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[ 8-2-01 ][ 12:43 p.m. pst ][ By Rice ]

MJ will be an NBA champion once again.

Mark my words, Mike's comin' back to the NBA. I've always believed it, ever since the rumors began to float around last year, but this article on ESPN The Magazine solidified by belief. Man, I can't wait! Sure, Iverson, Kobe, and Vince may be able to blow by him offensively, but defensively, they'll have just as much trouble, if not more, staying in front of Jordan. It'll be like this massive one on one scoring fest. Zone defense? Not a problem for Mike's patented smooth fade-away. End of story.

In other news...

...... Can't find MP3's anymore now that Napster's gone the way of the Dodo? Confused by all the other clones out there? I present to you all MusicCity's Morpheus. I haven't even heard of this program until my brother started to use it one day. I swear, it blows the top off of Gnutella, Aimster, and even the old Napster itself. Not only are tons of MP3's shared, there are music videos galore as well! For example, just the second day after Weezer's new Island In The Sun video premiered on TRL, it could be found on Morpheus.

And the best part is the technology itself. The program automatically searches for identical files shared by multiple users, and uses their combined bandwidth for sending purposes. For example, if I'm looking for the aforementioned video, and users A, B, and C all have the same file, Morpheus will try to max out each of their bandwidths for the file transfer. So let's say user A is only on modem, and the rest are on DSL. I'll be getting 4kb/s from A, and 12kb/s from both B and C. In total, I'll be downloading at 28kb/s. Best of all, it's all done invisibly in the background so there's no fuss on the end user's part. And it's free, of course. Sweet!

...... I hope you all are aware of the SirCam virus alert. Recently, I've gotten no less than 5 e-mail attachments carrying the same identical worm, masked in different aliases. Five! And I hardly give out my UCLA account to anyone except people I know. That means one of you guys are probably infected, or have been exposed to SirCam. The way you can tell is if the body of the e-mail begins with "Hi! How are you?" and ends with a "See you later. Thanks.", while the attachment has a *.*.* syntax. For example, I got two that said, "I send you this file in order to have your advice," with bibliography.doc.pif attached to it. DON'T OPEN IT!

...... Some more computer news: Intel's releasing an SDRAM based motherboard chipset for its Pentium 4, called the i845. Prior to this, all P4's run off of expensive RDRAM, and because of that, sales have been extremely poor. So now, Chipzilla's hoping mainstream SDRAM will boost the P4's popularity. Unfortunately, they neglected to mention that P4 performance with SDRAM is sucky sucky, since the CPU itself was designed to be married with high speed memory. The rumor mill has it that the P4's a killer with DDR-SDRAM (a 2x SDRAM, so to speak), but Intel's license agreement with Rambus (makers of RDRAM) has tied their hands together. Moral of the story: don't get a P4 yet. If you're thinking of upgrading, AMD Athlons are the way to go.

"It's like drugs for me because you don't have to think for yourself. Especially at a school like Harvard, every waking moment is spent doing what somebody else told you to do. As long as you do it well, you get your A's and you feel good about your life. Then after a while you get that same feeling that you get on drugs, like "Oh, man, I'm just wasting my life away. I should be doing something productive." -- Weezer's Rivers Cuomo on his experiences at Harvard

'Till next time people, cheers.

Planet Of The Apes
[ 7-29-01 ][ 11:43 p.m. pst ][ By Rice ]

Saw Planet of the Apes this past weekend. It had a real horrible ending to it. Not only did it not make any sense, it seemed very tacked-on, as if director Tim Burton felt an uncontrollable need to one-up the 1968 original. Unfortunately, well done endings are an integral piece to a good movie going experience, so needless to say, I was disappointed. Even the story itself doesn't make much sense. How can a bunch of barbaric apes squash a highly advanced human species? Especially when, according to the script, humans outnumber them 4:1? Blech.

Gerry saw the original, and told me this current remake was way different. There was no battle, no psychotic ape General, and no human-sympathist female ape (Correction: there was indeed a female sympathist ape, but no romantic storyline --Ed). The only thing I enjoyed from this Tim Burton version is how realistic they depicted the simain society, and how they had this complex heirarchy with a senate and everything, too. Other than that, everything was pretty much downhill. I must say I even liked JP3 better than this. Dinosaurs are way cooler than monkeys. By the way, feel free to disagree with me. =) The message board's been hit by a dry spell...

Going to bed early tonight. I'm actually starting work tomorrow. Nightmares of traffic jams on the I-10 shall plague me to no end. Later, all.

Summer Vacation 2001
[ 7-24-01 ][ 10:54 a.m. pst ][ By Rice ]

--> Click! <--

Finally! It's here! Sorry it took forever. I don't really have any excuses since I don't work nor attend summer school. I managed to catch Gerry on a weekend and he hashed out a quick report for you guys as well, so I hope you appreciate our combined efforts. =P

Anyone following the Tour de France? This is my third year in a row I've been checking up on its news regularly because of Lance Armstrong. The man is an iron horse. He was on the edge of death with cancer 4 or 5 years ago, and now he's a cycling legend on his way to his third straight Tour de France victory. Go U.S.A.!

In golf, the Masters champion wears a green jacket. In cycling, the Tour de France champ wears yellow spandex.

By the way, it looks like I'm finally making some headway into the entry-level job market. Nothing's confirmed yet, so cross your fingers for me. Cheers.

Love Each Other, Or Perish
[ 7-22-01 ][ 2:44 a.m. pst ][ By Rice ]

"We must love each other, or perish." -- W.H. Auden

Take a second and imagine your worst nightmare. What would it be? Making a fool out of yourself in public? Failing to succeed in society? Flunking out of college? Nah......

Try seeing your mother die suddenly when you're barely 20 years old. Wait, let's add on to that. Let's say, she was your only guardian, and you have no knowledge of any close relatives around the area... or even in the same state. In other words, imagine how you would feel if all of a sudden, literally overnight, you became an orphan. A 20 year old orphan. Too old to be put in foster or adoption homes, and too young to strike out on your own without financial backup.

So how do you feel?

A very close friend of mine, someone who I see regularly and hang out and share laughter and tears with, is living that nightmare right now. I implore all of you who know him to please say a little prayer for him or let him know you're there for him. Every little bit helps. Paul, always remember we are here to help in any way we can. You may feel terribly alone, but never forget what friends are for: support. Our thoughts and prayers, especially mines, are with you.

...

Very often now I'm becoming aware of how mortal human beings truly are. We prance around our daily activities as if we're going to live forever. We take for granted the shelter and comfort that our parents provide. We're enclosed in our own little world, oblivious to how ignorant and selfish we truly are.

Earlier today, I took a compared look at the photographs of yesteryear and today. Six years ago, when I graduated from junior high, both my grandparents from my father's side flew across the Pacific to attend my ceremony, while my grandma from my mother's side heartily sent her best wishes. My dad had a chock full of black hair and a healthy gut, while my mom looked as pristine and elegant as a queen in her prime.

Last month, when my brother graduated junior high, my grandfather had already passed away and my grandmother is confined in a steel jacket which supports her ailing spine. My other grandma is nearly blind from glaucoma and it takes her 5 minutes to walk from the kitchen to the bedroom using a rolling crutch. My father's hairline has receded drastically, and is showing initial signs of a hunched back after a major surgery to remove a highly infected gall bladder. My mom seems to grow shorter every year and the wrinkles on her neck are becoming more and more apparent.

That's only six short years. Barely a blink of an eye. Yet almost everyone around me whom I love is deteriorating at a disturbing rate. Me, I was growing both mentally and physically, and am preparing to hit my stride. I had hardly noticed all that until I looked at the still-frames, because I was so absorbed in myself. I feel sorry for all the times I balked at doing simple chores simply because I didn't want to be bothered during a basketball game on TV. What was it to me if I missed the first 10 minutes of the stupid Knicks/Pacers game?

I'm learning to make the most out of every moment in my life. To enjoy every minute and to make sure that when I look back six years from now, I won't regret what I'm doing now. I feel so incredibly blessed to have people surrounding me who would eat a bullet for me without hesitation. To quote the great Lou Gehrig:

"Today... I consider myself... the luckiest man... on the face of the Earth."

Except it's not just today. It should be everyday. Cheers, all.