2010: First Post.

Totally stealing Kristine's New Years Survey. The Nazer Lagrimas Jr. edition.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Go out all the time. Like out, out. GDC in March, performing in front of hundreds of audio professionals. Lolitas multiple days in a row thanks to Comic Con. Order hundreds of chicken wings.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Pretty sure I didn't make any, nor will I this year. Oh and side note, I checked our blog for posts this year to get ideas for this survey, and we amassed a grand total of (drum roll) 42 posts! Congrats guys!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yeah

4. Did anyone close to you die? Yup

5. What countries did you visit? USA

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? Cash, variety, as in more places to go out, explore, drinks to try, food to eat, etc. We had a good rhythm going in '09 but its time to expand.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory and why? No one day in particular. Birthday time was awesome. November 1st.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Seeing, and knowing, that all of the hard work that I've been putting into my career path has actually been worth it. Watching this music crap become a reality rather than just a chased dream. GDC, owning school, business cards/website, paid gigs, meeting too many industry people to name, etc.

9. What was your biggest failure? Drinking a bit too much in SD resulting in embarrasing (yet hilairous) parental encounters. Losing to Martino in Words With Friends.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Nothing major.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Plane tickets.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Fellow blogger and best bud Lance basket of fries. No one else has the sheer amount of awesomeness (and tolerance for stupidity and filth) to bring in so many people for his birthday. Smoked salmon for days. Tiger Woods.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? The general public after spectacles such as: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Tiger Woods, Kanye West, Adam Lambert, and so so much more.

14. Where did most of your money go? Food and drink. Netflix, Gamefly, and other video game crap.

15. What did you really, really, really get excited about? SF earlier in the year. Coming home.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009? If you know me then you won't be surprised if I say anything by Lady Gaga, I mean TAYLOR SWIFT. Use Somebody as well...possibly.

17. Compared to this time last year are you:
Happier? Hell yeah
Thinner? Same
Richer? Yup, but not by much.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Put in more work (learning stuff for composition, listening to and analyzing more scores, but whateVZ). Play street fighter instead of watching my lame ass buddies play Magic The Gathering.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Worry about things that are out of my hands anyway.

20. How did you spend Christmas? Family. Eat, drink, poker, and listen to my loud ass aunts and uncles scream at random crap.

21. How will you be spending new years? "Get FUKT"

22. Did you fall in love in 2009? Yes., but unfortunately Elizabeth Mitchell is busy 'cuz of work so we can't hang out as much.

23. How many one-night stands? Equal to or less than 24,758

24. What was your favorite TV program? LOST, Mad Men, and Roseanne 2 aka The Big Bang Theory.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Man, people always say that I keep hating on people all the time.

It's true.

26. What was the best book you read? I'm pretty sure the only book I actually finished this year was the second Sookie Stackhouse novel (the books that True Blood is based on). SO intead I'm going to list my "Best Game Played This Year." Probably Street Fighter 4 in terms of hours put into it. For a "single player interactive storytelling experience," InFamous (PS3). Uncharted 2 is awesome as well.

27. What was your biggest musical discovery? Gretchen Parlato. Diving deeper and familiarizing myself more with the works of A class film composers, Bernard Hermann and Thomas Newman specifically.

28. What did you want and you got? PS3, iPhone, oh I got my TV this year too.

29. What did you want and not get? Honestly I can't really think of anything.

30. What was your favorite film of this year? UP. Hands down the best cinematic experience this year. "How many times did you cry during UP?"

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old did you turn? 22. When I was in SF I celebrated an early birthday with my brother and his girlfriend. We got dinner at this raw bar in SF, soooooo dope. Then in Beantown went with a few buddies to this awesome little restaurant that serves Stone on tap, and the waitress took our entres and most of our drinks off the bill, score.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Unlimited, free air travel.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009? Typical.

34. What kept you sane? Music.

35. Which celebrity did you fancy the most? January Jones.

36. What political issue stirred you the most? Marriage equality.

37. Who did you miss? All my buddies in SD, and mexican food.

38. Who was the best new person you met? Lots of "industry" people.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009: Hard work, perseverence, and dedication can get you a long way. Don't settle, don't sit still, get off your ass and move forward. Aspire, seriously.

40. Quote or Song Lyric that sums up your year: Shot shot shot shot shot shot shot shot shot shot shot shot shot shot shot shot

Everybody.

Thanks for reading.

Happy Easter!

To: Adonis, Nazer, Ray
From: Lance
Re: Well For Me...

This was the most disastrous season of Lent ever. I didn't give anything up, I ate meat every Friday, and then topped it off with a end-of-finals-slash-celebrate-Alexand's-birthday BASH that happened to take place on Good Friday, a day of somber remembrance. Oh yeah, and I won't be going to church today.

On that note, here's a great take on the Easter holiday from Rex Navarette, and how this special Sunday lost its original meaning somewhere down the line.




Cool Kids Catch-Up

Adonis' Mulan + Steven Segal post
DISNEY CHICKS: Who is top tier?
Affiliates Catch-Up
Pankun and James
Nazer's bizarre twist on finals
Ray's suicidal take on finals along with why women should at least tolerate gaming
Lance's emo finals bitching with funny finals moments

Net Neutrality and props

To: Nazer Adonis Edit: RAY
From: Lance
Re: Just Get Up And Go

Guys, I would just like to say Congratulations. Yesterday was the first time since the day this was born that all four of us posted something. I predicted Bukkake and you guys gave it to me...fuck that came out wrong.

I get jealous of Nazer sometimes when he talks about what he's doing in school because it's always interesting. In contrast, I know that what I'm learning is usually relatively boring and not something I want to post on the internet. I finally found something worth sharing though.

As most of you know, my major (as of now) is Informatics. Yeah yeah, I love making fun of how even I'm not even sure what it is, but without going into too much detail, it's the study of computer science, information technology (IT), and their effects on society. So I get a lot of technical stuff (a little math, and some programming and project development) as well as something of a social science education spinkled in.

One of the things we looked at briefly last quarter was the notion of Net Neutrality. The prospect of ISPs(Road Runner, Cox, etc.) having influence on where I'm surfing by speeding up or slowing down certain sites based on their business relationship (ie. how much money they're getting) is absurd.

The internet is a unique platform, and one of its greatest attributes is the fact that there are so many options for so many tasks. For searching, we get to pick Google, Yahoo!, Dogpile or one of the many other options. For blogging there's Blogger, LiveJournal, and Xanga, amongst others from an endless list. This kind of freedom should be a given for a medium that has thrived on the creativity of otherwise lesser-known individuals (like me and my three friends here, ok, more like the guy who made YouTube), and right now, a lot of companies are working towards eliminating that freedom.

The Net Neutrality issue is heating up a little bit with the looming election. McCain is skeptical on it, seemingly going back and forth, and Obama and Clinton have gone out of their way to support Net Neutrality.


My boy, BaROCK, supported neutrality in an interesting, and relevant way though. For two candidates with similar platforms, it's these kind of little things that make the difference for me.

So here it is, Obama's PODCAST and transcript on Network Neutrality.

"Tailwind Turner" no longer a Charger, plus some Weekend Notes

To: Nazer
From: Lance
Re: And Then He Was Like, And Then She Was Like...

It's about 6:15 PM and my PS3 has been on for 16 hours straight. There was an ongoing rotation of Jordan, Tuan and JR on Call of Duty 4 since 2 in the morning. If it wasn't for a couple rounds of King's Cup and Smoke or Fire last night, the total hour count could have gone well over 24.

Weekend Notes:

- Unrestricted free agent running back, Michael Turner, signed with the Falcons today for a 6 year deal. There was no way we would've been able to hold on the Burner (ok, I admit that's his real nickname, it's not Tailwind) as a backup for LT, but I certainly wish him luck and will keep an eye on his career away from the Chargers. Also, I'm looking forward to a full feature over at Walking Contradiction with analysis of all the latest moves that went down since NFL Free Agency started.

- /start sexist rant I'm watching the Nuggets-Rockets game on ESPN right now and a woman is doing the color commentary. She seems to be doing a good job, making quality contributions to the guy who's doing the play-by-play, but this is honestly throwing me off. Every time I glance at my computer screen to work on this entry, I think there's ice skating going on in the background. /end blatant sexism

Finally...

-I plan on going to a Jay-Z concert in April because it's gonna be at a venue in IRVINE of all places. If you didn't know, he's my favorite rapper, and this is something I can't miss. Hit me up if you wanna go, I'm buying $80 tickets within the next day or two, and it looks like the tentative list includes Adonis and Alexand.

And Then He Was Like, And Then She Was Like...

To: Lance
From: Nazer
Re: It's your LEAP DAY LINK DUMP

Yeah, I haven't made a post in a while, but then after thinking about it, the reason (for me at least) for starting this blog was to just write about shit that I thought people should know about, and with school and other activities piling up I felt that my time was better spent on other things. You made a Megan Fox post earlier and mentioned something about the quality of the site, but in my opinion fuck it, just write about whatever the hell you want, it's better then having no updates for a week.

Anyways, I've been spending my free time finishing up House season 3, and in an episode where Foreman declares his resignation from the hospital (NOT spoilers because this crap plays on the commercials), a song plays at the end by Brett Dennen called "Ain't No Reason." That song has been playing over and over again in my room, and I think my neighbors are annoyed, but whatever.

I picked up Patapon for the PSP and it's a pretty entertaining game with style elements that make it unique to the system, and it was only $20, so if you have a PSP (Martino, Floyd) go pick it up.

Since Brawl is coming out next week, I've been pressuring myself to finish Mario Galaxy. Yeah yeah it's a sick game, but that camera angle makes me dizzy and I get weirded out when I press up and he runs down so I don't play it that much.

After leaving the gym this morning, I saw a girl who looked about my age walking down the city streets with a blind man's cane, you know those white fold up ones with the red reflector on the bottom, and I thought damn, here I am always worrying about my eyesight while this strong individual is out making things happen, pretty uplifting.

Time to eat some cereal and figure out what to do today. I haven't heard much about SD in a while, how's everyone doing?

I know, the letter to other writers thing was totally ripped off inspired by Kotaku, but hey it's a good idea, and posts like these are always enjoyable.