I got an email today telling me this blog is 20 years old. I haven't touched this thing since 2013.

Sheesh. Look at all the memories I have here. This really was my little place. Gosh. Now I've just returned to celebrate 20 years.

I may go through these and relive those years.

Happy birthday!

I haven't posted here in forever. That's OK. I still remember you.

Disclaimer: I have an opinion. If you are against people having their own opinions, please don't read.



I am tired of people calling it a sport. It is not a sport.

Well, I suppose I have to define my definition of a sport. Sport is a competition in which people use their physical abilities in opposition to achieve something/win the game.

Now, you may look at cheerleading and see that there are things about it that qualify it as a sport-- according to my definition.

Yes, it requires great physical ability. And yes, there is an achievement. But there's one thing that separates it from other sports: no clear outcome.

If you take a look at other sports out there, you can easily look at the rules and have a simple determining factor to decide the winner. In basketball, put the ball in the hoop gives you points. In hockey, put the puck in the net to score. In track and field, first one to cross the finish line wins. In these sports, scoring more or finishing first determines a winner. In cheerleading, you don't have that.

No cheer leader can score points on their own. Judges give out points.

Unfortuntaely like gymnastics and figure skating, it has become a glorified dance competition in which judges determine a winner. The athletes can't determine the outcome themselves.

Judges are like referees, right? No. Referees are there to enforce the rules. That's their job. Judges sit there, watch the competition and determine the winner of the entire competition. You can play basketball without referees... like a pick up game. You can't have a pick up cheerleading game. It doesn't work that way.

And that is what makes it hard for me to accept cheerleading as a sport. Just because it involves a lot of physical ability, doesn't necessarily make it a sport. Because if we look at just physical ability, then I suppose piano moving is a sport.

If somehow cheerleading wasn't filled dancing to music, then it'd be easier for me to consider it a sport. If the main goal of these cheerleaders wasn't to please an audience, then it'd be easier. If the winner wasn't determined by just judges, then I'd consider it a sport.

Yes, it takes great athletic skills to do a lot of the moves. And yes, it requires a lot of teamwork to achieve certain routines. But other than that, it is very different than the other sports we see out there.

Much respect to those cheerleaders because I can't do a lot of the things they do. It takes a lot of time and effort and that's impressive. But it is so different from other sporting competitions that I can't find myself calling it a sport.



** This whole post was just a spur of the moment thing. I am not here to offend anyone... just have an opinion.

Yesterday I got back from my trip to Minnesota! It was super fun! Spending five days in a strange land near a bunch of lakes can be tiring, but I saw so many cool things! I am glad that I was able to hang out with Grace and just check out the cool place.

I touched down on July 1 at night and we went to go see the band Bella Ruse play at this bar/restaurant. Cool band that covered two Beatles songs! They did "Blackbird" and this awesome song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUW7aBgwHc8



On the second day, I took a minor bike tour through the University of Minnesota campus. It's a huge campus and it's gorgeous!



And it's right along the Mississippi River! Very nice!

Then later that day, we went for the Jucy Lucy: Minnesota's most famous burger! Cheese stuffed in between a LARGE beef patty. You have to wait five minutes after it's served or the cheese will burn ya!


Then on Saturday, we found our way to the Walker Art Museum and Sculpture Garden. Going on a free day is sweet! Here are just some pics



A dolphin that answers questions I ask!



On Sunday, it was off to Target Field to see the Twins play!




Here are the rest of the pics I took from that game
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2046727&id=34701836&l=bd876d41fa

Then my goals were complete when I went here!

If you don't know anything about it, shame on you and look it up!

Then after that, we went to the Mill City Museum... a museum built inside what used to be the largest flour mill in all of America. But after being beat out by Pillsbury and having explosions and fires, the mill closed and was opened up as a museum.


Then later that night, fireworks!


On Monday, my final day at in Minnesota, I went to the Mall of America: the biggest mall in the country. Supposedly, it's 7 hours to walk through the whole place. Since it's so big, just one pic is enough for you! And yes, there is an amusement park within the mall!


And that's it folks! That's my weekend trip! Fun? Of course!

All photos can be found here if you want to see the rest of them.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2046664&id=34701836&l=e3dbab3746

I'm gonna visit Minnesota this weekend and I wish that he was there so I could see him play.

He is much more talented than that Justin Gerber singer everyone is talking about!



And am I the only one who watches "Persons Unknown" on NBC Monday nights?

The past few days have been hard for me. I just had been doing a lot of thinking. Since I am back home in the East Bay, still finding the right job (before I end up taking that gig in SF in the Fall if I find nothing), I have had a lot of time to think.

The sucky part about thinking is that with me, when I think, I overthink. Or sometimes I think so much that I am clouded with ideas, emotions or whatnot that isn't a good idea.

I start reminiscing about the good times and now how they are all gone. I also start thinking about the future and how it's not as nice as I had hoped it would be. I think about my present time and just see why I am not being more productive.

So it's been a lot of thinking for me lately. I still have some time before I eventually end up doing work full-time.

It's hard though because for most of my life, I've been surrounded by people on a consistent basis. Through school, through work and whatever, I have been able to be around friends and coworkers. That helped me not think as much.

But now since I am by myself mostly, I have a lot of thoughts going through my head. Nothing to occupy my mind, so I am left to wonder a lot and a lot. Healthy? Probably not. Lonely? Yeah.

I suppose growing up as an only child forces me to not like being alone. And as the older I get, I just don't like that idea at all. Stupid brain making me think too much.

Well, it's not like I'm depressed or anything. Depression is when the brain can't handle reality. I can handle it just fine. Just bored and lonely, that's all...

On Friday, I was just searching for random things on eBay. I was looking through baseball jerseys and I came across this listing.

http://item.ebay.com/270595722916



An authentic Joe Mauer jersey. Usually these things go from $150 to $250, depending on where you get it from.

At that time, it was only at $27 and I thought to myself that if retail value is so high, there's no harm in me putting a $33 bid on this bad boy. There would be NO chance I would win it. I would just force someone to pay more.

I come back to check a day later to find out that I had WON the auction! With shipping, I only paid $41 for something that probably cost nearly four times more!

I think that the fact that it was a one-day auction during the weekend might have made it easier for me to win the jersey. But anyway, this is how I accidentally won a Joe Mauer jersey on eBay.

^ if that embedded video doesn't work, then go here http://www.csnbayarea.com/pages/ninersvideo and look for the "6.11: Ricky Jean-Francois from 49ers OTAs" video.

That's my hand on the right with my recorder asking him questions. Man I sound nervous... I was drawing blanks on how to ask questions. I talked too much...

Back at it again next week.

So this whole week I have been cleaning my room back at home. I had not realised that I had so many books in my room. Now, these books were all of when I was a kid growing up to when I was in high school. I had a load of children's books, young adult books and those books high school made me buy and read.

I loaded up 3.5 boxes worth of books. I then took them over to the Richmond Public Library.

This library was the one I went to when I was a kid. I used to live in Richmond and that was the closest library. It was nice to go back to the library that I haven't been to in almost a decade. Not much has changed since.

I brought in my books right before the library closed. The librarian at the reference desk remembered that I called in earlier and was super excited to see that I had a lot of children's books. I think maybe there was a low amount of books for young kids. She kept thanking me. I just smiled.

Then she asked me how old I was... and ventured a guess. She thought I was 18. She as surprised that I was going to turn 24 next month. YES! I look young still!

It was hard for me to give away all the books. I sat for hours at my house looking through them and just reminiscing about all the stories I had read. It's hard to say goodbye to the memories and the tools that enabled me to grow up to become a writer as a kid.

That was a lot of books I had to say goodbye to. I know that I won't be reading them again, so I knew that giving them to the library so other people could was the right thing to do.

But just being able to say goodbye and have a librarian think I was 18 was pretty sweet!

My home for the past five years.

It's official now: I have moved out of San Jose. Today I moved out of the house known as Da Crib. It was a small little place between two apartment complexes two blocks away from SJSU. I moved in after my freshman year and lived there until Wednesday.

The house was discovered by me by reading an ad in the school paper. With that, I grabbed two of my friends and BAM!, we had a place to live in while attending SJSU for our sophomore year.

Over the years we've gone through a lot of different roommates, but us three remained. Had a roommate that went through serious depression. One roommate that went through an emo phase. Had other random people that just were passing by and needed a place to stay... for a few months each.

The place was a house. We had baller stuff everywhere! We've been through four HDTVs, a Pioneer sound system, an original XBOX 360. We've had a handful of different couches and extra furniture grabbed from the streets. We collected a lot of crap over the years.

I think the best part about this house was the fact that it was a house. Because of that, people could come over and hang out at almost any hour of the day/night. We would have movie nights, cookouts an whatever else that was out there for us to do. The people made this house great.

At this place, I was able to be comfortable while attending school. None of that dorm life, but my own life. I was just at a happy place. It's pretty interesting that I was able to live in a house (with a backyard and a BBQ grill to cook up anything) for five years. Five years of my life in a place where I changed for the better.

And now, it's over. I've moved back home with my parents and the search for a better/full-time job is at hand. I love San Jose and I actually will be in the South Bay often enough just to still cover the 49ers. But now I have to crash at people's places instead of having a place to call home in San Jose. I have a lot of friends there and the travel will suck too.

It was hard to say goodbye to a house that allowed me to grow and mature. Now I'm back at home with my parents ad trying to find the next step. Time to move on...

If you want to see pictures of the house, go here.

Nobody told me that. Everyone tells me that February is Black History Month. How come now in my 24th year of living on Earth that I find out about this now?

Is there not enough guilt from White America to make this month more known? That they expend their efforts towards February but when May rolls around, the Asian awareness commercials just don't show?

Whatever...

People need to celebrate me!

Here are some places that I like to go to buy things. The criteria of these places are simple:

- Sells things I want
- Store ambiance is inviting
- Great deals
- Unique items
- Customer service/return policy is great

In no particular order, some of my happy shopping places












Now for people in music that annoy me:


They were cool when they were without Fergie... like this







And will they please stop playing "Empire State of Mind" everywhere I go?

That is all.

A couple days ago, GMail screwed me over when I tried to send an important e-mail and when I hit send, it erased everything. I had to type it out all over again.

Today, as for their April Fool's joke, they just got dumb.



Eliminating all the vowels is cool? You can't trick a smart guy like me, saying that there was something wrong with the server and all the vowels were lost (according to their official blog).

Look at the GMail logo at the top left. That's a picture. You can't lose letters in an image unless it's intentional.

This is lame and not funny. If you're going to do something wrong, at least do it right.

Yahoo! Mail is still the best. GMail is weak. Like Shia LaBeouf in Indiana Jones weak.

Here is a list of buildings I want to see/visit before I die. These are all historical, man-made constructions. There are places I want to visit, but these are the buildings that I want to see. No particular order.

1-


2-


3-


4-


5-

Every last Saturday of March, from 8:30PM-9:30PM (where ever you are), you are supposed to turn off lights, major appliances, or whatever that can use up a lot of electricity. The goal is to raise awareness to people about conservation and preparation for climate change.

They call this radical idea: Earth Hour



The WWF (not the wrestling people... they use a lot of lights for their shows) came up with this idea and well, I think it's dumb.

Let me explain. The idea of conserving energy and helping the planet is good. I agree. But to one day out of the year, for only one hour, to do it? That's not effective. I didn't even know about earth hour until a couple hours ago.

If everyone turned off lights they weren't using for one hour, that can actually raise "awareness". I hate that word. Awareness is bringing forth an idea or theory into the public. What Earth Hour doesn't do is bring action.

You see, awareness just tells people to save energy. But it's just once a year. The rest of the year, there is no major actions towards. Now, if Earth Hour was a monthly thing, maybe it will stick to people. Maybe it becomes an international weekly thing. Hey! How about that?

But no. That won't work. Then because inconveniently, Earth Hour could fall on Christmas, or Halloween, or some major holiday and people would complain.

Trust me, the idea is great. But there isn't any action being done. I really don't see a point in just doing it once a year. I in fact already do my best to conserve energy anyway. Earth Hour needs more than just once a year.

Awareness is useless until major action follows. I'm sure there are some actions taken. But with such an effort to make everyone turn off their lights for an hour, how about more effort in making it a habit for people?

Yeah, those are my thoughts today.

Sidenote: It's is eerily dark right now as I type this (8:57PM) outside. Kinda creepy and unsafe looking.

Sidenote2: If I totally missed the idea of Earth Hour, please tell me. I'm basing this post off of my knowledge of it, which is little. Which also might be more than what the average person does know about Earth Hour, which enhances my point.

I found out that I got a parking ticket... my first one. And i was tricked into it!!!

I parked at a spot that I always park at. It's at a corner of a block and last night, I parked there. Up to this point, that spot has been OK to park in. You only can't park there for street cleaning, but I never had my car there for that.

I got a ticket for parking less than 15 feet from a fire hydrant.

So here's the scenario. Last night, around 2AM, I came back home and parked at the exact spot. Knowing that that spot had been OK before, I didn't think about such an occurrence.

They recently added that hydrant about a week ago. And with hydrants, it is required to paint the curb red so people won't park near it.

Last night, I parked in that spot. I didn't see a red curb (because they didn't paint it yet). Because of no red curb, I didn't think about a hydrant (and it was dark too, so I didn't see it).

So now, I am stuck with a $60 ticket because THEY screwed up. Had they painted the curb red, I wouldn't have parked there. But because they didn't, I didn't bother to look at the curb and try to see a fire hydrant in the dark.

San Jose parking authorities tricked $60 out of me. And worst of all, I can't file for an appeal because realistically, my story won't work in court or whatever.

Anyone wanna donate some money to me?

Major Shrek fan and even though the third one wasn't as good, this movie I gotta see anyway. I love Shrek! Anyone with me?

This day is stupid. Well, not the idea of celebrating the guy. But what it has become.

When I was a kid, St. Patrick's Day would be a day where all my friends wore green. If one person didn't, they would get pinched.

One time when I was in 4th grade, I forgot to wear green. Everyone started laughing at me and pinching me. I was the only one that didn't have green. I didn't know what to do. I cried for most of the day. My mom tried to make me feel better by pinning a green piece of paper on my sweater. But it didn't do much. I was laughed at all day.

And another thing. St. Jerome, my elementary school, would have this stupid thing every year. I don't know if it's a leprechaun or whatever, the principal would tell us that one elf/small thing was running around the school. Then she started making up stories of where she saw him. Then she would encourage the teachers to tell lies about it. Then the teachers would encourage the kids to make up stories about it.

I may have been young, but I knew that that was wrong. Encouraging lies to the kids was just not right.

People make this day stupid. Too much drinking and ignorance.



What I also hate about this day (much like New Year's Day) is that people use this excuse to get drunk. I remember talking to a friend and he said that he was going to get wasted. I asked why, since he isn't Catholic and doesn't celebrate the day. He just wanted to get drunk.

Why are we drinking ourselves silly? Does this holiday really give us the OK to get wasted? I thought it was an Irish holiday?

Ask the drunkards who are celebrating today with alcohol to name some actual facts about St. Patrick. They won't know a single thing!

Just finished reading the book



I saw the movie two weeks ago. I bought the book last week and just finished reading it. It's the first time that I had ever read a book after seeing the movie. Most times it's the other way around, where I have read the book and then seen the movie.

I am glad I read the book. Even though the movie was pretty much spot on with the accuracy and everything, something about reading the book made everything much more clear.

What a great book! What a great movie!