2NE1's video for the song "It Hurts."

2NE1’s been pretty busy lately.  All the stuff that they’ve uploaded on youtube dominates my subscription page.  Anyway, the song and video take it in an entirely different direction.  The song is whatever, but at least the look is interesting.

I went clubbing in Hollywood last night.

I've spent my whole day playing video games while nursing a hangover. I was never really one for clubbing. It's just too expensive for me to do in L.A. regularly, but I did go fairly often in Korea. I figured I should at least go once while I'm back. I got pretty shitty, so it was a fun night even though my memory is a little hazy.

Costco wins every time.

I'm a huge fan of the Costco chicken bake. I remember the first time that I went to a Costco in Seoul that I damn near lost my mind when I discovered that they had a bulgogi bake in addition to the wonderful masterpiece that is the chicken bake. This Koreanized version of the chicken bake was so delicious that I ordered one every opportunity I had in Korea. Now imagine me today, standing in line at the Costco in my town and discovering that they now had a carne asada bake for sale. I couldn't even bring myself to order one because I wasn't able to prepare myself for the deliciousness that would ensue. I also did not have a camera with me, which would have been necessary to document the monumentous event. It probably won't be until next week that I will be able to bring myself to order one.

I just finished watching Coffee Prince.

I started watching the series a while ago and I'm surprised that it actually took me so long to finish. Usually when I decide to watch something, I marathon the whole thing. I didn't think the series was boring or anything, I just got caught up in doing random shit. Overall, I really enjoyed it. I think it was a good show to watch for my first Korean drama. The premise was a little strange but it wasn't anything too weird. I actually kept thinking about Ouran High School Host Club (an anime) the entire time I was watching it. Now that it's over though, I'm left with a small little void inside of me that needs to be filled with another Korean drama. The only problem is that there are so many to choose from that I don't know where to start.

Who I'm excited to see the most this NBA season:

I like sports, but I'm not a huge fan.  I won't be able to tell you a team's history or anything.  I'm from L.A. though, and basketball is sort of a huge deal here.  There's been a lot of hype leading up to this season [even just on my facebook news feed].  Anyway, here's who I'm looking forward to this season, not because of what they're going to do on the court, but just because:

• Ron Artest because he's absolutely ridiculous.
• Yao Ming.  He really seems like a nice dude and I like hearing him speak.
• Charles Barkley.  One of the funniest sports commentators of all time.
• Lamar Odom because he's probably one of the funniest guys in the NBA.
• DJ Mbenga.  Congo Cash has left the Lakers, but he'll always be one to me.

The job search has been frustrating.

I've been asked a few times when I'm headed back to Korea and all I can really say is that I'm currently looking for a job. Ideally, I'd like to be back before Thanksgiving. I know that I am enjoying my time here at home, but I really have been applying for work. Last week I sent in nine applications and I haven't heard back from any of them. Hopefully it all works out at some point.

Chae Jung-Ahn

This is my new Korean crush. You’ll probably recognize her if you’ve watched Coffee Prince since she played Han Yoo-Joo. It’s taken me forever to finish watching the damn drama, but I have three more episodes left and I’ll get to them sometime this week.

An update for those of you who knew him,

I just picked up Sid at the airport and he's now at my house.

The Jersey Shore finale is tonight.

It's been a good run. I have to say that I enjoyed this season just as much as the first. Bringing Angelina back was a good choice because it brought so much drama to the house. I haven't really been following the news thats going on outside of the show like I did during the first, so I don't rally know what to expect for the next season, but with all the GTL in the first and the t-shirt times in the second, it can't possibly go wrong.

Possible mottos for when I become a professional gamer:

• I live my life one mouse click at a time.
• I'm always 54 key strokes away from victory.
• I can beat you faster than a Zerg rush.
• I'll sign your mousepad.
• The Kobe of keyboards
• GAME OVER [I've also considered getting this tattooed on my knuckles]
• You might as well just alt+F4.

My pictures from the Philippines on flickr

You can check them out here. I'll get to the pictures from Tokyo some time later this week.

Applying for jobs is harder than work.

It might appear that I'm just enjoying my time here in California, but I really am trying to find a job back in Korea. Each time I spend money, I get a little more desperate. This past weekend I wrote two cover letters and redrafted my resume four times for different jobs. I even took a picture to send in with my applications with my hair tied back in an effort to make it look shorter so I can appear more professional. If I don't get a response soon, I might just stress myself to death.

Friendship on the Fields of Justice

I've been playing League of Legends all day, nothing is really different about that.  However, today I played a few games with my friend Carmine, who I met in Korea and is now living in Canada.  It's jtouching that through the miracles of Internet gaming, we can still be friends. 

I'm cursed.

I cracked the screen on my phone. It's not a huge deal because it was a twenty dollar phone that I got from Wal-Mart, but I have gone through phones like nobody's business this past year. If I get another phone then it will be the fifth phone I will be using in a twelve month period. I really should be more careful with my shit.

88 King's Donuts and Chinese Food

I enjoy greasy Chinese take-out more than I should. I know that it is bad for me but I can't resist the black pepper chicken at this place. I grew up eating here and I have been ordering the same meal for as long as I can remember. To giver you a better picture of this place, I feel like I should describe a little more what it's like. It's a small dingy place on the corner. I guess that I have to include that it's a Chinese place in a Korean plaza that is in a Mexican neighborhood, which makes it sort of an anomaly. It's frequented a lot by me and people from the neighborhood. If you pass by it on a weekday morning, you're likely to see a few Mexicans standing around outside looking for work. Like every other Asian run business in my neighborhood, there are metal bars over the windows. Inside the place you would find the regular counter with Chinese food sitting on top under heat lamps. There are a few extra additions to this place though. For one thing, they sell donuts. Since I have been going to this place my whole life, I know that one should never eat the donuts. They also sell ice cream, which is alright to consume. What you might not see in other Chinese food places are lottery tickets and cigarettes for sale. Not surprisingly, I have never been asked for an ID when purchasing either. Usually there are only two people working in the front. It is always two of these three people:

1. The old Chinese man who always nods when I walk in the door. He doesn't usually say much, he only looks as if he has been carrying the weight of the world on his back for his entire life.
2. The old man's wife who is always nice to me. She sometimes asks how my mom is doing. Apparently my mom came to America from the Philippines the same year that she got here.
3. The younger woman who works there. As far as I can tell, she is not there daughter but may be some relative. She is probably the same age as me or a little older but she speaks the most English. I like it when she takes my order because she knows exactly what I want. She's the only one who's realized that I only order the same thing every time I go.

There is also one or more cooks in the back, but I have never seen them. They're Mexican though and I only know this because I can hear the music they play on their radio. You might be questioning why I'm taking the time to write all this down. I'm also wondering the same thing, but I feel a sense of closeness to this place that I have only realized since I have been back home. As far as I can tell, there will be at least a few more black pepper chicken combos in my future.

It's a constant struggle.

In her old age, my mom's only two joys are not my brother and me, but the Filipino Channel and computer solitaire. This doesn't bother me one bit, but since the big screen TV in the living room is currently not working, it means that the prime real estate in the house is now my brother's room, where one can enjoy cable TV while sitting at a computer desk. I particularly enjoy this spot because I can indulge in internet browsing and daytime Law & Order marathons. So now my brother's room has become a heated battlefield while my brother is at work/school in the day between my mom and me. My mom is surprisingly sneaky. When I get up to use the bathroom she will sneak in and firmly plant herself in the computer chair. Since I enjoy computer games myself, I know that it's pointless to interrupt someone when they're in the middle of a game, so once those cards are dealt on the screen there's no moving her until the game is done. If I miss that window where she completes a game and starts another one, then I'll be stuck with my iPad and now television for hours. I'm fairly sneaky myself, so sometimes when I want to use the computer, I'll call the house from my cell phone and when she gets up to answer it, I'll take over the computer. I'm able to defend the position for a while by telling her that I'm applying for jobs, which I actually do sometimes. However, my mom is a hardened veteran of subtle mind games so I always have to be on the lookout.

It's been another day of doing nothing.

Yesterday I made all these plans how to spend today. I was going to go to Venice Beach and take a few pictures, visit UCLA, and then go shopping for a bit. None of that happened though. Instead, I took a nap. The only time I left the house today was to get a pizza and the only picture I took today was when I accidentally pressed the shutter button while uploading pictures to my computer. I should probably apply for a few jobs before I eat dinner or else this day is going to be a completely wasted.

I bought a tripod.

I went to the L.A. camera swap meet in Pasadena today and bought myself a tripod. If you don't know about it, it's a monthly event where people come to buy and sell camera goods, from vintage cameras to used dSLRs. I spent less than what I expected to for my tripod, so I would say that the trip was a success. I was tempted to buy a sweet camera bag but I managed to control myself. It's going to take some practice working with the tripod, but it will come together at some point. A more immediate effect of this purchase though, is that I'll probably do a bit more video blogging since it will be easier rigging up my camera. I might record a conversation with my mom or something. That would be hilarious.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab

Samsung was one of the major sponsors for the World Cyber Games this past weekend. At their display booth they had their competitor for the iPad, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, out to use. It was a little sad because I knew more about the product than the woman who was working the display. However, from the five minutes I had to play with the device, I thought it was a pretty solid product. The cameras weren’t as good as I thought they’d be, but hell, it’s not like the iPad has any. What the picture doesn’t show, is how small it is. I can hold it comfortably in one hand. I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see how well it does.

I'm such a grown-up nowadays.

I just got back from meeting a friend of a friend. I wanted to meet her because she's currently in the graduate program that I'm interested in at Cal State Long Beach, so she answered a few of my questions. That's what's fucking crazy though. The me from two years ago could have never imagined discussing grad schools over a cup of coffee with someone. I was too busy playing video games and avoiding writing essays. There are a lot of times when I don't feel like an adult though, like when I ate a frozen pizza and some candy for breakfast today. I guess some things never change.

My thoughts on the iPad after one month

It's now been over a month since I bought the 32GB wi-fi iPad that I'm currently writing this blog post with. Having used it on a daily basis since then, I have to admit that I actually love the device. I currently have 106 apps on my iPad. About a third of them are silly games, three apps are for books, about twenty for media, a few blogging apps, six for photos (editing, uploading, and management), and the rest are random utilities like calculators, weather, and navigation.

The iPad has changed the way I use the Internet, but it hasn't revolutionized anything. However, what it has done, is made content a lot more accessible, which I think is the real point of the iPad. Sure, I still use a desktop computer for a lot of things, like real PC gaming and more complex photo editing, but I do pretty much everything else while sitting on the couch with my iPad.

I'm well aware of all the criticisms of the iPad like, "It's a big iPod," or that there's no flash support, and I have to admit that those are all valid. For me though, I have only encountered the flash issue a handful of times. this whole month. There is a lot of truth in saying that the iPad is a lot like the iPod touch or an iPhone. I can definitely see that and I would have had a hard time justifying my purchase if I owned either of those, but I don't so it works out for me. However, there are a few things that I can only see myself doing on an iPad and not one of the smaller devices, like reading books for longer periods of time or just browsing the Internet as much as I do.

Now if you were to ask me if I would recommend the iPad or any other tablet to someone else, my answer would vary, because even though I love it, I know it's not for everyone. If you were looking for something to replace a desktop PC, then it's not really what you're looking for. There are a lot of things that I know that I wouldn't be able to do on my iPad that I could do on a desktop or even a high end laptop. If you were considering purchasing an iPad, I would wait for a bit. As of now, the only thing on the market worth purchasing is the iPad, but in a few months time, there are going to be a few competitors. The Samsung tablet is one that I can think of off the top of my head and Blackberry just announced theirs last week, let alone the second generation of the iPad is still floating up in the air.

I know that in a year or so, I'll probably be purchasing my second tablet and giving this one to my mom. I'm not sure if it'll be the second gen iPad, but for now, I'll be enjoying the one I have now.

The World Cyber Games

So the World Cyber Games finished yesterday. I only attended day 2, but I followed a lot of the matches in the tournaments. A lot of the events turned out the way I thought they would, like America winning Guitar Hero. However, there were a few major surprises, like Jae Dong losing to flash in the Starcraft semi-finals and China not even taking a medal in Warcraft III.

There aren’t any surprises in what e-sports athletes look like, though.

I shot guns yesterday.

I feel so American.

It must be something I ate.

A carnitas burrito foam Chipotle