in the department or visit someone when I get there, quite confused at the moment. Japanese is the only simple part of my schedule it seems, though I can't enroll in any of those classes since I am required to take a placement test. Sucks. I really need to place into 4. If I do worse, I'm delaying my graduation, if I do better (hey I can dream) then I'm spending a quarter not studying Japanese, as if a summer isn't enough.

Moral here is I gotta start studying NOW, and hoping I can get into classes last minute...which seems to be how I always operate. I won't stress over it though, I'm in school, that's what matters at the moment

Some Initial Muramasa thoughts

So I purchased Muramasa today. $10 off! Hurray frys sale! Only played for like 30 minutes though, grandmother is over, so we had other family by for din din. Still, to put it simply, the half hour I played was amazing. I don't understand the mediocre reviews this game is getting, I had an absolute blast.

The graphics, holy crap the graphics. Best looking game I've ever played. No joke. I love the downtime running just so I can check out the environments/backgrounds. If they release this game for ps3, I would seriously entertain the thought of repurchasing the game, as having this art in HD would be mindblowing.

Controls, I'm not as fond of. Tried out the gc controller first, and found it a tad awkward and unresponsive (maybe just my old ass controllers). So I switched midway to the wiimote/nunchuck and found it to be way more intuitive, having pretty much every action mapped to where I figured they should be. My only qualm is the lack of a jump button, could really do with better jump control than jamming up. I see they ran out of buttons on the wii controls, but it should have been doable on the gc controller.

The actual gameplay itself I find kind of charming. I was kind of turned off at first when the tutorial was basically having me mash the same button to perform pretty much every move in my arsenal, but once I got into real battles I was surprised how tight my character performed and how easy it is to pull off the different moves I wanted. The unique sword abilities are a lot of fun, and trying to time switches between blades midbattle is great, keeps you focused on more than just slashing. The whole forging tree looks really dangerous, that is the kind of shit I lose hours to planning paths to take, always ignoring my forthought so I can replan all over again.

I didn't play long, but with first class visuals, simple controls, and a nifty hack and slash fight system, this game looks like an absolute winner to me. We'll see how I feel after putting some hours into this game, but I doubt my opinion is going to get much lower, if at all.

What the

There is some serious thunder goin on at the moment. No rain or lightening or anything I can detect, but the thunder is loud as fuck. makes it hard to sleep...

Tim Lincecum

is Filipino. Who knew?

Ender's Game

Third post on this book in about as many days; yes, I have a bit of an obsession with this story. After reading through it for the twentieth time (I swear no exaggeration, I used to read and reread and reread this book back in middle school. OK maybe not twenty times, maybe 15 or something), I was still awed by the story. Found it the most interesting I've ever found it, which I found a bit ironic, as I'm no longer anywhere near Ender's age, and I've read enough/been educated (whatever that means) to spot the short comings of the book and its story. Didn't care at all, loved everything about it. I used to only love the bits about Ender, about battle school. I always glossed over the Peter/Val parts, rushed to the end once he got to command school. Not this time. The two siblings fascinated me, probably cause they give you more perspective on Ender, or confirm some of his traits at least. Command school, cool as it is, just cannot measure up to the rest of the book. Everything up to command school is amazing, including his depressed time on the lake, but once he gets there it almost feels like this obligatory ending to the tale. Still great though. Want to read Speaker for the Dead now. Can't find my copy though. Sister probably has it, gotta go raid her bookshelf.

Continuing on

So reading this book, Ender's Game that is, I've been noticing why I love it so much. It's obvious really: Ender, the kid genius, he's everything I want to be, and so much of him I relate so strongly to. He doesn't like conflict or attention, he wants to be left alone. But there are always expectations, expecatations heaped onto him, mostly by his family. And o man his family. His parents, they act as if they love him, but he can see how they resent him. Their roles, in the end, are unimportant, his parents were merely a means for his existance. Ender didn't even truly care for his parents, he was invested wholy in his siblings, in their crazy love-hate relationship. It's some serious shit, and I relate to almost all of it.

URGE

Strange thing just happened to me. Was farting around, playin me a video game trying to relax when I suddenly got this irresistible urge to read Ender's Game. Like, really, I was zoning out when all of a sudden I just couldn't think of anything else. So I slammed down the controller, ran to my room, and pried Ender's Game from my bookshelf. And now here I am reading it. I'm not sure I've quite experienced anything quite like that, just a seriously strong urge to do something. Unfortunately I acted on this impulse, and now I find myself wrapped up in another one of my favorite nostalgic book series. Did I mention I finished the Harry Potters? Yea, all of em again, was fun. Guess I'll do Ender's Game and Speaker now, the other two...prbly not, just can not get through all the religion bits.

o goddamn this game

Dissidia is waaaaaaaaaaay too addicting. Can't stop playing. Did all those individual character campaigns, now doin what I assume is the end game campaigns, pretty much using Terra exclusively. Haven't used any villians yet, though gotta say none seem all that interesting. Except maybe Sephiroth, I mean really, I hate myself for saying this but, when is Sephiroth not interesting? Iono why I like Terra so much. Maybe cause I liked her game most, maybe I just like the annoyance factor of pelting enemies with little balls from far away, pretty much endlessly.

Aside from Terra the heroes I thought were alrite were Firion and Bartz. Tidus was kinda fun too actually, what with his agileness and, well, I think I just like throwing balls at people. But Firion got me with the varied attacks and how they force the opponent into position, seemed more mind-gamey somehow. And Bartz, iono, seems relatively quick and super versatile. I like versatility, though somehow Cecil turned out as my least favorite hero character, could not hit shit with his attacks.

So Dissidia is eating my time for now, but in a few days I expect I'll go get that Muramasa game for wii. Try and attempt to beat it before school, and then I think I'll buy me a psp game for when I leave for school. prbly crisis core, though I really want that prinny game too. Lots of games to play! Everything good always comes out right when I have to leave this hobby behind in favor of the books. I suppose everyone has thought it before but, seriously guys, more summer please. Just delay fall until november or somthin, no one will care, fall sucks anyway.

Drive Faster

So thanks to the glory of package tracking and google maps I now know that my PSP is about 131 miles away from me, sitting cold and alone in some UPS holding center. Did I mention I bought a PSP? I bought a PSP btw. The awesome silver one gamestop is selling packaged with dissidia. Anyway google maps tells me it would take 2 hours an 33 minutes to drive from their little holding place to my home. Delivery date is set to be in two days. Seriously? UPS needs to upgrade their vehicles, this just isn't fair right here.

Why is mail always bad news

I got summoned for jury duty. What the hell man, I didn't even get to vote cause they never mailed me my fucking ballot, how the fuck do they expect me serve on some fucking jury. Well I won't, not yet at least, I'll be in LA, so I need to tell them to ruin my Christmas vacation instead. This country fucking blows sometimes.

Feels like my summer has just been me running away from official forms. For the record, santa cruz is really on top of their shit when it comes to informing, LA sucks balls at letting me know what is happening. I nearly lost my housing and my spot in school thanks to that lack of information, last minute filled some forms out...deadline passed...still no word on whether anything has been resolved or not, I figure that is a good sign? This shit always happens to me, I know, mostly my fault and all, but still really annoying.

Curry

Tonight is my cooking night. My mother informed me when I got home for the summer that I had to cook one night a week, every week, if I was going to live at home this summer. It annoyed me a bit, its the kind of thing parents love to do, "I don't really feel like doing this so I'll make it a responsibility thing for the kids." So, me being me, I had to get back at her somehow. I chose to make curry every week, and I have, in hopes of annoying the hell out of my mom.

I learned something this summer though, my mom is much more resilient than I've ever given her credit for. Whenever its my night to cook, no one really ever complains, but I can see it in my dad and sisters body language, they are fucking tired of curry. My mom though, she enjoys it, I swear she'll eat anything as long as she didn't have to cook it. Even when the curry tastes like garbage she eats it without complaint.

And the unexpected part of it is, I've kind of been having fun with this curry night thing. I've been experimenting with it, seeing what works and what doesn't. My mom usually uses chiken stock for the broth in curry, but we didnt have any last week, so I used a mixture of water and milk. It was strange at first, but kinda awesome, it turned out really thick, almost like pudding. I've tried all kinds of other shit to get some kind of twist on boring curry, anywhere from strawberry jam to half a chocolate bar. Doesn't always turn out great but when it does its kind of a nice surprise, and even when ingredients dont mix well its almost always still edible. Tonight, I'm not sure how I'll attempt to screw around with the flavors, but what I do know is that I'll be making curry. And believe me, it won't be the last time.

hooray Ichiro

It isn't very often I just link to shit in this log, but this post is one such post. Ichiro is something of a hero of mine, find me a japanese kid of who he isn't, an I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy this THT article about him. Part I found most interesting was at the end where Smith attempts a rough conversion of Ichiro's Japan stats to equivalent mlb stats. It's fun to look at, and his observation that there doesn't seem to really be much of an aging curve here really strikes me as kind of remarkable. I do hope he has a good many years left in him, even if its at the expense of my A's, Ichiro is always great fun to watch.

Pirates

Just a few gut reactions, Pirates cleaned up today. I've liked Clement quite a bit, and both wilson and snell needed to go for them. So that was a good trade, and the Sanchez one, just, wow, what the fuck Sabean. I thought you had turned a new leaf man. Garko trade wasn't that bad, minor upgrade, may have overpaid a bit but hey, even I hate watching Ishikawa bat, it just seemed justifiable. But this? Shit, if you're going to trade Alderson why the hell go for Sanchez? If I'm a giants fan I'm getting nervous, the trade-young'ins-for-aging-scrappy-vets sabean is back, and even if the giants rotation is a strength without Alderson at the moment, it only takes one blown elbow to change all of that. I hope the SF front office knows what its doing here, cause I really like that trade for the pirates.

Holliday Deal

Holy shit. That was all I could say after I saw the deal. How? St. Louis must be so desperate, not only did we get Wallace but we got what appear to be two other high minor league talents that should contribute in the big leagues in the near future. I just don't understand, honestly I'd be reluctant to deal Wallace for Holliday straight up at this point, and I'm not even that high on Wallace. Fantastic trade, don't know how it could have been better. Position wise things get interesting. I'm liking this Patterson to center business, prbly means Cardenas slides back to 2nd. Who knows what happens to Jemile Weeks then, though I guess this is all predicated on Wallace playing third right now, it could well be management is sick of Barton. That's all counting chickens before they hatch though, Wallace I hope we see soon. By soon I mean september, and then maybe halfway through next year. Man I hope we sign Grant Green, gonna have enough infield prospects to make another team with.

holy crap

I got two new games today: Eternal Sonata and Shadow of the Colossus. OK so not new in the sense that they were recently released, but new to me. Both I've been wanting to try out for a while actually, the idea of a rpg designed around a classical music composer sounded like a blast, and colossus just looked like a pretty intriguing concept. Suffice to say the only thing I'm finding enjoyable in sonata is the option to listen to Chopin pieces, and Colossus may very well be the best game I've ever played. Hyperbole, maybe, but I've only killed 4 of the suckers and I am just in complete awe of the game. Incredibly simple concept, yet the depth of the game continues to surprise me. Environments are incredible, the controls fit the game perfectly, the character design for the hero (certain clumsiness, yet portrays this odd sense of determination) is probably my favorite part of the game so far, and the colossi themselves are just magnificent. I do not know why I never picked this game up earlier, but hell am I glad I finally did today.

Haunted

So I finally got my eval for syntax. Apparently my work was alright, but what really killed me was my informal writing. damnit. My writing is really informal, I'll admit, very unscientific. Always figured it didn't matter, as long as what I am trying to explain is clear and obvious. I guess the problem with informal writing is the point becomes less obvious, but I normally keep this in mind while working. I dunno, I think I write in the style I do because it keeps me sane. I hate having to read through huge essays that are in that dreary paper voice, if that makes any sense to anyone aside from myself. I like to keep my essays light and informal in tone because it helps me write it, and its way easier for me to go back and proofread it. I guess the downside is smart people don't take me seriously. I think part of the informality was me staying up til 5am every night half asleep trying to write all those damn papers. I do remember some mornings waking up and thinking, "god i did not write that did i?" well, things to work on in the comming term: more formal writing voice, more sensible sleeping hours.

10 run comeback!

Seriously, what the hell happened that game! One of the more insane games I've watched. Holliday finally looked like the guy who was really awesome in Colorado. Everyone in the lineup hit, Barton had some well struck balls, really a fantastic game. Except Gio, holy god was he crap today. That first inning was brutal. Same old Gio story, get in trouble with walks, watch opponent launch homers. And god were they some shots. When we were down those 10 runs I thought it was over for sure, but somehow we kept gettin guys on base. That Holliday slam, was thinking theres no way in hell he hits it out, but then he AND Cust hit homers. I was jumping up an down in the living room shouting, it was really the most exciting thing I've seen this team do. 9th inning almost killed me, heartrate was through the roof when Suzuki lost that pitch in the dirt an then couldnt find it while it rolled to the backstop. Great win, games like that remind you why its still worthwhile to watch, even if the overrall talent on the team is a bit lacking.

Obama's a lefty?

Who knew.

Sanchez

I tuned in during the top of the 7th. First thought, "what the, how'd the giants score so damn much." second thought, "what the, how is sanchez still pitching this deep in the game." third thought, "ah, padres, say no more." not to take anything away from sanchez, it was a thrilling last few innings and the guy pitched incredible, but god the padres are a bad team. I did have quite a bit of fun though. uribe is easy to hate for some reason, and when he got that bad hop and booted the ball around it was nice to be able to blame him. The rowand catch was insane, I thought that ball was gone for sure. and the final strikeout, that was great, was really not expecting anything near the strikezone, I mean come on its sanchez, but he drops what looked like a curveball right on the edge there, brilliant. I like jonathan sanchez, dont know why. i like rooting for him, maybe its cause hes fun to watch because of the insane movement his pitches feature, or maybe because he throws the most blatant spitter ive seen (seriously guys, dude sticks four fingers in his mouth, turns around, and applies said fingers directly to ball. he does this pretty much every pitch, i dont see how no one ever calls him on this, been doin this forever.), or maybe its because in the insane land of san francisco giants baseball hes kinda the underdog with all the talent in the world. well anyway im happy for the guy, was fun the watch, hopefully this marks a corner for him to be turning, hopefully hes traded tomorrow for holliday.

Ah Summer

Met one of my newer cousins today. He's 6 monthes old, his name is Raiden. No joke, I think its sick, kid is Japanese/Indian/white. Also his part of the family is all really smarts and succesful. Also he was born in Hawaii and got to live there for the first 6 monthes of his life, not that he'll remember it, but shit, I am insanely jealous of this kid. I normally don't like babies, but this kid is just so cool. I dunno, I'll be interested in how he grows, just seems like he has everything already. We like doing that to babies/young people though don't we, heap on all kinds of unfair expectations.

Real reason I'm making this post: hollidays depress me for some reason. I always feel crappy on hollidays, no idea why. Maybe its that whole pressure to be happy thing, since its a holliday, so the opposite happens instead. maybe? I dunno. Birthdays are the worst, I always just try and avoid people on my birthday, again, no idea why.

Well whatever. Change of subject. I'm going to set two realistic goals for the rest of this summer: get my licence and change my name. July I'll try my best to get that goddamn licence, hopefully I can straighten out my name in August. I'm thinkin just Mikio Shimozaki. Lame, not particularly fond of my mothers name but it makes sense. Finally get the Mikio in, lose the confusing middle names, lose the father's name.

revisiting FFX-2

I've been playin a lot of games this summer. what else is new, i know, but anyway one such game i decided to replay was FFX-2. ive played FFX a lot, like too many times, so i decided hell, why not replay the sequel.

holy crap man, its pretty bad. like makes me cringe bad. the worst part tho, i cant stop playing it. its really a fantastic system, customizing the grids and changing classes on the fly during battles. the active time battles are done fairly well too, for the time that it was made im really impressed. just, the game is so, well, completely aimed at 13 year old girls or somthing. the dialogue is rough, the story is really rough, you constantly have to change the clothing of these girls, it gets really annoying.

square really lost sight of what their game buying demographic was on that one, problem is, we're all such whores for any FF game they throw out that we buy it anyway, and we love it cause hey, they usually are pretty damn good. im not sure about this game though. this one is really a game for the fans, meant to get you all nostalgic for the 50 odd hours you put into FFX, and it does that to some extent, but the storyline and horridly awkward dialogue really just kill any of that fun nostalgia mood we are wanting here. that said, i am enjoying collecting the different grids/classes and mixing them around to kill shit. notice how i worded that, sounds a ton better than dressing the girls up in a variety of garments and dresses to go on adventures. its basically wat it is, and goddamnit if it isnt fun somehow. if only they had ditched the story, just made it wat it really was meant to be, a revisiting of the FFX world with one of the more memorable FF protagonists (alrite im a huge fan of yuna's character, guessing becuase of the mixed race issues she has), coulda been so much better, or a ton less annoying at least.

Annnnnd Completion

So I did the spaghetti today. 500 grams of it, so more than a pound even. Was still hungry too, so I ate a small bowl of curry. Today was Lodi Obon, so we had all kinds of different food in the house. Of course, this food didnt arrive until like 930, hence me deciding to do the spaghetti challenge before. I did not go to Obon this year, I guess no one really cares if I go now that my grandpa is gone. Its weird loosing grandparents, you realize how much shit you felt obligated to do just to please them. But anyway, my point in this post is I completed my eat a pound of spaghetti in one sitting goal, and I actually surpassed it by quite a bit. Which normally would make me happy, but Im kind of confused actually. Im eating a lot here guys, like a lot a lot. Like never full a lot. All I do is eat these days, vast vast quantaties of...well everything. I don think I've ever eaten like this before, not even growing teenager phase. Which then makes me think...is this growing teenager phase 2.0?!?!?! Not sure how I feel about that. another inch or two would be sweet, I don wanna be more than like 6'2 or somthin tho, then ur gettin too tall. I havent really grown since like, I dunno, sophmore year of highschool or somthing, but theoretichally males keep growing well into their twenties right? I dunno, I dont see what else could make this happen, started around the end of school I think, where it just seemed like I could keep eating forever. Eh, not worth worrying over though, not like I can help it.

Fulfillment

No one told me I was on my own for din din last night. My parents went somewhere, my sister went out somewhere, no one told me they were going out to eat. I was gettin my ass handed to me in SF4 by andy, I didnt really care where they were going anyway. So whatever, midnight creeps up and I realize dinner is not gonna be made and all ive had to eat is a peanut butter jelly sandwich. What does one do in this situation? Cook a shit load of pasta...duh. So I grab a bag of penne, 500 grams it says, an I cook it an I eat it, no fucking problem. Like I ate it fast too, shit didnt take long. I got kinda curious this morning tho, and according to the numerous cheater conversion devices the internet provides, 500 grams is about 1.102 pounds. so where am I going with this? observe the official "to do before I die list:"

visit shimozaki property/meet a shimozaki in japan
see the aurora
go to cooperstown
jump through window an SHATTER the glass
Hop on a cable car in motion
eat a pound of spaghetti in one go

So no, wasn't spaghetti, but it was slightly more than a pound of penne. Spaghetti will be next week, but seriously this is the closest ive ever come to crossing something off this list of mine. Theoretichally spaghetti should be cake, less chewing, easier to swallow, plus I think it comes in pound packages rather than 500 gram packages. Fulfilling? You bet your fucking life it is.

In the clear

Passed my classes guys. I know, I get worried every goddamn quarter, but I was really scared this time. Grandma dieing really fucked everything up. But I passed. Got an A in japanese (goodbye A+ streak) an A- in health care (wtf rite? i dunno, stupidest class ive ever takin. really, an i went to public school my whole life, that class was really really really bad/made no sense) and a C in syntax II. fuckin syntax. I thought I was doin really well in that class. Then the whole miss a week of class thing happened, totally bombed the last two assignments, the last of which was the take home final. Couldn't care less at this point though. I felt like I learned shit, I felt like I was, at times, intensely engaged and interested in the material, and fuck it I passed, that class was the hardest shit i've ever come across. lookin at it now, thats the worst grade ive gotten in college. hell, i think thats the worst grade ive gotten since middle school, and it certainly is the worst grade ive ever gotten where i put considerable effort into the class. its strange tho, even tho i got my ass kicked and barely scraped a C, i feel accomplished; that class, for all the hairs i lost over it, was a blast. tomorrow ill try an sort my ucla shit out quick like, i needa get on top of my shit already. summer kills me, all i wanna do is sleep and not exist anymore. by not exist i think i mean fall in a coma or somthin, just have everyone ferget about me, let my head just sort its shit out for a few monthes on its own. yeeeeea comas are great. not really. you get wat i mean tho rite? maybe?

DONE WITH SYNTAX

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahhahahahahaha 6am and im finally done with my take home final! god that shit is was a beast, i spent the last two days just staring at the data nonstop. seriously, even eating or shitting i had the paper in front of me. at this point, who cares if its wretched work, im done an all i have left is fuckin nihongos at 4pm. sleepy time now, but fuckin hell yes do i feel amazing rite now.

Grant Green

I'm not too big a fan, but whatever A's got a legit prospect at a position that is just empty in the organization. Things I don't really like about Green, hes kind of big for a shortstop...which I realize its dumb for that to be a reason to not like him but it reminds me of crosby, so I immediately dont like that. they say he can field alrite, hit alrite, has some pop, has some speed, but the thing is no one really seems sure about this, the skills are there but the performance hasnt really been. I really doubt the A's woulda taken him if they had doubts about his sticking at short, so really he probably doesnt have to hit all that much to be useful to our team within the next few years, just as long as hes more capable than pennington. anyway back to things im not fond of, hes a boras client. hes kind of just this boring white guy whos never really going to be super crazy awesome. i mean fine, im not lookin for hanley here, but he doesnt really offer a few skills at least that are like, exceptional. hes just kinda decent at everything. so i guess what im saying is, great pick, hopefully he signs, the bored irrational fan in me is not amused.

Hmmm...I hope I'm wrong

Rob Neyer thinks the A's have an outside shot at the division if the pitching holds up. Color me less optimistic. Even if the rookies continue to be halfway decent (which I am skeptical of), I still have my doubts about the offense. Cabrera is garbage, third base is always garbage, Kennedy is not this good, Giambi has disappointed, Sweeney is garbage, well you get the point. Going into this season I thought the hitting would be fine and the pitching was the key. How naive right, this is the A's, we always pitch somehow, yet flounder at the plate. Texas can hit, they've somehow been great in the field, and for some reason their pitchers havent put up the level of suck they normally do. Anahiem can't hit, but they do so better than us, and on top of this their run prevention has been about as good as ours...minus lackey santanna and escobar for most of the season. If we really have a shot at this division, not only does the young staff need to keep improving but our position players need to wake up fast. This winning streak has been fun, but its come against a poor whitesox team and a fairly hilarious baltimore team. People can dream about october if they wish, I'm going to focus my mind on tomorrows draft and what this Holliday fellow is going to land us.

Perspective

We got two hit by Baltimore today, a team that's given up more hits than any other team in the majors. Really not that surprised, when you run a lineup that includes cabrera, crosby, davis, and petite, you can't really expect to score many runs. Yet we won the game somehow. Mazzaro showed a definite improvement upon his first outing, and we managed to score early thanks to their starter not knowing what a strike is. It's a rough time to be a A's fan, following a team this shitty can get really trying, but thank god I'm not an orioles fan, not even wieters can save them from last place for like the next million or so years. alrite maybe they pass the jays within the next few years if tillman an matusz pan out, but gettin above tampa/boston/ny is really just not happenin.

nooooooooooooooooooooooo

ucla has offered me a triple in some sort of dorm. fuck that school. i totally listed all singles as my options. not that they care about any of that ill bet, i hate getting low priority. maybe this time theyll both go crazy and ill finally get a room to myself. hey u never know.

weeeeeeeee pile it on

so if i werent feeling depressed enough here i just got completely owned by my homework. and by completely i mean completely. like i cant do any of it. any. tomorrow im going to beg my professor to give me an extension/educate me...on things hes already taught to everyone else. i swear to god i should not have gone to that fucking funeral, if i fail a class i really dont know what im going to do with myself.

god fuckin damnit

ive made basically this same exact post millions of times over the years, but here it is again. have u ever just felt completely and utterly disappointed in yourself. im nearly done with my second year of college. im nearly fucking 20. why am i still such a goddamn kid. i cant become close to people. its like im incapable. i run away. even when i consciously try to bring myself closer i run away in the end. to state the obvious, i am frustrated beyond belief with myself. i just dont see how i can change myself at this point tho. i try and analyze myself. wat is it im afraid of. is it fear even, is it something else that pulls me back. no its fear. i just hate to take risks. ive just never been able to put myself out there. there being that metaphorical place where people can connect. heres how im gonna articulate it. i squat in my corner. my corner is my own, i show nothing to people from my corner except what is visible from where they are, the actual room. people pass by my corner but in general i ignore them, and they pass by. but theres always exceptions rite? sometimes u find someone thats worth getting up from the corner and getting to know. and when i do, and i realize this person is alrite, it feels good. so now theres this acquantince in the room thats alrite, fine and dandy, but the problem is im just some bum squating in the corner. i like this alrite person, but why would they ever wanna be friends with a bum squatting in a corner. so i try and hide who i am...how? thats rite, by squatting in the corner. insecurities, more and more im realizing they rule my fucking life. maybe im overcoming them slowly in my own way, maybe i need to find myself some help, but i feel like im missing oppurtunities at great experiences during what really should be a fantastic time in my life. i cant get these years back, these people will soon be out of the room for good, and that, i think, is what angers me the most.

aaaaaaaaaand back to the school thingy

so I'm back. funeral sucked. i really cant handle that family. like immediately when we get there i just feel angry. I did what i normally do, which is act like a kid. then relatives arrived and i pretty much stood in a corner an shut up. then the actual funeral happens. boring, went quick enough tho. my dad just kind of slyly last minute informs me im one of the people carrying the casket/coffin thingy. i was fairly miffed. i wanted no part of the whole thing in the first place, he knows this too, i never really hid my displeasure with my grandmother from anyone, but he forces me to take part in the ceremonial bullshit. he tells me this in front of my aunts and cousins too, i cant fuckin refuse in front of these people. one cousin tells me "its a great honor wakka wakka wakka" and i was just like "yea...ill be honored..." had to wear a yamaka too, that was weak. the whole fuckin week i was there i just kept telling myself over and over and over "this is once in a lifetime, ill never have to do this again." and you know what, it is, now that shes gone, i have zero reason to ever see that family again. cant guilt me into it, its not like im alone in hating all the uncles either, my dads family is really easy to hate. anyway so after we have so gay celebration at some fancy pants restaurant. it sucked, spent the whole time standing behind my sister listening to her chat with people, i was lame and did not partake. the food was garbage too, again, just told myself never again. then after we go to some fancy pants italian restaurant with my uncle, aunt, and their asshole friend. said asshole friend really pissed me off, i just stared at the candle on the table the whole time trying to ignore his endless prattle, he was really just this idiot jew who somehow had a ton of money. the next day we go to my uncles for lunch or whatever, managed to piss my aunt off really bad within like 20 minutes, she left to go for a walk or some shit, i spent the next few hours once more silent, once agian telling myself, "never again." drove back saturday, spent sunday playing games, today i spent basically all day avoiding my homework, tomorrow i go back. im really fucked. ill leave it at that, but yea, really fucked. i really really really hope i dont fail any classes.

Deep

Shit I thought this years A's team had a ton of depth. And really, we do. But seriously, the rays are just fuckin swimming in talent. I mean they lose Iwamura and they just think, "well may as well stick aybar there, well zobrist could probably handle 2nd...wait we have brignac just rotting away in the minors maybe him." and while this is happening the 2nd baseman who was at the very end of their depth charts at 2nd base, adam kennedy, is pretty much far and away our best hitter right now. wat the fuck man, why cant we be the rays already.

Grandmother died

On my father's side. Really weird, I'll just out and say it, I never really got along with her. She always annoyed me. I was probably her worst grandchild. Never called her, barely talked to her, kind of rejected her side of the family. She was always nice to me though, thats what grandparents do i guess, i was her only grandson too, she always reminded me of that. My dad sounds pretty bad, talked to him on the phone. His words show he is tryin to stay composed, but you can hear in his voice how shaken he is. I just got dropped back off at school today, kinda coincidental, sister an mother were actually driving down to LA to see my grandmother so they dropped me off along the way. Now my dad will follow down sometime in the next few days an will pick me up. what does one do at a funeral. i remember my grandpas, it was horrid. since my mom is the oldest in her family i had to sit in the very front with her. me an my sister didnt know what to do, everyone, family and friends (there was a ton, in excess of 100 easily id say) payed their respects, and then gave an apology to me or shook my hand. I didnt want that, to be honest i didnt feel half as bad as those people. they were crying, their pain was so clearly visible, for me it was just grandpa, a relative, sure, but again not someone i was ever really close too. it was the most awkward moment of my life, me an kayo just kinda laughed, we didnt really know what else to do. hopefully this wont be like this. one, dad is the youngest in his family, an two, it wont be a buddhist ceremony, though i don know how other funerals are done. i wonder if this will effect me more later. i feel kind of sad rite now but its been really sudden. with grandpa there was a kind of quick fall into illness and a slow progression downwards after that. this time, yea she was old and havin problems, but nothing really that made me even consider her life in danger. really, this looks to be a different kind of week.

4 hours later...

and 7 pages neatly stapled together, I am done. and wow, is this a piece of crap i have put together. like, if there is an assignment that will get me kicked out, it is this one. i think i missed the boat that bad. for the record, if u fail one assignment in this class you fail the class. bullshit, i know, no one said syntax is easy i guess. but yea, gonna be one hell of a weekend, tryna relax while knowing someone is grading this paper, with my academic fate in their hands pretty much. well, worst that happens is i fail, ucla drops me, an i come back here to finish my career..............ok im gonna go cry myself to sleep now.

How wrong I was

My syntax homework is only two sections. I finished the first section yesterday in about twenty minutes, I glanced at the rest and figured it was cake, professor did mention this assignment was a bit easier than normal. I've been puttin it off all day today, figurin, eh, I'll just power through it at some point. Oh the naivety. Syntax, no matter how much I hope, pretty much is never simple. This homework seems to deal heavily with s-selections or theta-roles or whatever you wanna call em, point being, I suck with these things. Can never figure out how many are assigned, can never figured out what exactly is being assigned, can never figure out what they actually do once they finally have been assigned. Also, I hate the word "it." Like seriously, why the fuck do we have such a useless word. wtf is it anyway , placeholder seems retarded. it also complicates the shit out of my homeworks, thats no doubt the root of this frustration. you know what just made me chuckle, in the last few sentences every time I used "it" it(!) could be read either as the normal meaningless expletive it(!) happens to be, or as the actual word "it" that I am discussing. anyway, next week...next week I won't leave the whole assignment to the last few days. Do I mean that? No, but maybe it'll happen.

Garza tomorrow...

We got swept by the tigers, now we at least will come out even against the rays. sometimes I hate baseball. Tomorrow Garza goes against the A's. I'm sad I can't watch. If it hasn't been clear, Garza is my favorite ray, hes pretty much my favorite non-A's ballplayer outside of ichiro and joe fuckin blanton...yea i still like zito too. But anyway, I mean come whats not to like, hes great to watch cause of his ridiculous stuff, hes fuckin crazy in the head, and his bio photos never fail to crack me up. o well, i cant really complain, did get to see him at the colesium. jesus christ garza had a 6.24 k/9 last year. doesnt look like walks are a huge issue with him either. hows someone with such great velocity and an awesome curveball get blanton level results. decent groundball rates, limits homers well too. dude matt garza is basically fuckin joe blanton, i would never have guessed. i guess the difference is upside, garza, as mentioned, has crazy stuff, you gotta imagine he'll strike a few more guys out...

Wat just happened

FUCK. i had this long ass post advocating trading for chin-lung hu, mostly involving yun chi chen and me chuckling at chinese names and ballplayers in general. then i got curious an checked my gmail, which somehow annihlated my blogger session, the two are connected somehow i gues. poop. well long story short, do i think he could solve our SS problem? no. do i think hed be a really amusing player that would require nothing to acquire? hell yea. his track record is solid, suposedly plays good D, and the dodgers seem to fuckin hate him. they gonna need outfield help when pierre realizes that he sucks again...if only we still had matt murton. just offer em one of the many players we refuse to use, send denorfia or somthin. bottom line, ocab fuckin pisses me off, and crosby doesnt help things out. i may be the last fan chin-lung hu has in this world, but really, it cant be that bad of a dice roll to take rite?

Me buy this

Remember how I speculated about getting a psp, and how dissidia would probably break my last line of defense when it comes to buying one. consider one bought. My one gripe is that is awfully late in the summer, though on the positive, it is post birthday for me, so cash restraint shouldnt be a problem. between that, the remake of disgaea 2 for psp, and other games i fully intend to purchase once i own the system, the grade forcast for my first quarter at LA is looking pretty fuckin bleak.

wtf

houston wtf. big baby wtf. brett cecil wtf. cute pigs wtf. SYNTAX II WTF. seriously, french passivisation...wtf? I got a midterm in japanese i havent even started studying for yet, thanks to this stupid french syntax bullshit. tonight, i will not be allowed to sleep, fuck that shit.

Damn Yao

Well there goes that series. Yao was suckin the last two games, but hes still by far the rockets best player. Without mutumbo it wasnt lookin up, without Yao its pretty much hopeless. Too bad, the series was an absolute joy to watch. Rockets really do play some good defense, and watching a great offensive team like the lakers play against it was a lot of fun. Who am I kidding, I just like watching Kobe pull out every fucking trick known to man in his quest to ridicule shane battier, its pretty fuckin entertaining. Last game was kind of dissapointing to me, I thought adelman played Lowry too much, especially in the 4th. I like Lowry, hes a great backup to have, but they needed brookes in to put some points up. If they not gonna play brookes then they really gotta work on gettin Yao the ball in the post, pretty much never happened. Yea so iono now, may as well get back on the laker bandwagon. Not much of a fan of either the mavs or nuggets, though I guess dallas isnt so bad, jason kidd is alrite. don really like anyone in the east, or really what i mean is i dont like cleveland. Hard to dislike lebron, but his team isnt very likable. then again the lakers arnt the most likable team either, the suposedly high character guy fisher showed his true face. odom seems cool, u just kind of pity bynum, but after that they all are really kinda easily hatable.

on a completely different note, adam kennedy? seriously? whatever, doesnt really cost anything, will fill in nicely while ellis is down (see: 162 games), but i mean is he really an upgrade over pennington/petite/patterson? honestly, i doubt it. i mean, hes basically an older pennigton/petite, decent glove, nice contact skills, no fucking power. really, why the hell do we hate patterson so much? just play his ass! yea he might not defend well, but his bat actually has some upside, might as well let him find it. i really just do not understand this team this year. at least we finally dfa'd fuckin copeland, thats a waste of a roster spot. hopefully davis goes next. davis is a good bench player to have, but when your fucking idiot manager insists on starting him over travis buck, its time to make the decision for him. still early in the season, we very much in this race. if duch can come back healthy and buck just plays regularly, we might actually have a chance here. I mean look at us, we hanging around with a AAA rotation and replacement level players running wild all over the roster, if we can finally do something right for once we got the division locked.

Roommate Rant

So I thought having crazy roommate removed from here would be awesome. And hell, it has been awesome. But its getting shitty again, thanks to the other roommate. What I hated most, well iono about most but a lot, about the crazy guy was that he would tell me everything. Like fuck, I don't give a shit about some random conversation you had with some idiot stranger today, go tell your mother about it or something. But hes gone, and I thought I was free of this constant prattle. Turns out I was wrong. My other roommate now, for whatever reason, wont shut the fuck up. Hes insanely annoying. Hes like an awkward douchebag. Like he doesnt know how to interact with people, but for some reason he feels fine around me, and it turns out hes just a self centered ass. Its been goin on basically since crazy was removed, an my temper is getting really really short. Yesterday for example, he comes back from the dining hall with like 5 oranges or so. An he says, "I brought back 5 oranges."......................"ok" I respond. and he says to me, "you never bring back fruit do you." I don't, I happen to hate hording food in my room, it attracts mice/insects/pests and whatnot. So anyway I respond, "no, no I dont." but he persists! "well why dont you?" in this scathing, condescending voice. And at this point im done, I snap back "why the fuck do you care? its my fucking decision what and when I eat things. how do my eating habits affect you in any way imaginable?" and he pauses, then has the balls to respond with "you should bring back fruit," in the same asshole tone. So then I really flip out, no I dont get violent, but i tell him to take his fucking oranges to the corner and go fuck himself. probably a little too far. he seemed kind of hurt. tried to make some feeble comeback a few minutes later, he really sucks at using profanity, i repsonded quickly and he finally shutup after that. just now though he walks in the room. stands there in the doorway. "i went to the beach, among other places." *silence* he just stands there. finally i roll my eyes an reply, "...good." seriously iono wtf this is. im not friendly to these people, im in no way friends with them, if anything i fuckin hate them, yet tehy feel the fucking need to tell me every fucking detail about their lives. i really really really really really really really really really fucking hate this place. god i hope LA has better people than this.

Eveland

Yea, Eveland demotion kinda ticks me off. Giese? Seriously? Not gonna make a big deal over it tho, our pitching has gotten fucked recently, and Eveland did make that lame relief appearance, so a demotion to get back on schedule/work on some shit in the minors for a few weeks may be good. Eveland has sucked, the problem is that Giese is gonna suck worse. Again tho, don really care, will probably only be one start, then insert gallagher I assume. Hopefully in a few weeks gio/eveland come up and replace fucking outman already. god hopefully both come up, outman to the pen and cahill to the goddamn minors. I give anderson a pass for now with his little blister issue. I still dont understand copeland. just hand his ass back, we already dont play buck, i don wanna waste more ab's on another fuckin 5th outfielder. A's have made some really strange moves this year, hopefully it all will make sense in hindsight.

Greinke

Zack Greinke wtf. I knew the dude was really good but at this point its just stupid, what is that like 3 or 4 comeplete games on the season already? I know this is at least his second shutout. thats kinda of whats impressing me, he's getting way deep into ballgames, yet striking out a billion guys. I think the no walking people kind of helps with that. probably the no hitting part doesnt hurt either. too bad the royals are a completely wretched team. seriously that offense is painful. i guess the pitching is alrite, but that is mostly due to the fact that they have greinke. kind of hard not to like some dude on the royals named zack greinke, too much underdog/cool name factors goin on. hah his next start will be against the angels, tally another shutout for mr greinke.

So Zito

He's put together a string of not-so-bad starts. Yea, I've made a point to watch a bit of em. An its been a bit strange to see. Hes got this leg kick now, kinda hoffman-esque. Iono when that started, maybe for a while, but it looks weird. Regardless, the last few starts it seemed like he had found some of that lost velocity. Maybe not 88-90 like old times but still uper 80s. Today not so much. Velocity was pretty miserable, on the tv gun at least, but his offspeed stuff was fantastic. Like really fantastic, curve was sharp, change had great movement, even saw a few good sliders, think those were to Hawpe. That said, I'm still wary when people proclaim him "back." Still just a handful of starts, and the first few of the season were pretty damn miserable. The lowerd walk rate is encouraging put he still isnt missing any bats. As much as I like the guy, I just cant get myself to believe that zito continue this small run of success, let alone get back to where he was with the A's. hey, I'll be watching tho, even if he isn't striking anyone out, his stuff does look a load better. If he can get up to "Barry Zito, shitty innings eater" instead of "Barry Zito, play him out of obligation to insane contract," I'll consider that a success considering he looked absolutely finished the last few seasons.

Nothin I can do about it

Today was not a good day. Pretty much nothing went how I was hoping. All of it my fault really. I tried. Failed too. So the dream continues. The problem is I don't really know if it does. Do I apply for a transfer next year again? I dunno. I'll make that decision when the time comes. In a way it kind of scares me, giving up on Berkeley that is. It's the reason I've worked my ass off this year.

Somehow I knew before I checked. Around 1130, no even before that, like around 6 today I just started to feel really depressed. I just felt like it was impossible, like I've been fooling myself these last few weeks, allowing myself to think I had a shot. The rejection is really quite kind, tells me it was a hard decision an that they are sure I will get into a favorable university elsewhere. I did, very favorable, but not the one I had my sights on.

Puts you in your place though doesnt it? Some people are just better. I can see that, I cant compare to these people, no matter how desperately I want to. And believe me I do want to, I cant give up that competitiveness in me. Maybe that makes me immature, I dont know. It doesnt feel as bad this time, if only because I'm riding some success to mitigate the pain here. Still feel hollow though. Bah, as if I have time for this. Still have miles to go on my syntax midterm. Surprisingly, my motivation hasnt deserted me. Testament to how my interest in linguistics has really grown I think. We'll see next year though, at the very least, I'll be out of santa cruz.

This is it

Today's the day. I've checked my email maybe 7 times since the clock hit 12, this is not going to be a good day for the nerves. I'm realizing I'm a complete idiot with planning. Got a take-home midterm as well as other things to do today. My mind is not going to be focused, I feel like an idiot. Was hoping to at least do most of the midterm today, but yea, syntax kicks my ass. Not failing tho! I've now witnessed two people fail, the professor sneakily goes to them like he's handing back homework, then talks to them in the back after class. Complete coincidence that I've witnessed this twice now, was just walking past and hear "you failed," and I'm just like fuck, that better not be me. But yea, if it wasn't clear what I was anticipating before, the answer would be berkeley decisions. Adrenaline already starting, this really is gonna be a wretched day...ok I really needa stop spamming my email.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

Wow. Just wow. wtf man. How do you get 4 injuries in one game. Fucking match from hell. Anderson was doin awesome too. So now what happens. If it's blisters or somethin I dunno, you don wanna fuck around with that. I'm willing to bet (see: praying) Anderson will be fine. Ellis worries me. Hopefully not serious, though if he does go DL status I'd like to see Patterson get a shot, seems like he has been annihilating sac. Nomar I guess I'm not surprised. With Ellis an Nomar goin down I'm willing to bet pennington gets called up, he can at least cover like the whole infield. Still would rather see patterson though, we could use some fucking offense. Casilla is kind of problematic. Again, hopefully not serious. Really, healthy casilla or not, I'd like for Outman to be moved to the pen already. Bring someone up who actually ought to be a major league starting pitcher, someone like gio gonzalez. This team is frustrating, though I guess on the bright side the angels arnt exactly torching the league either. Not going to panic when we still less than 20 games into the season, but the injuries + futility thing is getting really old fast.

Guess What?

Dear Joji:

Congratulations! It is our great pleasure to offer you admission to UCLA for the Fall Quarter 2009. You have been admitted to the UCLA College of Letters and Science with Linguistics and Asian Languages and Cultures as your academic major.

I can't stop smiling, I nearly teared up, I swear. Finally did it. Berkeley still left, but with this news I feel somehow fulfilled. I knew I deserved this, I knew I was better than this. Hah I feel justified now, it's pathetic how this one stupid thing like a place of study can effect me like this, but it's the truth. It's like I can live my life now unashamed. I've lived for this, and finally, for the first time, I've made my wish come true. It feels absolutely incredible.