Kelly Sweet

Lately, I've been digging the sounds of Kelly Sweet. More specifically, I dig the song, Raincoat. She's got sort of the same sultry sound of Norah Jones. It tends to be rather calming.

Ajax and more.

Right now, I'm coding Ajax. I'm trying to get a better understanding of it so that I can do some truly dynamic stuff with it. I like the asynchronous stuff it can do without needing a page refresh and all that. I to use this to make my portfolio a little more streamlined.

The only issue that I might have is that of the 'back' button. This is minor issue, really. Hopefully I can find some kind of work around for it.

Also on the horizon, I'm gonna bush up on Flash. I'm gonna try to use it for my site redesign. I love working with vector graphics and I'm a little surprised that I don't have enough to show for it.

I may also play around with SQL. I've tried learning this stuff in 2000 and the concepts eluded me (it was also really dry reading). I will try again.

Dream Job?

It's funny how we sometimes get into the mindset that there's a dream job out there. We dream of a job where it doesn't even feel like work because we love it so much. That, or it has great ideals or perks like a chance to make a difference or simply to make a lot of money, upward mobility, etc.

Lately, I've come to the realization that such a job really exists. I realize that every job has its ups and downs. Every job has its triumphs and frustrations. For some reason, it seems like we always focus on the bad because it seems to be that one obstacle that blocks us from having it "just perfect".

I guess I'm making it a point to be thankful for what I have. Work, is simply a means to survive.

The Extreme 90s??

What on earth was so extreme about the 90s? The X-generation was EXTREME? Thinking back, it sounds really lame. How is a generation that the dropped all fronts of superficiality and looking for a new soul and identity supposed to be extreme?

Pop culture also reflected this lamely as well. Bastardizing some of my childhood memories were G.I. Joe Extreme and Ghostbusters Extreme. What's up with that? *hmph*

Air Force? Hmmmmm.....

Should I have joined the Air Force instead? Looking back, I had my chance and came close to signing my autograph on that dotted line. However, I didn't and decided to go somewhere else. These days, I look back, wondering if I should have worn blue instead. Oh well...

Burn Notice rules!!

The TV show Burn Notice is awesome. I tend to like shows with a lot of introspective voice-over narration. When this show first came out, I expected this show to not even make it through the first season. However, previews for TV shows don't tell you everything about it. The writing for the show is superb and the acting is awesome. The flavor of the show works wonders. Despite the gravity of the story, subtle and sometimes dark humor is worked into it. It's entertaining and it doesn't take itself too seriously.

The spy/intelligence genre is an interesting one and I like how some of the tradecraft of human intelligence is portrayed on the show. No off-the-wall gadgets and hopelessly unrealistic plots like James Bond. You don't need any suspension of disbelief for it.

The full episodes are online on the USA network website. Watch it.

Music and Mood

It's no secret that music effects mood.

I'll listen to happy giddy music, and I feel like going about the day happy and carefree. In fact, I feel like talking a walk in the park in a sunny day.

If I listen to really aggressive music, I feel like room-clearing a house with a .45 in my hand. It tends to give me an intense focus -- tunnel-vision, if you will.

Lately, my music that I listen to has been Japanese pop music. Yes, J-pop tends to put me in a good mood and makes me rather productive. There's some really good stuff out there, like Bonnie Pink and the Indigo. What really helps is that I don't understand a lick of what they are singing about. To me, its like instrumental soundtrack music. If this stuff were sung in english, I'd probably feel inclined to try to follow the words and the next thing you know, I'm distracted from what I need to do.

On that same token it's also why I may listen to movie soundtrack music too. If your life was a movie, then surely there's a soundtrack to it. =)

Reflections on Growing (and blogging)

After a long hiatus of not blogging, naturally, I would have a lot of thoughts cooped up in my head just waiting to come out. Now, often times, I need a little goading for me to actually get the ball rolling (thanks, Dardy et al). I've decided to first talk about blogging itself and how I've changed over the years.

Ever since, college I had the perception that I have not changed since then. Not much, anyway. However, I've identified what had marked time with my change, and it's been writing on my web log.

Thinking back to my really old site where I would just FTP an HTML page, it dawned on me one day: OMG!!! DID I REALLY THINK LIKE THAT?? Yeah, now that I think about it, some of the stuff I wrote on there was rather naive. Some of this stuff, I think was rather embarrassing. Whatever the case, I have indeed changed a lot in the last 9 years. Time to blog on...