At GameStop:
At the Costa Mesa Kinokuniya bookstore:
Getting ready to bake a chiffon cake:
Got from the mail:
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Monday, November 14, 2016
Rick Grimes
This note contains links to several websites that I read regarding Rick Grimes, the main character in The Walking Dead, and his character development throughout the series, which my mind has been greatly obsessed on lately.
Stackexchange: http://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/36763/how-did-rick-grimes-change-throughout-the-walking-dead-series
Analysis by Phil Janecic (my favorite, since it is long): http://themindofsteel.com/rick-grimes/
Character article: https://leaderpieces.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/character-analysis-rick/
Blog post: https://www.altushost.com/5-leadership-lessons-from-the-walking-deads-rick-grimes/
Season 4 symbolism: https://www.thewrap.com/walking-dead-5-symbolic-things-rick-season/
Stackexchange: http://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/36763/how-did-rick-grimes-change-throughout-the-walking-dead-series
Analysis by Phil Janecic (my favorite, since it is long): http://themindofsteel.com/rick-grimes/
Character article: https://leaderpieces.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/character-analysis-rick/
Blog post: https://www.altushost.com/5-leadership-lessons-from-the-walking-deads-rick-grimes/
Season 4 symbolism: https://www.thewrap.com/walking-dead-5-symbolic-things-rick-season/
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Comment on The Walking Dead
The first episode of seventh season of AMC's The Walking Dead aired October 23. To someone who did not watch the second half of the sixth season, the episode was extremely perplexing. It baffled me. Who was Negan? How did they end up crossing the Saviors? Glenn and Abraham's deaths horrified me, especially Glenn's, since Glenn was one of my favorite characters in the entire series. After reading online and watching select episodes in season six, I got the gist of the whole matter. And I understood that Rick's group was in a pretty deep new ditch.
A Forbes article viewed the new villain in the show as a possible distraction to the plot, with the idea that in the end, Rick was the real villain. If you look at his character throughout the series, you can see how Rick has changed, for the most part for the worst, due to what he experienced and whom he encountered. Based on his recent actions in season six, for example his murdering members of the Saviors without indisputable proof that they truly were bad people, this may be true. However, I also think that his character development was necessary, not for forming a villain, but for creating a realistic person in that apocalyptic world. There was no way that Rick could have gone through all that he did without becoming even slightly brutal and harsh. Whether to conclude as the "final boss" or to prevail with his humanity intact, I do not know, but his questionable actions should not be immediately associated with him being a villain.
When episode three came out last week, I was sorely disappointed in the villain Negan. His language, especially when addressing Dwight and Daryl, sounded extremely lame, to be honest. I hope he expresses himself with more cruelty and actual "bad guy vibes" in the future.
Online I heard about the original The Walking Dead comic. There may be fans out there who favor it more than the T.V. series, but I think I would rather have the nunnery than whatever crazy world is within those pages. It is cleaner on screen, without unnecessary scenes and romances, the visuals are great, and the characters feel more lovable than they feel like they would be based on the article I read. Plus, they kept Daryl and Carol alive, so there goes another two points. I am not saying that the comics are bad (if you prefer it, then okay), but from what I heard, I am choosing to stick with the series.
The fourth episode airs tonight at 6 pm in California. I cannot wait!
A Forbes article viewed the new villain in the show as a possible distraction to the plot, with the idea that in the end, Rick was the real villain. If you look at his character throughout the series, you can see how Rick has changed, for the most part for the worst, due to what he experienced and whom he encountered. Based on his recent actions in season six, for example his murdering members of the Saviors without indisputable proof that they truly were bad people, this may be true. However, I also think that his character development was necessary, not for forming a villain, but for creating a realistic person in that apocalyptic world. There was no way that Rick could have gone through all that he did without becoming even slightly brutal and harsh. Whether to conclude as the "final boss" or to prevail with his humanity intact, I do not know, but his questionable actions should not be immediately associated with him being a villain.
When episode three came out last week, I was sorely disappointed in the villain Negan. His language, especially when addressing Dwight and Daryl, sounded extremely lame, to be honest. I hope he expresses himself with more cruelty and actual "bad guy vibes" in the future.
Online I heard about the original The Walking Dead comic. There may be fans out there who favor it more than the T.V. series, but I think I would rather have the nunnery than whatever crazy world is within those pages. It is cleaner on screen, without unnecessary scenes and romances, the visuals are great, and the characters feel more lovable than they feel like they would be based on the article I read. Plus, they kept Daryl and Carol alive, so there goes another two points. I am not saying that the comics are bad (if you prefer it, then okay), but from what I heard, I am choosing to stick with the series.
The fourth episode airs tonight at 6 pm in California. I cannot wait!
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Universal Studios Round Three
It was a holiday last Friday (Veterans Day) so of course school was out. And, of course, my mom and I went to Universal Studios. No news there.
What was news to my mom and I, though, was how busy the place would be. Compared to our last two trips there, it was four times more crowded. Even before we arrived, we spent an hour more in traffic than we thought we would. There was a more-than-an-hour wait for the Harry Potter ride, so we skipped on that. The line for butter beer extended across the street, making the walking path through Hogsmeade even thinner. In addition, the regular line for the Studio tour was so long, my mom and I jumped into the line for Chinese foreigners, where we waited about thirty minutes before we could board a car. The Special Effects show was so packed with people, we were lucky to find empty seats. We crammed ourselves onto escalators filled with people going to the lower lot, and when we entered the single riders lane for the Transformers ride, and saw how slow the line was moving, we made up our minds to only go once. And so, in the end we didn't really get the chance to enjoy our favorite rides multiple times, and we left early to try and avoid the traffic (though we still found ourselves stuck in it for a bit). The lesson learned here is that it is best if we come on school minimum days (days when I get out of school early) that only apply to students like me, and not on nationwide holidays that pertain to pretty much everyone.
What was news to my mom and I, though, was how busy the place would be. Compared to our last two trips there, it was four times more crowded. Even before we arrived, we spent an hour more in traffic than we thought we would. There was a more-than-an-hour wait for the Harry Potter ride, so we skipped on that. The line for butter beer extended across the street, making the walking path through Hogsmeade even thinner. In addition, the regular line for the Studio tour was so long, my mom and I jumped into the line for Chinese foreigners, where we waited about thirty minutes before we could board a car. The Special Effects show was so packed with people, we were lucky to find empty seats. We crammed ourselves onto escalators filled with people going to the lower lot, and when we entered the single riders lane for the Transformers ride, and saw how slow the line was moving, we made up our minds to only go once. And so, in the end we didn't really get the chance to enjoy our favorite rides multiple times, and we left early to try and avoid the traffic (though we still found ourselves stuck in it for a bit). The lesson learned here is that it is best if we come on school minimum days (days when I get out of school early) that only apply to students like me, and not on nationwide holidays that pertain to pretty much everyone.
The New iPhone Update iOS 10.1.1
In the Veteran Day spirit, I downloaded the latest software update for the iPhone despite complaints of some of my friends who got it. After I passed the typical configuration steps, the new layout both irked me and pleased me, in different ways. For one, I was glad to finally be able to delete the useless applications, Tips and Podcasts, which I don't use. It was surprising to see the delete button available for me to click for them. This really helped clean my screen. Unfortunately, Health and Wallet are still indestructible. Another plus for me is a new application that was added, called News. I subscribed myself to a bunch of newspapers through email, but this app keeps them all in one place, and shows me newspapers that I have never heard of before. I think it will be a very useful application to have around.
Some negatives will have to be the design elements. In iMessage, the bar for texting looks absolutely hideous. If you tap on the camera icon, the space looks cramped. I dislike the fact that you have to slide the screen to the right and click more buttons if you want a larger camera screen or photo library, because I am not one to use that in-a-rush first menu. Although I appreciate the new drawing tool that Apple added, I still don't like the appearance of everything there. In addition, the Send button is now an arrow and shows up only when you type something. Yuck.
What is wrong with my clocks? Well, they no longer look like clocks! The Clock application has stopped allowing a clock to come up when you tap on the time. And now there is an ugly green button in the Timer section. One thing that I will compliment the Apple team for adding is a Sleep section that provides you with an alarm that wakes you up in the mornings. Setting your Sleep program requires more than just the time that you want to wake up though. You have to answer questions about what days you want to be woken up at that time, how many hours of sleep do you want, and more. It is pretty cool, though I won't use it.
Jump into your inbox and find that nothing has changed! Just joking. Now apparently you can filter your emails. Which I believe is great!
On the other hand, we have the Photo application. It was bad enough that there was a Collections section, but now there are automatic photo albums that cannot be removed no matter how much I will them to. I mean, who would want an album specifically for Selfies? Or screen shots? Not me, at least. Well, the latter one might be convenient.
When you go and wake up your phone, you now have to tap the home button twice in order for the password screen to pop up. That is really annoying, especially when I am accustomed to just swiping. And getting to the dashboard is the most important part for me, so I am annoyed that I have to get used to this new component of my phone.
One small part of me hoped that by updating my phone, the problem with my contacts rising from the dead in multiples will stop. This started happening a while back. Contacts that I deleted more than six months ago would suddenly reappear in sevens, along with a bunch of contacts with no name, like ghosts. I would go from having forty contacts to more than ninety. Well, no dice. After spending precious minutes of my life just earlier today deleting all of my extra contacts, I updated my phone and checked my Phone application to find that they had come back. Again. Sigh. The worst part about it is how long it takes to delete one contact.
Of course, I did not check all of my applications so there might be more benefits, but from what I saw, I will opine that the update has a lot of bad design choices (ex. roundness).
Some negatives will have to be the design elements. In iMessage, the bar for texting looks absolutely hideous. If you tap on the camera icon, the space looks cramped. I dislike the fact that you have to slide the screen to the right and click more buttons if you want a larger camera screen or photo library, because I am not one to use that in-a-rush first menu. Although I appreciate the new drawing tool that Apple added, I still don't like the appearance of everything there. In addition, the Send button is now an arrow and shows up only when you type something. Yuck.
What is wrong with my clocks? Well, they no longer look like clocks! The Clock application has stopped allowing a clock to come up when you tap on the time. And now there is an ugly green button in the Timer section. One thing that I will compliment the Apple team for adding is a Sleep section that provides you with an alarm that wakes you up in the mornings. Setting your Sleep program requires more than just the time that you want to wake up though. You have to answer questions about what days you want to be woken up at that time, how many hours of sleep do you want, and more. It is pretty cool, though I won't use it.
Jump into your inbox and find that nothing has changed! Just joking. Now apparently you can filter your emails. Which I believe is great!
On the other hand, we have the Photo application. It was bad enough that there was a Collections section, but now there are automatic photo albums that cannot be removed no matter how much I will them to. I mean, who would want an album specifically for Selfies? Or screen shots? Not me, at least. Well, the latter one might be convenient.
When you go and wake up your phone, you now have to tap the home button twice in order for the password screen to pop up. That is really annoying, especially when I am accustomed to just swiping. And getting to the dashboard is the most important part for me, so I am annoyed that I have to get used to this new component of my phone.
One small part of me hoped that by updating my phone, the problem with my contacts rising from the dead in multiples will stop. This started happening a while back. Contacts that I deleted more than six months ago would suddenly reappear in sevens, along with a bunch of contacts with no name, like ghosts. I would go from having forty contacts to more than ninety. Well, no dice. After spending precious minutes of my life just earlier today deleting all of my extra contacts, I updated my phone and checked my Phone application to find that they had come back. Again. Sigh. The worst part about it is how long it takes to delete one contact.
Of course, I did not check all of my applications so there might be more benefits, but from what I saw, I will opine that the update has a lot of bad design choices (ex. roundness).
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Election Day 2016
You know what I see when I walk onto my high school campus in the morning? Trump caps. So many boys wore red caps with Trump's political slogan on it to school day. I had at least one boy in each of my classes who had one. Although discerning, it is kind of appropriate, since today is Election Day. It is time for all those ages eighteen and up to vote for their next President.
After the major escalation of this presidential campaign, with the media, Hillary's email investigation by the FBI, and the heated debates, to this voting period, tensions are high. Someone at my high school jokingly vowed to strangle themselves to death if Trump wins. Although that student was joking, others have declared that the next President will affect their decision to either leave or stay in the country. I am sure half of those people are joking, but I am also sure that some people are crazy enough, or hate one person enough, to start a new life in foreign land just to get away from whatever chaos the President will have in store for us. My history teacher urged my class, "Don't let that one person have that big of an impact on your daily lives and happiness, because they don't." However wise and true that is (because as you can see, people are still smiling with their friends when people were killed in Haiti), there is no doubt that if the United States weakens even more economically, gets even deeper into war with Isis, or builds a nice new wall bordering Mexico, people are going to scream like hell. With people trying to decide who is the lesser of the two evils, which is really hard to decide, this voting period is slowly going by. I have been tracking it through Google, and as of right now, Trump got trumped on the lead for 270 electoral votes, with Hillary beating him 44:31; the Democrats are also leading in U.S. Senate seats 40:35.
Who will win?
It is an amazing feeling to see an election in progress, from start to finish. First it began with an inkling of who the candidates will be. I heard word of Trump deciding to run here, and a word about Hillary's email scandal there. Then those two subjects got blown out of proportions and splattered the news for a long time. And then the debates happened. And then the media happened. And now the voting begins. And the question will finally be answered: Who will win?
After the major escalation of this presidential campaign, with the media, Hillary's email investigation by the FBI, and the heated debates, to this voting period, tensions are high. Someone at my high school jokingly vowed to strangle themselves to death if Trump wins. Although that student was joking, others have declared that the next President will affect their decision to either leave or stay in the country. I am sure half of those people are joking, but I am also sure that some people are crazy enough, or hate one person enough, to start a new life in foreign land just to get away from whatever chaos the President will have in store for us. My history teacher urged my class, "Don't let that one person have that big of an impact on your daily lives and happiness, because they don't." However wise and true that is (because as you can see, people are still smiling with their friends when people were killed in Haiti), there is no doubt that if the United States weakens even more economically, gets even deeper into war with Isis, or builds a nice new wall bordering Mexico, people are going to scream like hell. With people trying to decide who is the lesser of the two evils, which is really hard to decide, this voting period is slowly going by. I have been tracking it through Google, and as of right now, Trump got trumped on the lead for 270 electoral votes, with Hillary beating him 44:31; the Democrats are also leading in U.S. Senate seats 40:35.
Who will win?
It is an amazing feeling to see an election in progress, from start to finish. First it began with an inkling of who the candidates will be. I heard word of Trump deciding to run here, and a word about Hillary's email scandal there. Then those two subjects got blown out of proportions and splattered the news for a long time. And then the debates happened. And then the media happened. And now the voting begins. And the question will finally be answered: Who will win?
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Universal Studios Round Two
What a great Halloween! With school off because of Teacher Development Day, my mom and I hopped on the opportunity to go to the Universal Studios in Los Angeles again. We had a grand time. There were significantly more people at the theme park than last time, so we had to wait in line a bit longer for our favorite rides. Well, that did not stop us from going on both the Harry Potter and the Transformers ride four times in a row. In the Halloween spirit, the Universal Studios staff dressed up as mummies, pharaohs, The Simpsons characters, vampires, witches, and more. We left at around four in the afternoon. Traffic on the way back was torture, though. I ended up falling asleep.
I was a single rider for the Jurassic Park ride, and when I jumped into an empty row, two rather large women followed in after me. I experienced some panic when the lap bar ended up being more than five inches away from my body and not a mere five centimeters because of the two women. I was truly worried about my fate and if my grasp on the lap bar would prevent my body from lifting out of my seat during the free fall. Thankfully, my fall was not different from last time, and I survived with no injuries. Phew!
Featured:
On Sunday, I bought two new tops from the clothing outlet right next door to the ramen shop Ikkousha in Costa Mesa. The two things that attracted me to them were the fact that they were really colorful and different from what I normally wear, and they were on a buy-one-get-one-free sale.
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