It's New Years eve and I'm at work. I've never been at work or in class on New Years eve before. But I'm at work today. And it sucks. I get the very strong feeling that everyone (myself included) would rather be somewhere else.

Is it just me, or do you guys have a strong feeling of deja vu right about now?

Woo-hoo! I feel good. I just completed my second 1000 calorie workout. The first was two days ago. What's my 1000 calorie workout? It's the name I've given to a masochistic invention of mine. 60 minutes on the cross country ski machine followed by 25 minutes on the treadmill totalling more than 1000 calories. Next week I'm gonna tack on another half hour or so and go for 1500 calories. I guess the smoking didn't kill my stamina as much as I'd thought.

I guess I got my Christmas wish. On Christmas day, I saw Lord of the Rings. It was a 4:00 showing (matinee) and I saw it with three high school friends. Funny how things like that work out, huh?

If there's one good thing about working during the holiday season, it's that rush hour traffic is light. Today, I made it to work in under 20 minutes when usually it takes me close to 30. Of course I was driving more like a madman than I usually do.

Speaking of driving like a madman, I take the 710 south and exit Long Beach Blvd south. That exit is amazing. It's one of those sweeping 270 degree banked turns. On top of that, at the end of the off ramp, there's no stop light like there usually is. It just merges into traffic, so that means I don't need to slow at the end of the ramp. Also, to make it more interesting, during the morning, the sprinklers on the inside of the curve are usually going, meaning that there's usually a wet patch on the inside. I just gotta make sure I don't drop a tire into there or I'm majorly screwed. I swear, that single turn is going to cause my front left tire to wear like twice as fast as the others. The outside shoulders of my tires are already showing considerable wear. The tires looks like someone took a brillo pad and scrubbed them.

It's Christmas eve and I'm at work. I've never been at work or in class on christmas eve before. But I'm at work today. And it sucks. I get the very strong feeling that everyone (myself included) would rather be somewhere else.

For those of you who're wondering how my quitting smoking thing and working out thing are going ... here's an update. During the past seven days, I had something like 6 cigarrettes. And I went to the YMCA on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

A True Story
It all started one morning when I was on my way to work in the morning and I noticed a bit of hair caught in my windshield wipers on my car. It completely boggled me how I could get hair caught in my windshield wipers. It was short brownish hair.

In later days, I began noticing more hair on my windshield and my hood. And I noticed it looked like fur. Then I thought, "oh well... no harm done."

The hair continued and I thought, "oh no. It's shedding."

Then one morning a few weeks ago, I found dropping on my car. A pretty big nasty dropping. A cat dropping. Oh my goodness!!! There was a friggin cat dropping on my car! Has anyone ever heard of anyone getting a cat dropping on his car??? Fortunately, it washed off in the rain.

Nowadays, I still get the fur on my hood and little dirty paw prints. Every now and then, I even see the cat perched on my car. What am I to do? What am I to do???

What do I want for Christmas?

To hang out with friends I haven't seen in a while and watch movies. And it doesn't necessarily have to be on Christmas.

Today is an absolutely friggin gorgeous day. The sky is crystal clear and the clouds are big, puffy, and well defined like giant cotton balls in the sky. If I were still at Mudd, there would be no stopping me from going up mount baldy for the hell of it. Well, I'm not at mudd and I'd kill to get out of work and drive down the beach (and have a smoke). But no, that's not going to happen because I'm not the killing type. Maybe I'll go drive somewhere tomorrow. Maybe I'll go up the Angeles Crest Highway. I've driven there twice before, I think (for no particular reason). Then again, tomorrow may be rainy and dreary.

Last night was a friggin gorgeous night, too. Before it started raining that is. Big bright moon hanging in the clear purple sky. Clouds passing underneath the moon. It was the kind of night poets write about.

But it wasn't the most beautiful night I've seen. One night about a year, I went up to mt baldy with Steve and Joon to watch a meteor shower. That was pretty nice. Another night about a year ago, I stepped outside for a break after working long and hard on some homework. There was a full moon AND a big bright rainbowish halo around the moon. Can you imagine that? That was the only time I've seen anything like that.

Sunset is 4:47 tonight and I get off work at about 6:15. If I want to catch the sunset on the way home, I'll have to leave for work about 7:30 in the morning. Is it worth it?

If I'd known that today was going to look like this, I'd definitely have left early enough to watch the sunset.

Oh how I wish I had a month long winter break. A month long paid winter break.

I just ordered myself an MP3 player to listen to at work and at the gym. It was out of stock so it could be a few weeks before I get it. But I'm a patient man.

A friend of mine recommended Softlips brand lip balm so I bought myself one. It's not working for me. Before I started using it, my lips were dry, chapped, and cracked. Now, my lips are not so dry, chapped, and cracked. And they're definitely not soft. Maybe if you had soft lips in the first place, Softlips would keep them soft. But for me, I need some extra strength stuff. Like ChapStick Medicated.

I was in the best shape of my life at the end of highschool when I was 17 as a result of 7 years of tae kwon do. After high school, I stopped taking tae kwon do and for four years during college, my body basically atrophied from lack of use. On top of that, 3 years of smoking basically killed my lungs and left me with no stamina to speak of.

So I decided that I should start working out in my last post. Yesterday night I went to YMCA for the first time in ages. I've had a membership for a while but I haven't gone since last winter break, if I remember correctly. I spent about an hour or so there and it felt good to be sweating again without coughing up phlegm that tastes like tar. The last time I sweated was in my office when the air-conditioner stopped working. I think I'll go again tonight.

Maybe I am a masochist. When I work out, I'm usually not satisfied unless I wake up really sore the next morning. Plus, I still have a cold. But I never let that get in the way of me going to tae kwon do when I was in high school, so I'm not going to worry about it now.

Yesterday I went to the driving range and came home with a little piece of skin torn off my finger. Actually it started out as a blister which eventually peeled off by the end of my bucket. Two large buckets of golf balls in a single week usually does that to me. That probably means I'm doing something wrong.

Certain tasks will get me into the frame of mind when the only thing that matter is the task at hand. For example, whacking balls at the driving range. When I go to the driving range, it's like going to the batting cages. I don't go to practice my swing, I go to swing. So I'll just line up some balls and just whack, whack, whack. Oftentimes, I come back with blisters, but I usually don't notice until the skin is already peeling and it's starting to sting. Last school year, I had hung up a punching bag in my dorm. I used to go at that thing so hard! When I hung up the bag, I bought a pair of bag gloves. After a couple months of usage, the gloves tore at the seams. So I went at it bare fisted (which I always preferred anyway, as it was the more "honest" way of hitting the bag). I would go at that thing until my knuckles start to bleed (or I hurt my wrist). Funny thing is that while I'm hitting the bag, I can't feel a thing. My hands go numb and I whack the bag as hard as I can. Afterward, it hurts to put my hands under running water because the skin on my knuckles has worn away. It's not that I'm masochistic, it's just that when I get into that frame of mind, I don't notice anything. It's like how little kids get all blank-faced when they're intently playing a video game.

I wonder what's going on psychologically when that happens and what it's called. I imagine it's similar to runners' second-wind.
Maybe not.

Speaking of whacking the bag, I haven't worked out in quite a while. The last bit of exercise that I actually did was whack the bag last semester. (I say whack the bag cause I don't just punch it. I elbow it and knee it and kick it and karate chop it and body slam it, etc.) And that was more for stress relief than exercise anyway. Lately, my excuse for not working out has been that I was a smoker so I have no stamina anyway. Now that I'm not smoking (trying to, anyway), it should be about time for me to hit the gym again... as soon as my cold goes away.

I just saw Empire with my brother so I can cross that off my list. It wasn't great, but it was interesting the way the movie portrayed the drug dealer and the investment banker. It's ironic that the investment banker turned out to be a lot sleazier than the drug dealer. I guess that's what greed will do to you.

Anyone else up for another movie? Still got lots to go.

Oh yeah, within the next 12 months, I think I might start working on that online community thing. Think Blogspot, Xanga, Live Journal, Yahoo Groups, Ofoto, my old BBS, etc, but better. I'm a programmer, so I have a vague idea how to approach the problem, but I it'll take lots of time (a few man-months, I think). First decision: Do I want to host it on a linux server or a Windows server? Windows would probably be easier, but Linux would probably be cheaper (as far as server software is concerned). And since I don't have much cash for something like this ... I'll probably go with Linux. Plus I did some server-side web programming (PHP, actually) for Linux last summer during my internship.

What my motivation for something like this? If everything turns out like it does in my dreams, this could turn into a profitable little company that might be worth something down the line. Yep. Another dot com to go with the thousands of others already in the garbage heap. But it's worth a shot, right?
Anyhow ... can any of you guys think of a good name for something like that? Something that isn't already taken?

The holiday movie season is upon us, which means there are some movies coming out that I actually want to see. That means it's List Time!

Movies I must see

• Harry Potter
  
• Two Towers
  
• Adaptation
  

Movies I'd like to see

• Star Trek: Nemesis
  
• Empire
  

Movies I wouldn't mind seeing

• Analyze That
  
• Treasure Planet
  
• Gangs of New York
  
• Antwone Fisher
  

Movies I've recently seen

• Die Another Day (thumbs down)
  
• 8 Mile (thumbs up)
  

Anyone wanna watch a movie with me?

I've had some smokes (3 to be precise) in the past few days which I bummed off of various people.

Aarrgh. I'm dying for a smoke right now (as a result of staying home and doing nothing). And I'm pitifully close to breaking down and buying myself a pack.

I think the second craving of the day is the worst; the one you get a few hours after your first cigarrette. Maybe it's just because it's later in the day, or maybe it's because you've had a taste of the nicotine but not enough to satisfy your body.

I'm beginning to wonder (as I always do when I try to quit) whether quitting is worth the effort. Despite all the ill health effects, smoking just makes me feel so good (at least a lot better than when I don't smoke). Afterall, all I want is one cigarrette right now. One smoke isn't going to hurt me. Of course that's incorrect thinking. You can never have just one. Never. At least I can't.

Whether or not this is really going to be when I break my addiction is still in the air. I honestly don't know. (In fact, if I were to place a bet, I'd bet that this isn't going to be that time.)

You know what's interesting? Nicotine is supposed to be a stimulant. It's supposed to increase heartrate and all that stuff. But you know what's even more of a stimulant? No nicotine. Yep, when I don't get my fix, I can feel myself getting strung tighter and tighter.

It's called withdrawal. That should be over in a few days ... longer if I keep bumming smokes.

After withdrawal, all I'll have to deal with are the psychological cravings; the feeling that I'm abandoning an old friend that has stuck with me through all the hard times and never let me down and never failed to comfort me.

Anyhow, I should stuff my mouth full of gum (two sticks for a major craving) and go to sleep early lest I find myself taking a quick trip to the liquor store.

But seriously though, what's all this drama for? Smoking really isn't that bad. My dad has smoked for most of his life and he's still alive. Heck, I should just forget all this nonsense and give myself what I know I want.

When I woke up this morning, I had that scratchy, snotty feeling in the back of my nose. I hope I'm not coming down with a cold. I should get a flu shot as soon as as possible

If you recall, I'd worked on a Chinese version of our product a few months ago. Someone in my office asked if was working right. All I could say is that I hadn't heard any compliants about it so I assumed that all was going well. But then he pointed out that officially we don't support Chinese (which means it's up to the reseller to provide support for it). (Our product wasn't initially written with languages like Chinese in mind so supporting it at this point would mean a lot of headaches.) That could mean that even if the Chinese users were having problems with it, we might not hear about it... so I really don't know if it is working right. Anyhow, the next major release of our product should support Unicode (which means that it'll work with any language supported by Unicode, which supports every langauge anyone uses) so I would assume that we'd support Chinese with that version. Don't ask me why I want to support Chinese, but I think it'd be cool.

I really hope the Chinese customers are satisfied with the Chinese bug fixes I did a few months ago.

One of my grandfathers is from North Korea. Actually, he's from northern Korea and travelled south during the Korean War before the country split up. When the war ended, he found himself in South Korea, and his family in North Korea, and no way to reach them. (As my own existence demonstrates) he got a job, had his own family, and spent the rest of his life in South Korea, never to hear from his family again.

Imagine that was you. Perhaps it's some 10 years after the war and you've done ok for yourself. You have an office job, or even a factory job. Maybe you're married and have a kid on the way. You've just bought a little condo and a car.

Imagine that North Korea were letting people in, but not letting anyone out. You haven't heard from your family, but you assume that they're toiling away in the fields from dawn till dusk so they can have just enough to eat, clothes to wear, and a straw hut to live in, just like your family's done for generations. Would you go into North Korea to get back with your family knowing that if you went back, you'd have to go back to working in the fields, and that you'd never be able to come out? Would your family want you to come into North Korea knowing that your life is 10 times easier and more comfortable and more luxurious in the South than theirs is?

Given that choice, I really wonder what my grandfather would have done after seeing how much faster South Korea had advaced compared to the North. Perhaps he'd reason that despite the fact his parents couldn't see him, they'd be happy knowing that his life was better than theirs. Or maybe he'd reason that the quality of life afforded by a growing economy outweigh the pain of not being able to see your family. Maybe he'd say that that it's better that half the country prosper despite the splitting of families rather than the entire country go to hell.

Then again, maybe he'd say it's better to toil in the fields as a family rather than live a life of (relative) luxury alone.

Random Thought: I could never date a girl that looked like my mother. My mother is the thing I want furthest from my mind when I'm getting intimate with a girl.

The Stetson for Men commerical asks, "What man has never been a cowboy?"

To that, I ask, "What man has ever been a cowboy?" I sure as heck haven't.

Perfume and cologne commercials are always too unreal. Do they really think I live in a fantasy world? I give them no respect.

Well... I was just in the process of writing an essay about American capitalistic involvement in South Korea, but I decided that my blog would be better without it. If any of you think that such an essay would be good for my blog, let me know, and I'll finish it up. I think I'll just leave you with an abstract.

Some people would accuse America of forcing its capitalism and culture on South Korea. I would instead argue that America offered its capitalism and Korea (perhaps unwittingly) embraced it. Given the state of Korea after World War II and the Korean War, the people of Korea were essentially faced with the choice between Korean poverty, and American prosperity. Naturally, they choice prosperity. Case in point, our immigrant parents left Korea in search of a better life. It just happened that the better life was an American one.

If I were still in school, I'd be preparing for finals right now. So in a sense, I'm almost done with my first semester of work. You know what sucks though? It doesn't feel like I've gone anywhere. The worst thing about work (among the many worst things about work) is that there's nothing to look forward to. There's no hard-set goal and there's no milestones to check off as you pass them. Every day at work is just like it was a few months ago, except with a slightly different project. In school there was always the long vacation to look forward to. But now there's nothing. Now that I've worked for about a semester, I'd much rather be in school.

How do comic artists come up with fresh material for every single day? I'm trying to think of something to write but I'm drawing a blank.

Oh, here I go.

Remember what I said to Ed about trying to quit smoking? I wasn't joking. On Sunday night I bought 100 pieces of gum from Sav-ons and I've been chewing non-stop since then. It's been about two days since my last cigarrette. My jaw is sore and my tongue feels like it's coated in rubber. But I'm holding up. This is still just the beginning and I know I'm going to have to brace myself for long weeks of cravings.

For the most part, smoking doesn't really bother me all that much. Sure it's bad for my health, and sure I'm killing myself slowly each time I have a smoke, and sure I'm quick to lose my breath when I do anything resembling exercise, but it still doesn't bother all that much. What bothers me most about smoking is the whole addiction thing. I don't like the feeling that I need a smoke. I don't like not being able to go a few days without a cigarrette. It makes me feel like I've lost control of myself.

Anyhow... that's just a little update on myself.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick ....

My twenty-first year on this damned planet ticks to an end. I wish I could celebrate this moment with a beer. A nice Corona with a lime would hit the spot just right. But unfortunately I don't get to stock beer at home. Instead, I've got little pieces of chocolate filled with small quantities of hard liquor. It was a Christmas gift for my mother from one of her co-workers. Very tasty indeed. I've had 4 pieces just now which equals a fraction of a shot, and doesn't impart nearly the refreshing satisfaction of a cold beer. Oh well... I gotta make do.

Tick, tick, tick.

Twenty-two just around the corner. Why do I feel like today, the day before my birthday, is more special than my birthday? Because twenty-two is just another number, but twenty-one is the greatest time of your life. I've got some 20 minutes left to enjoy being twenty-one. Maybe I can hop a plane to Hawaii and enjoy another few hours. Maybe I should run to the liquor store and buy myself some liquor. I failed to do that on my first day of being twenty-one, so maybe I'll do it on the last day to make up for it.

Tick, tick, tick.

Twenty-two on a Tuesday. Friday the thirteenth just a few days later.

Christmas on a Wednesday, just one day off.

Tick, tick, tick.

15 minutes left. Time flies, huh? It seems like just yesterday I was cramming for finals. Pulling all-nighters for papers I procrastinated on. It seems like just yesterday that I sat in class discussing the theories of the good life, or environmentalism, or relativity or quantum physics, or parallel programming, or turing machines ... I seems like just yesterday that I walked across the platform at graduation in front of a class of less than 200 that I hardly knew after four long years.

Tick, tick, tick.

10 minutes left. I feel like I wasted my summer. I finished school, took a month off, and started work. During that month, I really didn't do anything. I hung out with a lot of high school friends, some of which I hadn't seen for a while, and some of which I won't see for a while. Most of them have gone off on their own directions since then. Some of them went back to school. Some of them found jobs elsewhere. In Sacramento, in Kentucky, in Africa. Still I feel like I wasted my summer. I should've done something wild and crazy. A bunch of friends I had that had graduated a year ahead of me went to Hawaii after graduation. I should've done something like that. My mom offered to send me and my brother to Europe for the summer. We declined. Why? I dunno, we didn't feel like going. And for the most part, I still don't, but still it would've been an adventure, something I really haven't experienced in a while. I spent the past few months pouring over books about money. I had this brilliant idea that if I spent as much time learning about money as I'd spent learning how to program, then riches would come with no problem. So I set out studying. I think I missed the point. I think I missed the Point, with a capital P. Don't ask me what the Point is, cause I can't really say, but I don't think it's money.

Tick, tick, tick.

5 minutes left. Twenty-one, twenty-one, twenty one. Going on twenty-two. Oh, how I wish I were turning twenty-one. I'm growing up too fast. It seems like just yesterday I was struggling through middle school. And look at me now! I'm a career man, saving up for my retirement.

Twenty-one was supposed to be great. But it's over now. I guess it's all downhill from here, eh? Nothing more to look forward to?

I sure hope not. I still have much of my life left in front of me. And despite the fact that I've screwed up a bit in the past, there's no reason to believe I'll continue to screw up. While my childhood may be gone, there's still much to do, much to enjoy, much to look forward to.

Tick, tick, tick. Time waits for no man. The clock strikes 12:00. There's no delaying the inevitable. The only thing left to do is hold my breath and jump in with all I've got.

And life goes on.

some guy named 'salaryman' left a remark on someone's guestbook and I can't help but repeat it. "What could me more narcissistic than keeping a public diary?" Now that's something to think about.

Btw, I would also like to mention that I'm glad I'm not an artist, I mean a real artist. I wouldn't want to have to torture myself for the sake of my art. On the other hand, it might be nice being a mass-media artist. No pain, and lots of money. :)

Of course all the real artists would despise me.

A small portion of a real-life conversation I had with a friend of mine:

Me: I'm gonna try to quit smoking.
Ed: Bah ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!

Thanks for vote of confidence Ed. Of course, I probably would've replied the same way if you said the same thing to me.

A random thought: In my first year of college, my roommate was a chinese guy named Frank Lee. I just thought that was a funny name. Usually he went by his chinese name, which was even funnier.

Random quote from a random movie: "Frank Lee, I don't give a damn."

I'm feeling a little dizzy (actually, that was about an hour ago, I'm over now, but humor me.) I finished reading Mutts Wednesday night in about an hour, and I was left unsatisfied. So, today I dropped by the bookstore again and bought the second Mutts collection, "Cats and Dogs" Mutts II (somehow Mutts always has to be bold, it just looks right) along with the January 2003 issue of Sport Compact Car magazine (2003 already? Where the did year go!?!). I read through both in a single three-hour sitting (about an hour ago). I don't think either was meant to be read in a single sitting, thus the head spinning. Now, after having read two years worth of Mutts (excuse me, I mean Mutts) in three days, I'm satisfied. (anyone want a gently used comic book for Christmas?) If I had a scanner, I'd scan some of my favorite strips and post them, but I don't. And that's probably a good thing lest I violate some copyright laws (not that I really care).

Speaking of Christmas, guess how many days I get off for Christmas.

One whole day!!! I don't even get Christmas Eve off. Well... that's the working life for you. No more looking forward to month long winter breaks, or 3 month long summer breaks, or week long spring breaks. Sniff, I'm going to miss my vacations.

When I was a sophomore or junior in college, I got paid 20 dollars for participating in a focus group for some new dot com company trying to develope an online community. I don't remember what the name of the company was, but I'd doubt they're still around, or hit it as big as they thought they would. Anyhow, at the time I thought it was an interesting idea, but I really didn't think I'd spend too much of my own time at a site like that. Well... it looks like online communities have happened in the form of online journals. (Not to mention online chatting, and chat rooms, etc.) And look at me, I've become very involved with it. I never thought that would happen... or maybe I did.

When I was in high school, I hosted a BBS (bulletin board service) on my home computer. For those of you who aren't familiar with that, let me explain.

Before the internet became popular, and before Prodigy or Compuserve or America Online, there were BBS's. BBS's were hosted by computer hobbyists that left their computer on and connected to a second phone line to allow other computer hobbyists to dial in with their modems and access a sort of mini-AOL. It was entirely text based. There were two major attractions, downloading software (sometimes illegally), and posting to the bulletin board where there could be many conversations going about many different topics. There were also MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) that were basically online versions of Dungeons and Dragons games. (Somehow I feel like I've said all this before. Maybe if I look back a few months I'll find something exactly like this.)

So I hosted one and it's odd to see how the concept of these digital communities has evolved. Yes, certainly the internet is changing life as we know it.

Anyhow, looking back, I think the company I did the focus group for tried too hard to organize their site. There would be a community for each topic. I think it's an odd concept, but I believe that something like online communities for better when they're allowed to self-organize, much like the world wide web. A little organization could be good, but not if you're forcing the community members to catagorize themselves. No organization is better than that. What I mean by self-organizing is that users find each other by some way or other, link to each other, and grow their network of people in that fashion. In a one way medium (e.g. a news site), organization is key, but in a two way medium (e.g. online community), freedom is key. Ponder that for a moment. Here's something else to consider. AOL is America's most successful internet service provider, and unlike most ISPs, it provide some of it's own content. Why is it still more of a one way news provider than a community? It's long been known for chatting and chat rooms, etc. but maybe it should try to develop the two way features a little further rather than waiting for other companies like LiveJournal to beat them to the punch.

So what exactly makes an online journal interesting? What separates the good ones from the crappy ones?

This is what I think (obviously).

Online journal reading is meant to be an entertaining activity. And as such, people (for the most part) don't want to be lectured, or educated. They want to read a story that develops in real-time with the main character being the author of the blog. The story is what's important, and whether or not it accurately depicts reality is probably irrelavant. Yes, it can be considered voyeurism, and the authors can be considered exhibitionists (or "attention whores" as a friend of mine put it).

So what makes the most interesting journals? One approach could be to approach online journal writing like a newspaper columnist. Each individual post is good in and of it's own right, that is, it can stand by itself apart from the rest of the journal. In that sense, the journal is not so much a journal, but a series of essays. Still, I don't think that hits the nail on the head.

What makes an online journal interesting is the story that it tells. Each post doesn't have to stand on its own. It just has to fit in with the bigger picture and help progress the story. It should develop the characters. And to that goal, it should get personal without sounding whiny. Punchlines (by which I mean short, clever, memorable phrases) also help.

So what doesn't make a good online journal? A series of unrelated, pointless, poorly written essays (the longer the worse), much like this one.

What's the next step for online communities? I think they're going to progress in the direction of interactive journals like LiveJournal and Xanga with a little more (self) organization like yahoo groups. There are already online photo albums and such, but that's going to become a bigger thing as it becomes more easier to integrate them into online journals. Similarly, file-sharing is going to become more important. E.g, people can post photos on LiveJournals, but given time, we'll see other things like music and video files (some of the author him/herself). As always, ease-of-use is going to be important. In fact, that one thing may be the make-it or break-it feature for any prospective online community. The easier the community is to join and use, the faster it will grow. (Most people that have online-journals wouldn't if they had to deal with the HTML themselves.)

Here's something else to consider. Where's the profitability? In order for companies to develop new ideas for their websites, there has to be some sort income. Sure, there will always be the hobbyists that develop internet technology in their free time, but it's always going to be the big commercial companies that market that technology to the masses. There's the two usual avenues for income for entertainment sites (such as online communities), advertising and paid-membership. A successful online community has easily generate lots of hits (eventually more than even search-engine sites, I believe) so advertising is definitely going to be an income source. Still, banner ads can never become as creative as TV commercials and TV commercial style streaming advertisements probably won't be tolerated in an interactive medium (it's a lot easier to change the channel, so to say). I'd like to see these companies get a little more creative with their advertising methods (and I don't mean more creatively intrusive, like pop-up ads, or ads that spread like viruses), and I'd like to see these companies get a little more creative with their income streams. Paid membership is fine, but in the interest of developing the internet, let's keep as much free as possible.

I think it's about time for me to step off the podium and start writing an interesting blog. (One of the interesting things about working at a software company is that you have to try to predict what the customers want before they ask for it.)

You know ... maybe if I ever decide to start my own company, maybe I'll take a shot at making an online community.

Christmas songs are starting to play everywhere. It's always an odd feeling when I start to hear them. Sometimes it's nice, sometimes it's not. I'm not exactly in the holiday spirit now, whatever that is. In fact, the holidays can be a pretty depressing time when you realize you don't have anything to celebrate. I think I get two days off for Christmas, and it's unlikely that I'll do anything special. I didn't really do anything special for Thanksgiving. Just had dinner with my family. We had steak instead of turkey, and it was damn good steak, too.

My routine:
Wake up between 7:30 and 8:00. Shower. Eat. Check stocks. Leave for work about 9:30. Work from about 10:00 to 6:30 taking half an hour for lunch. Get home around 7:00. Eat dinner. Kill time by reading, watching tv, surfing the web, visiting the bookstore, etc. Sleep about 12:00.

It's a boring life.

Man, I never expected the working world to be this boring. I don't understand how my parents can stand it. Year in and year out, the same old thing.

My twenty first year on earth is coming to an end and somehow I feel like I have little to show for it. Sure, in the past year, I got a degree and got a nice job, but still I don't quite feel fulfilled. There has to be more to life after college than this, right? And it doesn't really help that the people I generally hang out with are elsewhere doing their own thing, probably bored to tears themselves, just like me. I never really was very sociable, but spending my days alone is taking its toll. (Feel free to let me know if you want to do something).

Anyhow, today I went to the bookstore to ease my restlessness after dinner. I bought myself a book. Not a stock book, mind you, a comic book. Mutts by Patrick McDonnell. The first collection for the newspaper strip.

The funny thing about the first collection of any comic strip is that most of it hasn't been widely published in newspapers since it's before the strip became popular. It's interesting to see how the comic develops and matures and the artist develops the style of the strip and gets a better feel for his characters.

Anyway, I'm gonna go read that for a little bit and then go to sleep.

It's Sunday, and you know what that means. Sunday Comics!

When I was younger, there was a period in my life when I was really interested in comics (the daily variety) and read books about them. Yeah, I didn't really comic books, I read books about comics. Go figure.

Comics I really like (in no particular order):
Mutts by Patrick McDonnell. In one of the books I read written by a comic artist, the author compared comic artistry with Asian calligraphy. Comic artists use the brush in the same way calligraphers do. Each stroke (ideally) is carefully crafted using varying pressures to create varying line thicknesses for a particular effect. Mutts does this the best. In fact, this comic reminds me a lot of asian art I've seen (not the manga variety). There's a lot of empty space, but the space is there for a reason, much like pauses in classical music. Similarly, colors tend not to be the typical Sunday comic colors. They're more muted and carry a certain serene quality. And the characters are cute. Incidentally, I remember reading somewhere that (not surprisingly) the artist is a big animal lover.
9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney. (Somehow, I'm ashamed to admit this but oh well.) This comic is all about emotion. There's always lots of reds and oranges and color fades. It's always the most vibrant comic of the lot. I also think that the characters and the relationships in this strip are the most developed. They're not your stereotypical, cardboard comic characters. Each day a different side of the characters get shown. Each day the different relationships develop in different ways. The mother-daughter relationship. The mother-lover relationship. The daughter-nerd boy relationship. Etc. Interestintly, the occasional fantasy sequences remind me a bit of the Calvin and Hobbes fantasy sequences, except that where Calvin and Hobbes was more observational, this comic is more psychological. When I was younger, I related somewhat with that nerd boy (I can't remember his name) in the comic. If someone were to draw a comic of me when I was 14 (which I think is the age of the daughter and her friend), I'd look something like him. Messy hair. Glasses. Bad dresser. Awkward. Maybe he doesn't look exactly like I did, but the essence is there. It wasn't until today that I knew the name of my city is in the authors name. How funny.
Non Sequitur by Wiley. It's always a pleasure to read this strip, espcially the story of Homer. This strip is very well drawn and put together. But the greatest thing about this strip is the writing. The story will go on for months, and it's always chock full of clever irony and satire. In some sense, this is an editorial comic posing as comic strip. Not that I've actually read any graphic novel (aka comic books), but I think this guy would do extremely well in that medium. Who knows, maybe he's already done really well in that medium and I just don't know about it. All things considered, I think this would be my favorite comic to read, but Mutts is the comic that I'd frame and hang on the wall.

Comics I like:
Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley. Maybe there's something intrinsically funny to me about a college student and his pets. The Bucky/Satchel interplay can be hilarious.
Frazz by Jeff Mallett. This is another comic I think is well drawn. But actually what I particularly like is that each strip has a point or a moral. This strip might be titled something like "Parables of a Zen master encapsulated in 6 easy to digest panels." Well ... maybe not "Zen master" per se, but there's some pretty good advice in those strips. A bit more character development and this strip could possibly make it to the top list.
Shirley and Son by Jerry Bittle. This one barely made this list. Simply put, it's cute, clever, and funny. It makes me look back fondly at the childhood I never had.

Comics I like but wouldn't be devastated if they were discontinued (aka, funny comics):
Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman. Momma by Mell Lazarus. The mom and son dialogues sometimes remind me of my own mom and son dialogues, except that it's a lot funnier in the comic.
Jump Start by Robb Artmstrong. Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott. Family sit-com humor in comic strip format.
Dilbert by Scott Adams. It's funny, but not achingly so. I enjoy this comic more now that I'm working.
Blondie by Dean Young and Denis Lebrun. I like the pictures. The characters have the funniest expressions.
In the Bleachers by Steve Moore. Herman by Jim Unger. Funny one liners.

Comics I could do without:
Cathy by Cathy Guisewite. Why would I want to read a comic where the same woman complains about everything in every strip? It's not even funny.
All soap opera strips. I'm sorry but you can't keep by attention if takes months to get to the punchline.

Comics that have overstayed their welcome.
Heathcliff by Geo Gately. Heathcliff isn't funny. I never thought it was funny. I might have been funny before I started reading it... but now it's not.
Garfield by Jim Davis. When I was a kid, I used to really like Garfield and I tried to get all the books. Now that I'm older ... I find that it's always the same old jokes. They should replace garfield with Jim Davis other comic. I think it was called U.S. Acres and was about barn animals. I always thought that one was funnier.
Classic Peanuts by Charles Schulz. (gasp!) How could I say that about a strip that has defined American comics for more than half a century? It's not that I have anything against the strip, I just think that there are better ones and I think it should give up it's spot at the top of the LA Times Comics section. The only thing that this strip has going for it is that Snoopy is instantly recognizable ... which is probably why Peanuts is still at the top. Snoopy is probably better at selling newspapers than any of the other characters in any of the other strips. Anyhow, it's bound to get replaced sooner or later as Schulz is now dead and all these are reruns. What I'd really like to see is Peanuts get moved to one of the latter pages and Non Sequitur moved to the top spot in the same format that Calvin and Hobbes used to get (by which I mean a large 8.5x11 spot with no restrictions). Unfortunately, it's unlikely that Non Sequitur would get moved to the front page because of it's funky vertical layout, which incidentally I'm sure the artist had to fight for in order to get a little more freedom and which I'm sure lost him a spot in a number of newspapers.

In one of the Calvin and Hobbes books, Bill Waterson mentions that about half the newspapers that ran Calvin and Hobbes dropped it when he demanded the 8.5x11 space with no restrictions, but he was happy with that despite the obvious pay cut since it allowed him to get more creative with his sunday strips. Apparently, newspaper editors can be anal about the way they layout their strips. Anyhow some of the newspapers later picked up Calvin and Hobbes again despite the different format due to its popularity.

So ... what's the point to all this? *shrug.* It's Sunday. I got my comic fix for the week. And it's what on my mind.