Strangers on a Train (1951) - Movie Review

I’ve only seen a few Alfred Hitchcock films, all of which were amazing to watch, and Strangers on a Train did not lessen Mr. Hitchcock’s reputation.  Like many classic films Strangers on a Train has a gripping plot with a simple yet effective delivery since they can’t rely on the ever so popular movie magic effects of today’s film industry.  

Many classics I’ve seen are unbearably slow to me after being desensitized by modern films, but Strangers on a Train was a relatively fast moving classic bringing viewers deeper and deeper into the plot and struggles of the characters.  The essential plot itself is fascinating and I found myself still thinking about the genius and simplicity of it all days after the credits finished rolling.  Hitchcock also does a great job building up the tension and anxiety through the characters and situation.  Scripting and basic cinematography are fantastic to go along with Hitchcock’s other films.

Perhaps it’s a change in times but there were a few segments I found unintentionally comical because of overly ridiculous situations.  For instance, an old man crawling under a speeding marry-go-round platform in an attempt to reach the controls which are strategically positioned in the center of the out-of-control ride.  Even though this took away from the seriousness, I can’t really consider this a flaw and I can’t really point out anything else I didn’t enjoy.

Overall, Stranger on a Train was an intriguing and well orchestrated classic by Hitchcock.  Of course, viewers have to watch it with an open mind that it was released in 1951, but regardless I think most people with a brain will not be disappointed.

Rating: 90%

Unstoppable (2010) - Movie Review

Unstoppable fits well with today's genre of action thriller movies without the typical guns and mindless shooting.  The film kept me on the edge of my seat pretty much throughout the entirety of the movie and I enjoyed the emphasis on the flaws of corporate bureaucracy.  I have to say that Unstoppable reminded me a lot of Speed (1994) of which I am a fan of, but maybe just because it was the first rated-R movie I watched.

Unstoppable is engaging throughout the film and is well paced, meaning it was never too slow or too much to take in at one time.  It also had a few spots of gentle humor among the tension of the plot and situation which I thought kept the mood lighter.  The numerous different situations in the film are also well explained through depictions in the media coverage of the event.  Nothing was too outrageous but it helped me understand exactly what was happened or going to happen at all times.  At the end of the day, you come to watch this film for the suspense and action, which is well designed and built up.

The major flaw of Unstoppable is character development.  I am a big fan of Denzel and from Star Trek (2009) I guess I can consider myself a Chris Pine fan as well, so I expected great performances from both. However, since the movie isn't quite a dialog driven flick and lacked character development, I was quite disappointed with the contribution the two actors were able to fit into the film.  I'm not saying they aren't great actors, I'm just saying the film didn't really allow for them to shine on stage.  Another thing that I noticed but didn't bother me that much was the choice in music.  I felt like the soundtrack was taken straight out of Black Hawk Down (2001) or some other modern day warfare movie.  It was fitting for an action film and wasn't too displaced in Unstoppable, but did make me raise an eyebrow a little.

Overall, if you're looking for a thrilling and action-esk movie that doesn't involve a lot of bullets and gratuitous explosions while at the same time you don’t have character development on the top of your movie rating criteria, Unstoppable is a decently entertaining film to watch.

RT Rating: 70%

127 Hours - Review

I loosely knew of Aron Ralston’s story from before, but I still had no idea what to expect when going to watch 127 Hours. It’s hard to imagine a movie to be really exciting when the majority of the movie is set in a narrow canyon under a boulder, but to my surprise it was an artistic, well filmed movie that was exciting and a blast to watch.

One of the big things I look for in movies is pace, and even though 127 Hours was only 94 minutes long plot-wise it didn’t really encompass much but regardless I found that it was engaging from start to finish. The design of the film really puts you right next to James Franco and I felt my heart and mind struggling with the character the whole time. The filmography is also well done and considering 80-90% of the movie is filmed in close quarters I never felt that the angles became repetitive or boring. I also liked how the writers used Aron filming himself on his camcorder to bring a deeper understanding of what was going on in his head. It wasn’t the most original thing, but it was very appropriate.

As far as flaws, there wasn’t anything I can really put my finger on that I didn’t like about the movie except for the name. The film never really clearly explain the name, but I can take a pretty good guess at what it represents. Although, having said I thoroughly enjoyed the movie I have to say that it's definitely not for everyone. Even though I thought it was engaging, at the root of it all there isn’t a whole lot going on, but that's not really a fault of the movie or anyone at all really. Also, it gets pretty gory and hard to watch at some point.

Overall, I wasn’t sure what to expect but I came out pleasantly pleased. Great filming, great pace and great acting. It’s not for everyone, but I would definitely recommend it.


Rating: 90%

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 Review

So I've recently started writing reviews for movies on RottenTomatoes.com and I figured I'd share them here as well.

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Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 was an artistic and well paced movie. I've read the books and I have to say that the movie did a great job depicting the scenes just as I imagined them. Not many movies based on novels can boast on this subject. The difficult part of making lengthy movies is pace, which I believe the Harry Potter series has been nailing in the last two movie releases. The storyline is obviously pretty solid but can get confusing to those who haven't read the books, and since it's based off the novel I can't really criticize.

There were its downsides though. The previous movie, the Half-Blood Prince, really pushed the situational humor of which I am a big fan of and didn't feel was as present in the Deathly Hallows. However, this can go either way for many viewers. I also find that the movie lacks tension and therefore robs the climactic scenes of their potential. In other words, the movie felt stimulatingly flat and constant. One other style of action films that I saw in the Deathly Hallows was the super shaky camera and viewers not knowing with even 50% confidence what is going on.

Overall, I thought the movie was absolutely beautiful, well paced and being a Harry Potter fan I loved watching it despite its flaws.

The Old Man and the Vegetables

I recently got a request to blog some of my more popular stories from the past, and this was the first one that came to mind. I might be digging my own grave here because I think everyone knows my stories already, but after this I’ll know they know them. Knowing that still won’t keep me from telling them though! Enjoy.

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The stories of the Old Man and the Vegetables dates back to my high school years. I was at a planning retreat with the leaders of my youth group from church. We were at one our favorite retreat sites near Six Flags in New Jersey. It was a popular site among our group because it was run by Korean folks and they made home-cooked Korean food for our meals. That’s really the only reason why we like going there...

So they have a gym/chapel area in the central part of the facilities and in there was a random refrigerator in the back. The fridge side was completely empty and cleared of all its racks while the freezer side was empty save some packs of frozen vegetables. We figured the fridge side was large enough to fit a person, so we had the great idea to hide someone inside and tell others from our group to check out the fridge because “it’s really cool inside.” We thoroughly freaking a couple people out and caused one of our friends to immediately squat on the floor to start crying.

This was all good and fun until I managed to freak myself out by asking the questions, “Wouldn’t it be scary if we opened it and there was an old man inside? And then he would get out, open the freezer, take some vegetables, get back into the fridge and when we open it again....he would be gone?!?!?” If you don’t know me that well I scare incredibly easily. I mean, I literally just freaked the crap out of myself with a simple statement about an old man in the fridge. This is when everyone’s real fun started and my nightmare retreat begun.

Later that night we were getting ready for bed when I was in a stall taking a leak when the lights suddenly went out. The door opened for a moment and I can hear light footsteps going all about the bathroom as I start anticipating the cheap scares to happen around me. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t try anything while I was in the stall for fear of possibly seeing me indecent or getting urinated on, so I started to plan my escape. Luckily, my stall was close to the bathroom exit, so I quietly unlocked the stall door, quickly swung it back and ran as fast as I could out of the bathroom while yelling in order to drown out the frightening screams of everyone else hiding in the bathroom. Yes, I didn’t wash my hands, but I think it was worth not getting the bejesus scared out of me.

Later, we went out to a diner for a midnight snack and during the ride we did nothing but tell ghost stories. That wasn’t near as bad as what happened when we were all getting ready for bed though. I had taken a shower and was walking back into the big room all the guys were sleeping in. I noticed the lights were out and everyone was in their beds sleeping. When I had entered the bathroom only minutes before everyone was still up and about talking and not really ready to jump into bed yet. Unfortunately, I didn’t think anything of it. I was sleeping on the top bunk of a (believe it or not) queen sized bunk bed. When I felt something like a large rock in my sleeping bag as I climbed into my bed. I extracted it from the jumble of sheets and pillows to find it wasn’t a stone...but a frozen pack of vegetables! At that moment I realized I was being setup, but it was too late to brace myself for terror. Someone was hiding in my sleeping bag waiting for me and at that moment they jumped out screaming and I screamed back in fear while holding up the frozen vegetables in a poor attempt to protect myself. Of course it wasn’t the old man in my sleeping bag, but one of the other group members. The lights flicked on and everyone had a good laugh including myself, but inside my heart was still racing with fear.

There were no more attempt to give me a heart-attack or an accident in my pants with cheap scares for the rest of that retreat, but I sleep lightly that night in anticipation that one of the old man’s minions would come and stalk me in the night. Who knew an imaginary old man with vegetables can cause so much fear in an individual and bring so much entertainment to others.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

- Introduction -
The day of October 23rd in the year 2010 will go down as one of the strangest days in Nathan history filled with unfortunate but memorable series events. The day’s plan was a simple one: make some food, go to New York to visit friends and go home. That’s more or less exactly what happened, but with unforeseen twists before the day even really got started.

Recently, my friends, Vivian and Cindy, had started a small business of selling corn and mango pudding to in-turn donate their profits to charity. That day they were planning on preparing some food at Cindy’s house and delivering them to friends in the city. We were all planning to visit our good friend Victor who just returned from a trip to India in the city later that night, so we decided to all go together, sell food and visit Victor as well.

- Chapter 1- Food and Menlo
After Vivian and I arrived at Cindy’s, we quickly realized we were short on Romano cheese and whipped cream for the food prep, so Cindy and I took Vivian’s car to the market to get some more supplies. While at the market we decided to go to the closest Taco Bell which was in Menlo Mall (not really on the way or convenient in any way).

Our friend Jess works at American Apparel in the mall so we went in with the chance that she might be working. A girl that sort of looked like her was working the counter, but she had some Halloween make-up and big sunglasses on so it was hard to tell. I yelled “Jess!” while hiding among the clothes racks while Cindy watched if she looked. She didn’t and we left. I double checked to make sure it wasn’t her later, it wasn’t. Good start to the day.

- Chapter 2 - Car
On the way back from the mall and just down the street from Cindy’s home we get rear-ended by a lady in a Jeep. The cops came and since we were in Vivian’s car our friend, Paul, drove her to the scene also scratching his bumper on the curb while pulling up. In the meantime we sat on the guardrail while eating 5-layer burritos and Chalupas. Once the paperwork was completed and we were set to go we got back in Vivian’s car and...it wouldn’t start.

We tried to get the engine going for a minute or so when we started hearing someone yelling “GO!!!” outside. It was the cop who had blocked the entire street so we can get back on the road safely. Vivian (as innocent as possible) said “...it won’t start...” Thankfully he had a battery pack he used to jump the car, and we finally headed back to Cindy’s house.

- Chapter 3 - Engine running and locks that work too well
Once we got back to Cindy’s house we found Paul sitting in his car in the parking lot because he couldn’t get into Cindy’s house without her there. While we headed inside to finish up the food preparations we decided to leave Vivian’s car running in the parking lot so it could charge the battery. Earlier that day we discovered that Cindy’s doorknob was broken and it wouldn’t lock. On getting back, we discovered that we managed to lock the door, but the problem was that we couldn’t unlock it now. We also discovered Cindy’s house is secured pretty well during our attempts to break-in through windows and side doors. I ended up jamming Paul’s D&B card in the door so we can actually finally get back to Cindy’s. After a couple minutes sitting in the kitchen rethinking everything that had happen so far, we realized Vivian’s car was still running outside with the key in the ignition and unattended. It was still there when we got back and perhaps our luck was beginning to turn.

- Chapter 4 - New York
At this point we assumed that one of two things can happen: 1) things start getting better and we start getting lucky, or 2) unfortunate events keep occuring and the day becomes the best story in my repertoire. We started knocking on wood (aka Vivian’s head) whenever we went through all of the horrible situations that could pan out for us, and indeed our luck began to change.

Only a couple unfortunate things happened for the duration of the day in NY. All of which involved cars. The first was when Vivian and Paul decided to walk the food for delivery when we were stuck in traffic. Cindy volunteered to take Vivian’s place as the driver, but once they were gone and the traffic started to move, Cindy was still sitting in the back seat doing nothing. Surprisingly we didn’t get honked at or anything while she frantically ran around the car to the driver’s seat.

The second was when Cindy managed to get into the most awkward parking spot on 2nd Ave. She was blocking the bike lane and everyone thought she was trying to drive in the bike lane, so the honking and yelling began from drivers, pedestrians and bikers. There was also a nice gentleman that offered to park the car for us, but we kindly declined.

Once we met up with Victor we made him drive for the duration of the night in an attempt to reduce the chances of more things going wrong, but after we left his place and started our way back we found ourselves on a road tour of NY. Bring us to our third unfortunate event in NY, we accidental missed our exit twice and resulted in our tour of Brooklyn and up the FDR opposite the right way home.

This last unfortunate event was unfortunately not unfortunate for us, but when we finally got ourselves facing the right direction we saw a Rastafarian man about to get into a cab when it took off without him. As we passed he had his hands up in the air with a face of shock and unbelief. I hate to say it but it was probably cause he was black because the same cab picked up two girls only a few yards down the same street after he ditched the Rasta.

- Conclusion -
I love stories and when things go wrong I don’t see them as going wrong. I see them as the makings of a good story to tell folks when the for some reason the conversation becomes relevant. After all that, things could have been better, but they could have been a lot worse still. Luckily God favored us and we lived to tell the story of unfortunate events that occurred on October 23rd in the year 2010.

My mom sent me an email with this photo of the Water Bridge in Germany. It's pretty much a canal/river on top of a normal river. It cost 500 million Euros.

One of the things that I've been struggling with is how I spent my money. I have a good job and I get paid pretty well, but I find myself reluctant when it comes to making unnecessary purchases. I always ask myself why I need to buy myself luxury items when there are other people out there that need that money a lot more than I do. When I see things like the Water Bridge it saddens me to think that the 10% of people that own 90% of the world's wealth (or whatever that statistic is) don't really give a hoot about the other 90% that has squat.

I have to confess that I spent a lot of money when I first started making my own income a couple years ago, but people change. Just think of what you could be spending your money on next time you make a trip to Best Buy or somewhere.

Rutgers (Part IV - Senior Year)

Senior year

It’s been a while, but I’m going to try and bring this series to a close with memories from my first and second senior years at Rutgers.

Feet for brunch

For lunch one day I decided to make myself a nice brunch complete with sunny side up eggs, sausages and toast. I love breakfast/brunch food and I was thoroughly looking forward to plopping down on the couch and eat in front of the TV. However, as I was putting my plate down on the coffee table I failed to notice the can of Coke Zero right where I was lower my highly anticipated meal. The can tilted my plate and all my food slid off and onto the ground. I frantically grabbed the fallen food items off the ground with my bare hands and back onto the plate. (Thinking back, I’m surprised the egg yolks didn’t break…) I spent the next several minutes debating what to do next. Do I man up and just eat the fallen food? Or do I throw away my meal I put so much tender care into?

The breaking point was then I had the image of my roommate, Jon, walking around our apartment barefoot. I won’t go into too much detail…but Jon’s feet aren’t particularly appealing to the eyes and mostly likely my taste buds as well. At that moment I decided to throw my precious meal away and cooked up another plate-full. Even though I ended up eating the same thing I originally planned, it was far less satisfying than I originally hoped for and very bitter sweet.

Digging Holes

At the end of every school year, my Christian fellowship would make a trip out to the beach to watch the sunrise. A couple weeks earlier we had a dinner to honor the seniors, and we all got a little play bucket and shovel. Of course we all brought our buckets and shovels to the beach that morning to do the one semi-exciting thing there is to do on the beach…DIG A HOLE. We dug like maniacs that morning. I think we got to about 6 feet deep accompanied with a ramp going down to the bottom because it was too deep to get out without one. Heading up the work effort was my good friend Paul. He had trouble sleeping later that day because he couldn’t stop thinking about digging and after he woke up from a short nap he had sore legs from the hours we spend squatting and shoveling buckets of sand. He also managed to smash his bucket into a million pieces in the process of digging and we buried it when we filled in the hole before we left. If the ’09 graduates could leave one legacy behind, it would probably be that we were good diggers.

Senior Month

Traditionally colleges have a senior week at the end of the year for seniors to hangout and finish their undergraduate careers with a bang. Rutgers decided to cut the budget and give us senior couple-of-days instead. The events I went to ended up being pretty lame and not really worth mentioning. Usually after all the events are over and everyone’s graduated all the seniors just go home and figure out what to do with the rest of their lives but since almost everyone that goes to Rutgers doesn’t live far, we refused to let senior whatever die out so quickly.

After the sunrise beach trip that I mentioned before we did nothing but sleep and hang out. I’d go back to my apartment to nap or sleep and upon waking would call someone up to see where all my classmates were at the moment. I promptly headed that way to spend the rest of day with them. This went on for a little less than a month. To conclude the senior extravaganza everyone attended my church retreat/conference on Memorial Day weekend. Being there pretty much meant spending every moment of the 4 days together. After that, everyone was so sick of each other we stopped hanging out for some time.

Looking back, there was nothing particularly awesome about senior month, but spending that much time with friends I consider family is probably the best way I could have ended my senior year at Rutgers. I miss college and I’ll never forget the good ol’ times.

Rutgers (Part III)

It's been a while, but here it goes. Junior year…

Same thing everyday
I took Chinese 102 with my friend Victor during my junior year at Rutgers. The class met in the late morning Monday-Thursday, so we had it more or less everyday since neither of us had Friday classes. Every morning one of us would end up waking the other so we could head to class. We usually jumped on an F bus and then walked past a barren plot of soil where we literally watched the grass grow a little more each day. During class our teacher would always ask me the hardest questions which I never knew how to answer. I'd spend the next 5 minutes rifling through my textbook piecing Chinese words together to make a subpar response. It was always a relief to get out of that class, but she was a good teacher and I think she pushed me so I'd learn more.

After class, we would head to the take out line at the dining hall. We always got there ten minutes before they opened so we'd just wait at the front of the line till the clock struck 11:30am. We both got the same thing everyday: one cheeseburger, one chicken patty burger, fries or onion rings, two drinks and sometimes a dessert thing if it wasn't something too gross. Then we would head back to our house in New Brunswick, each fry an egg, put it in our cheeseburger then eat in the living room while watching The Price is Right with Drew Carey. This happened….every…day…for three months. I'm craving a cheeseburger with an egg right now.

Watching Videogames
I didn't play as many games junior year as I did watch people play them. I watched my roommates and friends play Bioshock, the Metal Gear Solid series, Tiger Woods golf and probably a bunch of games I don't remember. I don't know how many hours I spend sitting on the couch just watching people play various games as if it was being broadcasted on HBO. I sat and watched Victor play 18 holes of golf against Tiger Woods. He was up the entire game until he got spanked during the last two holes. Talk about wasting an hour watching my friend lose to a computer in virtual golf. Another time a bunch of us watched a friend play all the way through Portal in one sitting. It's a short game, but still requires 2-3 hours of straight game play to beat.

Portal has references to cake a lot, so we eventually had a craving for cake at around 1-2am. When I say "we" I mean the several people that were watching the completion of Portal in its entirety. So the most natural progression for us to take would be to wander the streets of New Brunswick until we found cake to eat. Turns out there aren't a lot of cake places around or open at 2 in the morning, so we settled for brownie mix. Yes, we made brownies instead and also in a pound cake pan instead of a baking pan. It took forever for the middle to cook and we didn't get to enjoy it till around 4am.

Since we're on the topic of wandering NB late at night due to cravings, my apartment mate randomly asked the question "does anyone want a sugary drink?" at around 2am once. Surprisingly, several other people and myself were just thinking the same thought. So again, we wandered the street of NB late at night due to cravings. This time was more successful however. As you can imagine, sugary drinks are far more common in the late night scene than cake.

You instill fear in the people
My roommate, Mike, and I went out one afternoon to eat or buy videogames. I forget what exactly we were doing but both were common occurrences, so it's probably one or the other. On our way back we were looking for parking on the street as we drove past our house. We saw Victor in the front so instinctively Mike rolled down the window announcing "THIS IS A DRIVE BY!!!" and we proceeded to shoot him with our pretend guns and verbal sounds effects as he played along by running down our driveway to the backdoor.

As we parked in front of the house our neighbor walked up to the window of our car. She began with, "That was really stupid you know!" I was confused at first but realized she must have witnessed our fake drive by episode and was quite upset by our actions. She went on for a couple minutes about how the streets are dangerous because of people like us and a lot of things I didn't really understand. The last thing she said was, "you instill fear in the people!" and she walked off down the street. The worst part was that she only really yelled at. Yeah, I guess she wasn't all wrong, but no one really got hurt except that I was a little traumatized after being chewed out by a total stranger for something my friend started.

Dude, what happened to your car?
Who would text me at 7am on a Sunday? Answer: my apartment mate Tim on his way to get a Wii. The text read "Dude, what happened to your car?" This obviously can't be a good thing so I went outside to check it out. I parked my car right in front of the house the night before but when I opened the door it was no where to be seen. Did someone steal my car? Did I forget to put the parking brake on and it rolled away on its own? Well I found it two dozen or so yards down the street with the front end completely demolished. The first thought in my mind was a mixture of "That's not right…I didn't park there and it didn't look like that last night…" and straight up "WTF!?!?!?"

I called the cops and they determined that a drunk driver probably drifted onto the wrong side of the road and smashed my car head on. The impact was so bad it slid back and hit Victor's car, which previously was parked far enough to fit two cars between us. There was a trail of leaking antifreeze from the drunk driver's car which the cops followed, but never found the culprits. I also found a Nissan emblem resting under the hood and on top of the engine. My car was a Toyota. My parents came to check it out soon after and then took me to Ihop for a nice breakfast. Later that night Victor and I were pretty sad, my car was totaled and Victor's took some decent damage as well, so a couple of us went to Target to do make some impulsive purchases. Overall, it was a pretty crappy experience, but it's one of those things you find entertaining well afterwards.

Rutgers (Part II)

Sophomore year...

SC, Madden '07 and the Nintendo Wii

Starcraft was a big hit sophomore year among my roommates and myself. Mike, Joe and my other suitemate Josh along with myself would play almost on a nightly basis. We played use map settings maps for you Starcraft people out there. We played a map designed for six players but we believed we could beat it with four. We usually played in Joe and my room so we didn't have to move so many computers around, but one day we decided to all play in the living room. We got ourselves all setup and we started the game. We were on the last level and we were in a good state to finish. It was our best run yet, but before we could finish the game my laptop ran out of battery. I plugged in my external hard drive which is where my SC was installed for some reason but I didn't plug in my laptop and since SC takes up the whole screen I didn't see the low battery warning. In short, the game froze waiting for me, but I couldn't rejoin. They tried to finish without me, but we lost. We never played Starcraft together since that night. I singlehandedly destroyed our hopes to finish that map, along with our nightly ritual.

This was also the same year we were proud to welcome the brand new Nintendo Wii to our suite. Mike waited in front of Best Buy for hours on the bitterly cold November night before the release of the much anticipated new gaming console. The morning he came home with his new baby his roommate kicked it off the stand and it fell over onto ground. Not soon after that our friend, Dan, was holding the Wiimote ready to bowl his turn in WiiSports when we noticed he didn't have the ever so important strap around his wrist. We told him to put the strap on but he responded with "Don't worry guys, I got this." Immediately after he said this he swung with all his might forcing the Wiimote out of his grip and flew directly upwards smashing into the concrete ceiling of the suite, then plummeted back downwards to be smash again into the ground. Luckily last memory of the Wii that year wasn't quite as destructive. I woke up one morning to find Newman, one of our friends from upstairs, lying on the couch playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I never saw him leave that couch for a couple days if I recall correctly. He shifted positions once in a while but never really witnessed him getting up. I woke up in the morning and there he was on the couch already hard at work. I went about my day going to the dining hall, classes and whatever else I usually did but every time I came back to my suite there was Newman lying on the couch playing Zelda. At the end of the day I would brush my teeth and say goodnight to Newman on the couch with Wiimote at the ready as I passed him to get to my room. He stopped after a couple days and ended up never finishing the game. What a shame, but I guess it was a pretty good run.

Madden '07 was a huge hit at that time as well. All the suite guys in our year had it by one means or another. I remember Joe's computer was so slow the only way he could play was to turn the graphics down to the lowest setting so the football players looked like Lego people. My most memorable moment was in our Earth Systems class. There was a bunch of us and we would all have our laptop so we can play Madden in the lecture hall filled with 200+ students. Victor turned his laptop on and it made the Windows startup noise, so we told him to make sure he muted his laptop before he started up Madden. By the time he launched Madden, class had already started and the room was dead silent. At this time Victor's computer said on maximum volume "EA Sports, it's in the game!". While trying to hold in my hysterical laughter I told Victor to plug in his earbuds into the headphone jack before the main menu popped and the theme music started playing. He made it in time, but I'm pretty sure everyone in the lecture hall heard the EA Sports' tagline except for our professor for some reason. It's a classic story but Victor usually leaves the room before anyone starts its retelling

UFC Fight Night
The first couple weeks of Sophomore year was probably the most violent of all my time in college. My roommate was Joseph Wong and Michael Chan lived two doors down in the same suite. Both of them were big UFC and WE fans and every night Mike thought it would be a good idea to wrestle with Joe while he was quietly trying to study. Joe was always the studious one and Mike was always the instigator. One day, Mike accidental left his phone in our room, so Joe hid it and demanded a ransom. The ransom was that Mike could never wrestle with him again, but Mike would rather just get a new phone than do that. They ended up negotiating the truce period to be three weeks if I recall correctly. There was a lot of anticipation for the day the truce was to be lifted. Mike made a Facebook event to the "Mike Chan vs. Joe Wong UFC Match" in our living room. We made UFC posters with the silhouettes of their two faces staring each other down. There were probably 15-20 people that showed up that night to watch. We cleared the furniture out of the living room and people lined the walls holding couch cushions so the two fighters wouldn't smash into the cinder block walls. If you don't know Joe, he's a quiet guy. He doesn't like getting a lot of attention but everyone loved him, and our underground UFC fight night was his first exposure to Joe Wong famedom. One of our female friends walk around the room with a poster board over her head that read "Mike 'The Man' Chan" as Mike entered the room and she did likewise with a poster board reading "Joseph 'King Kong' Wong" as Joe enter the room. I don't really remember the match very well. All I remember was the finishing blow. Pretty much Joe held Mike's head and kneed him hard in the face. Joe released Mike as he stumbled back and fell to the ground where Joe quickly grappled him and got him into a choke-hold. Mike tapped out and the match was over. After it was all over Joe went into our room and slammed the door shut. I've never seen him that upset before and hopefully never will again. I was scared he was going to strangle me in my sleep because I helped Mike plan the event. If you've never experienced it, living in fear sucks. We ended up making apologies and now we laugh about the whole thing. "Mike Chan vs. Joe Wong", the fight of a lifetime that I'll never forget.

Rutgers (Part I)

I originally started this blog a couple weeks ago 30 minutes before my second to last exam as an undergraduate at Rutgers University. I decided to start a new five part series, one for each year, about some of my favorite memories at the state university of New Jersey. I hope you enjoy it.

Freshman year...

Taco Night
Mondays at the Busch dining hall was taco night. It was the only thing to look forward to on that first day back to class ever week. I always made myself a taco salad because I was always too lazy to make real tacos. My choice in beverages, which was standard at every meal, was at least two glasses of chocolate milk and at least two glasses of cranberry juice. I am salivating as I type. One taco night, after eating at the dining hall my friend Benedict and I were walking back to our dorm through a snow covered parking lot. I suddenly felt something welling up inside me. I stopped and threw up into the snow in the middle of an empty parking spot. I'm guessing it was all my taco night items of consumption turned scarlet red from the cranberry juice. All I did was laugh and walk back to the dorm. Soon after that I was feeling hungry again since I just lost my dinner and I thought about going back to the dining hall to get some more tacos, chocolate milk and cranberry juice.

All-nighter

I love and require a lot of sleep every night, so it's not often one can find me lacking it. Many college students can be found night after night with little to no sleep because they're study for a big exam the next day or working on a project that's due in a couple hours. I've only experienced one all night and here is my story. A bunch of my friends and myself were just hanging out and talking till around 5-6am. One of my friends, Bond, decided to just stay up till his class at 8am since by then sleeping would be almost pointless. The most logical thing for all of us to do at this point was to stay up with him. At 7am, we headed to the dining hall for a rare eating of breakfast. I love breakfast, but I love sleep more so I don't eat it that often. Afterward, we watched a chain of Saved by the Bell episodes until one-by-one we left for our class or fell asleep from exhaustion. I remember coming back from class feeling like a zombie and walking past my friend's rooms to find them out cold. I proceeded to my own room where I checked out for the rest of the afternoon. I never pulled an all-nighter again, but I have to say the one time I did pull one was a memorable one. I hadn't watched Saved by the Bell in years and I didn't study one bit either, which is fun all by itself.

The lockpick
I don't know why, but myself and a few friends got ourselves some really simple lockpicks during our freshman year. They had many applicable uses but most importantly we used them to open people's dorm rooms when they've locked themselves out. My friend, Amanda, lost her key somewhere between our dorm and the gym. She was determined to find the key and not have to pay the unreasonable fee to re-key her room door. Until then, she asked to use my lockpick as her "key" so she can at least get in her room. Eventually she became a pro at opening her door with the pick. Usually it takes me a couple minutes to get it right and get the cylinder to turn, but she was so good she could have her door open in seconds. I expected her to never find her key and end up having to pay for a re-keying at the end of the year, but about a month after she lost her key someone found it and turned it into the university housing. She got her key back, returned my lockpick and never paid a cent. The determination to not pay fees at its finest.

It's Story Time (Part V)

This is the fifth and final part of my five part series about story telling!

Why I love VIDEOGAMES...
My early videogame experiences were from the original Nintendo, but only consisted of duck hunt, track and field (with the pre-DDR pads) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I couldn't get past the first two levels of TMNT because I was too young to try and get good enough to not die at an unreasonable fast rate. Videogames have come a long way since then. Many years after my Nintendo days, my sister and I decided to buy a new gaming console, debating between the original Playstation and the Nintendo 64. Everyone was buying the N64, so we decided to travel down the road less traveled and buy the PSX. This is when a new chapter in my life of story telling began and it consisted of Cloud Strife and his battle with Shinra in Final Fantasy VII.

I am a pretty big Final Fantasy fan, so my first little rant is just going to be about the series and what I love about it. If you've never played a Final Fantasy before it's slow and tedious, but the story line is usually absolutely fantastic (pun totally intended). More so for FFVII and onward the graphics have been absolutely astounding for the time period. I recently got Final Fantasy XIII and I just get blown away every time I play. There's also a lot of character development. The story usually brings players through the past of each of the playable characters and their stories. Bringing all those small stories together on top of the main story, which is usually very intriguing by itself, creates an experience of a life time. (I'm not going to lie, I didn't play FFXI or FFXII. They were kind of weird and mediocre, but FFXIII brings it back to the old school feel a little while adding a whole lot of new and innovative concepts.)

I'm also a big Playstation fan. I don't know what life would be like if my sister and I ended up buying the N64 instead. I eventually bought a PS2 and PS3. My first PS2 was a Japanese model, which meant I could only play Japanese games...yeah I know. Great idea Nathan. I'm also a big Metal Gear Solid fan. I played the first one on PSX and my godbrother bought me a Japanese MGS2 for my Japanese PS2. I still find it amazing that I played and finished the entire game entirely in Japanese. I eventually played it again in English so I can bask in the awesomness of its storyline which I missed the first time around. Later in the series, Metal Gear Solid 4 influenced one of the most impulsive purchases of my entire life.

Two years ago I was at work cruising on Facebook when I saw my friend's profile picture was of Naked Snake from MGS3/4. I realized that MGS4 just came out and I REALLY wanted to play it, but at that time I didn't have a PS3. Solution: buy a PS3 and MGS4. Later that day I went straight from work to Target (yay Target!) and bought a PS3 and MGS4. The PS3 was $400 at the time and games are $60 a pop. MGS4 was an AMAZING game if you can appreciate the decade long story, and to this day I absolutely rave about my PS3 and how it ranks as one of the best, and most impulsive, purchases of my entire life.

Back to story telling. There are a lot of different kinds of games. The good story games are usually open/closed world role playing games and certain first/third person shooters. Playing as a character in a videogame world gives you a sense of attachment. YOU are walking through the cities and towns in an virtual world. YOU decide how to equip yourself. YOU can even sometimes make decisions that shape your virtual world and can alter the storyline for better or worse. Maybe you don't exactly get to create your own world in your head, but it's still a great story telling medium where you can get attached to characters and delve into a world apart from our own.

If you hate movies, TV shows, radio and books you probably have a short attention span and would hopefully find videogaming a little more entertaining since they're interactive and can present a great story in the process. If you don't already play videogames, I believe there is at least one game out there you can enjoy. Also, if you don't already own a Playstation 3 I would highly suggest getting one. It's a great gaming console as well as the fastest Bluray player you can buy. What's not to like?

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So concludes my five part series on story telling. I hope you enjoyed reading and I hope that I have inspired you to experience story telling whether you watch, listen, read or play your way through a good plot. Thanks again, and until next time...

It's Story TIme (Part IV)

This is the fourth part of a five part series about story telling and the mediums in which they are told.

Why I love books...
I said I like the old school feel when listening to talk radio, but books takes that to a whole new level. I never really read anything after I graduated from high school but about a year or so ago I started reading for pleasure again. The first book I read that wasn't for class was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I like somewhat childish novels. I've become a big fan of the Redwall series, yes I'm 22 years old. I also read The Golden Compass which I always thought was a childish book, but it's surprisingly dark and deals with very adult issues.

Anyway, back to story telling. I mentioned it before but I have a pretty creative imagination. I personally don't think there is a better way to paint a picture in my head than reading vivid descriptions in a book. I almost combined this part to this the radio part cause they're similar in how they help me create a landscape or a scene in my mind. Books are generally more descriptive though and sometimes I'll actually stop reading so I can take an extra second to paint that picture. I hate when I watch a movie before reading the book that it's based on because I end up seeing the cast and studio stage from the movie rather than creating my own personal characters and settings. I really like Emma Watson, but she isn't what I imagined Hermione Granger to be like at all.

I'm a slow reader. At least I think I'm a pretty slow reader. I like reading books now because I can read at my own pace. Reading for pleasure is also a one person deal for me. I can probably never do book club stuff and I'm reading stuff for church and talking about it with others every week. I'm having a hard time keeping up cause I can't enjoy reading the books like I would without a deadline. When it comes to my entertainment, whether it's books or whatever, I hate having to wait on other people or have other people wait on me. A lot of times I'd rather just do stuff on my own.

I know a lot of people that don't read for pleasure. In fact I know people that openly say they hate reading. (gasp!) I have to say I used to be one of those people, but now I've fallen deeply in love with reading. If you don't read, pick up an easy book to read and enjoy it. Take your time and give your imagination a whirl.

Side-note...
Going back to the movies based on books. I hate when people don't like movies cause they're not as good as the book. I'm pretty sure there are only a handful of movies, if even that many, that live up to or exceed the awesomeness of the book that it's based on. I personally thought the latest Harry Potter movie, The Half-Blood Prince, was a very well made movie. Yeah, it probably wasn't as good as the book, but who cares. It's not the book, it's the movie. So to all you haters out there, don't judge a movie by its book. (That was clever, I'm so proud of myself for making that up.)

It's Story Time (Part III)

This is the third part of my five part series involving story telling, the mediums of story telling and the reasons why I love them.

Why I love radio...
First off, when I say radio I'm talking about talk radio, not music radio. My only real experience with talk radio is National Public Radio (NPR) podcasts. Yes, back to the NPR I talk about so much. If you haven't read my past posts, I am absolutely in love with NPR podcasts.

I love talk radio because it's old school. Before television or movies there was radio. I actually just listened to a Radiolab episode completely devoted to the phenomenon of the radio adapted broadcast of "War of the Worlds". If you're not familiar with the story, "War of the Worlds" is originally a fictional novel about Martians coming down to earth and taking over the world. The radio program was adapted to seem like news broadcasts giving breaking news about activity on the surface of Mars and eventually the landing and take over of our little planet. Due to a series of events, people missed the disclaimer in the beginning telling listeners that the program was only an adaptation of a fictional story, so people started packing up there stuff and fleeing their homes in hopes to survive the Martian take over. So yes, I would have to say radio can as an unimaginable amount of influence maybe even more than its more visual counterparts.

So I have a pretty vivid imagination. I find myself listening to talk radio with vivid pictures in my head. Often, these images are more vivid than what I would probably see in a movie or on TV. It's an art for a radio host to describe a story in a way where you can feel like you're in the story. I was listening to a story about a boy and his friends breaking into an abandoned home in the middle of nowhere. I could see them breaking the window to open the latch. I could see the former owner's belongings old and dusty still sitting on tables and beds. I felt the eeriness leaking from the walls in this house purely from the words I heard coming out of a lips of a speaker on the other side of a microphone. I actually got shivers down my spine when the speaker said they never went into the basement because there was a couch propped up against the basement door as if to keep something from coming out and how one of the beds had some kind of dirt, poop or dried blood smeared all over it. Most NPR shows will add little sound effects to make things even more real in my mind. I actually had to stop listening to the old house story because I was driving home really late while listening. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty thoroughly freaked out. Even though the story itself isn't my story per se, the story I experience in my mind is unique to me. I was the director for this story and I presented it to an audience of one.

I don't want to repeat myself too often with my 'end of blog' suggestions but listen to NPR! It's awesome!

It's Story Time (Part II)

This is the second part of my five part series involving story telling mediums and why I love them.

Why I love TV shows...
TV shows are similar to movies. The things I love about movies for the most part carry over to what I love about shows. The biggest and most obvious difference is that the story is told over a much longer period of time. Even shows that only broadcast a handful of episodes get more time to story tell than most movies. This gives us as viewers a lot more time to understand the characters and get immersed in a more intricate story.

Like I said about movies, pace is a big factor in a good show. A single episode as well an entire season and the whole series as a whole should be paced well. I originally had this whole rant about how the show Heroes sucked, but I decided to tone it down a little. I just want to say, the first season sucked cause it was horribly paced. The first season of Prison Break is a great example of good pace. The season ends with a cliffhanger, but it's a great build up to that point. Every episode leaves you with just enough and gives you just enough.

I would consider the character development more important in shows than in movies. One of my favorite shows is The Office. Many people have a hard time getting into The Office now a day. Let me just say, you have to grow up with the characters from season one (maybe season two). If you like The Office, you'll probably understand it when I say you feel like part of the family if you were there from the beginning or at least close to it. Understanding each character's personality is critical in a lot of the situational humor which The Office thrives on. Another show I absolutely find "mind blowing" is Friday Night Lights. There are so many time my heart went out to a hurt fictional character living in Dillion Texas and so many times when I danced a celebratory dance in my room by myself for wins like when (SPOILER ALERT) the Panthers win the state champ behind their freshman QB Matt Seracen or when the East Dillion Lions defeated the West Dillion Panthers.

This is a little apart from the story telling aspect of shows, but I'm a huge fan of watching an entire season in a short period of time. I often find myself watching entire seasons either online or watching DVD/Bluray box sets. I'll tell myself I'll watch an episode before class or something and then I'll end up skipping all my classes for the day cause I can't help but watch the next episode and then the next and then the next and so on. If you've ever done this, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Hopefully none of my old coworkers find out, but one time I watched 10 episodes of Friday Night Lights from 8am almost nonstop to 5pm during work. Getting paid to watch Hulu is the everyone's dream job. I just get so caught up in the story I can't walk away.

I want to suggest everyone reading to at least watch one good show, get absorbed into the characters and the story, gain enemies and friends, fall in love and get your heart broken, BUT getting into a show is probably similar to getting addicted to crack cocaine or slot machines. It's ridiculously addicting and can seriously mess up your life. I credit TV shows to my placement on academic probation my sophomore year in college. If you're up to it, do it but be warned...

It's Story Time (Part I)

I was in my car today listening to a Radiolab NPR podcast when I got a sudden urge to blog. Radiolab along with many other NPR podcasts consist of numerous stories about interesting things told by interesting people. I was listening to one of these stories when I realized how much I love stories, which explains why I like a lot of other things. Whether the medium is movies, TV shows, radio, books or even videogames, I always have a blast getting immersed in a good story. I just want to explain why I love each of these story telling mediums, given that the story itself is of course a good one.

This will be the first of a 5 part series. In each I will give a rundown about why I love story telling in the mediums I mentioned before. I hope you enjoy this series and that you can appreciate stories and their tellings as much as I do.

Why I love movies...

I love movies because they are usually the most visually appeasing medium of story telling. The creation of a movie requires millions of dollars, so all the little details and minor things are almost always top notch. Although some movies are 3-4 hours long, that's still much less time to work with than most other story telling mediums. It's an art to portray an entire intricate story in such a short time.

I'm a movie buff and I try to pay attention to a lot of things that most people don't notice or don't care about. One of my favorite, and probably most subtle, factors of movies is the pace of the story. I get all irritated if the pace of a story isn't balanced, but at the same time if I find myself watching a well balanced movie I can really loose myself in the story. I'm also big on dialog. The Breakfast Club is a great example of this. The story is just about five high school kids stuck in Saturday detention together. Not a lot happens and it's definitely not graphically driven, but the dialog is so good that it blows me away every time.

I really like watching movies by myself. Yes, I go to theaters all by my lonesome and watch newly released movies. I love it. I'm on my own accord and I don't have to worry about anything but getting myself absorbed into the plot of the movie. Two of my favorite movies that I always find myself completely immersed in no matter how many times I watch them are The Shawshank Redemption and Fight Club.

I'll probably blog about this in more detail, but the quality of a lot of movies today are really lacking compared to older movies. I personally blame piracy for this mediocrity. I'll put that post on my to-do list once I'm finished with this series.

Movies can also appeal to everyone. Whether you like adventure, action, romance, horror, comedy, etc. you can enjoy a movie. So if you ever find yourself with a couple hours to spare. Look up movie times, find a Redbox, visit a Blockbuster, go online to Netflix.com and find a good quality movie and plop down on the couch or a comfy theater seat and loose yourself in a story.

On a side note regarding the Oscars, I liked Avatar but I also liked Hurt Locker. Yes, the Hurt Locker isn't for everyone, but it's a great story and the intensity was off the charts. I had a headache from the sometimes shaky camera and my constant teeth grinding from all the stress. They're two good movies, and everyone should stop complaining that Avatar should have won best picture. Did you know that a science fiction movie has never won best picture? Stop hating and just appreciate movies for what they are.

Sleepy Master

I just woke up from a one hour nap. Some of you are probably jealous right now, but a sixty minute nap means nothing to me. It'll only help me just scrap by tonight. Sleep is the life and death of me.

When I was a child I never took naps. I barely slept at all really. When I was still sleeping in a crib I would get tucked in and wait there for maybe five minutes. Then I proceeded to miraculously climb out of it on my own and crawl into my parents bed down the hall. There I would lie with my eyes closed and listen to late night Chinese game shows until I eventually drifted into a deep slumber.

Now when I say deep slumber, I mean DEEP SLUMBER. I was born in Los Angeles and lived there until I was ten. If you know anything about the west coast, you know they experience earthquakes. A lot of east coast people ask me what it's like to be in an earthquake. My response is pretty generic and consists of "the ground shakes...that's pretty much it." I don't have a lot of memories of being in earthquakes though because most of them were at night and I failed to be woken by any of them. One time my cousin was sleeping over and I found myself sleeping next to my sister's bookshelf on an inflatable mattress. There was an earthquake that night. Instead of waking me up and sparing me from the danger of the bookshelf falling on me in my sleep, my parents simply took some of my sister's trophies off the bookshelf and let me continue in my peaceful sleep.

I didn't start sleeping a lot till I was in high school. Getting up at 6:30-7:00am eventually wore me down and I started napping during the day. I was instantly hooked. My daily routine in high school generally consisted of going to school, doing all my homework as soon as I got home (one of the only routine things I was good about), taking a 3-5 hour nap, eat dinner, watch TV or play videogames, and then go back to sleep around 11pm. I got a lot of sleep in those days.

This carried on through high school and into college until I started my full-time co-op. I didn't really have time to nap and everyday I felt as if I was dying. Before this time period in my life I never drank coffee, but I couldn't help not drinking it at work cause I would just collapse after a couple hours in the office. Now that I’m not working I don’t drink coffee as regularly. I’m not a big fan.

A couple months ago I went to see a sleep doctor who suggested I take a sleep study. That's pretty much a night spent in the sleep clinic where they hook you up to a couple dozen electrodes and various other things to monitor what's going on with you while you sleep. I was sure that I had sleep apnea, but the results showed that I actually get better sleep than most people that take sleep studies. In one sense it's nice knowing I'm healthy, but on the other sense...I'm still tired everyday.

I try to deal with it, but it's hard to not nap less than several hours. I also snooze a lot. My old roommate counted seventeen snoozes when I was napping once. That's almost three hours of snoozing on top of the time I slept prior to that first alarm going off. BUT there is good news, sort of. I've found a way to take quick naps without feeling like crap afterward. I don't nap in my bed anymore, but I'll unroll my sleeping bag, grab a pillow and sleep on the floor instead. I'm always tired enough to fall asleep, but when my alarm clock wakes me up I'm uncomfortable enough to not be overwhelmed with the thought of going back to sleep. It's quite exciting to be entering the next chapter of my sleeping pattern.

Obviously sleep is an important element of my life and I wish the sleep I get were more satisfactory, but it isn’t. If you’re having similar problems as I am, I would suggest giving the sleeping bag naps a whirl. They’re not a 100% correction, but it’s better than living on like this. If you get good sleep, I envy you and hope that you cherish your sleep and appreciate it. You’ll never know how good you have it.

The Love of Sports and Country

I'm currently and reluctantly watching the closing ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. I say reluctantly because I absolutely love the Olympics. I usually don't watch the closing Olympic ceremony because it always makes me sad that it's over. Although I absolutely love the Olympics, I also hate the feeling it leaves me sometimes.

Why I hate the Olympics.
One of my biggest regrets of my life is that I wasn't serious about sports until late in high school, which was too late to really start a career of any sort. I've never experienced people cheering for me in any circumstance or felt overwhelming pride while accomplishing something great. The Olympics, for the athletes, is more or less the epitome of what I've missed out in my life. Even if I suck my entire country is still rooting for me and I'd be proud of myself just getting to that point. The idea of young athletes having accomplished so much in their young lives, many younger than myself, just makes me ask myself what I'm doing with my life.

Why I love the Olympics
There's a million reasons to love the Olympics. That's why I absolutely love the Olympics even thought it makes me feel pathetic. There are so many inspirational stories from around the world. It's where the best athletes have a chance to represent their country they love so much. It's a chance for normal people like me to root for my country's athletes and to be proud to be an American. I don't know if you know this but the five Olympic rings represent the five inhabited continents of the world: Africa, America, Asia, Europe and Oceania. I hate to be a pessimist but I think the Olympics is the closest we'll get to world peace. We might as well soak it in while it lasts. I've also formed a crush in the past two Olympics, Nastia Liukin and Kim Yu-Na. Yeah, yeah, everyone is in love with Yuna Kim now, but I don't care.

Someone asked me a couple weeks ago if I would rather win a professional sports championship or win an Olympic gold medal. At that time, I said I would rather win a championship, but now I think I would rather win a medal. I'd go for a medal now because the Olympics only happen every 4 years for whatever sport I'll be awesome at and to carry the pride of an entire nation on my shoulders while standing on a podium hearing my national anthem is probably one of the greatest honors I can ever conceive. Even if I come in last place, I'd still feel like a hero.

I would tell my faithful few followers (thanks by the way) to go watch the Olympics and support your country, but they're over now and I'm sad. So I'm just going to say, be proud of yourself, your country and your world.

P.S. - I took a couple archery lessons last year and I think I might seriously try and get into Olympics style archery. Anyone in?

Sit Back, Relax and Enjoy the Traffic

Yesterday I was in North Jersey for a meeting with two managers from Panda Restaurant Group, the parent/support group for Panda Express as well as Panda Inn and Habachi San. It wasn't really an interview cause they're not hiring right now, but we just wanted to meet each other and make that connection so if anything does open up in the near future I'll have that networking going on already.

Anyways, that's not what I'm here to talk about. I wanted to talk about the driving experience I had that day (I seem to drive a lot and have a lot of realizations while behind the wheel). The drive up wasn't bad at all. It was straightforward and I had a GPS with me anyway. There was also no traffic, which was nice cause I didn't want to show up late. After all, this was pretty much the closest thing to an interview without it actually being an interview.

We met in a brand new Panda Express that the manager was visiting, and when I left I found myself in Deep Impact like gridlock traffic on the NJ Turnpike. I thought about trying to take local streets, but I figured heck I'm not in a rush and I didn't want to pay the toll again. I got myself in the left lane so I wouldn't have to bother as much with other cars merging in and out of my lane. After that I just inched along for an hour till things cleared up.

Here's the weird thing. Looking back, I'm actually kind of glad I stayed in traffic. I'm usually high strung about stressful environments; driving, videogames, women, etc. For the first time in a long time, I just relaxed in my car. As long as I didn't rear-end the guy in front of me I was cool. I was *gasp* messaging on my Blackberry while listening to *hurray* NPR podcasts (I made sure to load up before I left the house). It turns out there was some construction on the highway that funneled all four lanes into one. Once past that last cone and cop car, I pushed the pedal to the metal/rubber floor mat. I felt like I had the whole highway to myself and I literally yelled "FREEDOM!!!!!" as I redlined my V6. Overall, it was a very unexpected sense of liberation.

So whenever you're stuck in traffic, you're not in a rush and gas levels/prices aren't an issue just relax, taking life slow and enjoy the little things for once. Who knew being stuck in a car that's stuck in traffic can be so freeing.

The Bad, The Worst and My Favorite Sports Teams

DISCLAIMER: THERE'S A LOT OF SPORTS TERMINOLOGY AND REFERENCES IN THIS BLOG, PLEASE BE ADVISED. THIS MAY BE BORING TO READ IF YOU'RE NOT INTO SPORTS.

Tonight, I watched the New Jersey Nets win their 5th game of the season. They are now 5-48 and are on track to match or possibly beat the record for the worst NBA season record of all time (which is currently held by the '71-'72 Philadelphia 76ers with a record of 9-73). My first love in sports was the Nets, and I've been dying to blog about my favorite sports teams and why I root for them since I made this blog.

First off, let me list out my teams and a quick explanation why I root for them.

New Jersey Nets (NBA) - I live in Jersey and I have to root for my home team.

Los Angeles Clippers (NBA) - I used to live in LA but I'm not a Lakers fan. Lucky me, LA has two basketball teams.

Oakland Raiders (NFL) - I grew up throwing around a Raiders football with my dad when I was growing up in LA. At that time they were the Los Angeles Raiders. I recently started following the NFL more and the Raiders are the closest thing I have to NFL roots.

USC Trojans Football (College Football) - My dad went to the University of Southern California (not South Carolina, yes they're both USC) when they won two national championships. I guess those fan roots run in the family.

Rutgers Scarlet Knights Anything (Anything) - I go to Rutgers right now and I support anything Rutgers, except for the administrative side but that's for another blog.

Okay, now for the meat of what I want to say. Except for the Trojans, all the teams I root for are for the most part pretty disappointing. The odd thing is their current poor performance is why I love them. Most people root for the underdog in games they have no investment in and I've just taken that logic to the next level. I hope one day the Nets and the Clippers will meet in the NBA finals, the Raiders will win a Superbowl and the USC Trojans and RU Knights will meet in the national championship game. Then I can say with tear in my eyes and pride in my heart that I was a fan through thick and thin.

The Superbowl just past a couple weeks ago, but before that the New York Jets made a surprising run in the playoffs only to be beat by the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC championship game. At the beginning of the playoffs, I decided that I was going to root for the Jets during the post-season. Midway through their wild-card game against the Cincinnati Bengals, I started to consider becoming a real Jets fan. Then they started winning. As counterintuitive as this may sound, their win-streak in the playoffs really turned me off from becoming a fan. I didn't want to be a front runner, even if I was in it for the long run. I realized then that I enjoy rooting for bad teams not because they're bad per se, but because I want them to be good and I want to be there from the beginning.

To all the sports fans out there, stay true to your team through thick and thin. All you sports team apparel wearers continue showing your colors with pride even if your jersey is out of date (On a side note, my Allen Iverson 76ers #3 jersey isn't out of date anymore!). Maybe one day we can all brag to our friends about how long we've been fans of once bad teams as they become championship contenders.

Help me! I'm stuck and I can't get out! - Snow Edition

It snowed pretty bad in Jersey (and pretty much everywhere in the central-north east) this past week. Through all my hardships involving the snow and ice, I've decided that I really hate snow. But the snow situation wasn't a complete loss for me. For some reason, I found myself wanting to help people like I've never wanted to help before.

On Friday night, I helped dig my friend's Toyota Camry out of a snow-mount created by his neighbor's snowblower. He needed to drive it the next day so our group of friends hanging out decided we would help. Not only did we successfully liberate the Camry, bt we also made a snow tunnel through the leftover mount. The next day I bumped into a different friend in business casual attire standing in a parking lot at school. He was heading to part-time job, but his car was stuck in the snow. I had some time before I had to be somewhere, so I helped dig his car out with him. But those were friends and of course I'm going to help a friend out if they need it. At this point I realized that it feels good to help people, especially when they really need it and they don't ask. But I asked myself "why just friends?" So for the rest of the day I found myself pushing and digging along with strangers to get their cars out of unforgiving mixtures of snow and ice. It felt accomplished every time I felt their tires gaining traction on softer snow or asphalt and let me say...it was addicting. It was like a win-win-win situation for all you Office fans. Every time I saw someone digging in the parking lot or struggling to get their car out I would ask if they needed help. I was in such a helping mood that I even pulled over behind a broken down Honda Accord on the highway to ask if they needed help. They didn't, but it was the first time I've pulled over to see if a stranded driver needed assistance.

On a side note...I'm pretty sure this isn't true anymore, but when I took driver's ed in high school, the driving manual actually said you're suppose to pullover and asked if drivers of broken down cars on the side of the street needed help. It use to be a rule, but obviously people rarely abide to it.

After all that I've still come to the consensus that snow sucks, but yes, I did find some joy in it. It just shows that good things can come out of not so great situations and that lending a helping hand once in a while can really cheer up everyone's day.

This is NPR...National Public Radio

This past weekend my sister and I found ourselves driving back and forth from New Jersey to North Carolina for about 18 hours altogether. I had a lot of fun visiting family and friends while drinking "Sexual Chocolate" (it's not porn, I promise), but none of it inclined me to blog more than what enabled my sister and I to survive the ridiculous number of hours we were on the road.

Over the past year, I have become addict of National Public Radio (NPR) Podcasts. Once again, I have created my own interest from the interests of my sister. Anyway, we stockpiled numerous episodes from various NPR programs to try and keep ourselves from going crazy during the 18 hours of driving. I'm a big fan of Car Talk, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, The Moth, Radio Lab and I just started listening to NPR: Technology Podcast today. After safely arriving back in Jersey, all I wanted to do was to rave about how much I enjoy listening to NPR podcasts and how everyone should do the same.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, these programs are like radio talk shows but what they talk about isn't dumb or stupid like most other things that I find resonating my eardrums now a day. I've learned a lot of different stuff, from recent news to car repair, just from listening to these podcasts during my daily commutes. Some are funny. Some are insightful. Some are tear wrenching. I often find myself saying "WOW!", "NO WAY!" or "WTF!" while listening alone in my car driving through central Jersey. Overall, I enjoy almost every minute of it and I get a little sad at the end of each episode just because I don't want it to ever end.

Enough rambling. If you ever find yourself preparing for a long trip, getting sick of your local DJ's nonsense, or just looking for something good to listen to get a couple NPR podcasts on your iPod or Zune and tune in. Oh yes, they're also free and everyone loves free stuff.