Rommel's Random Ramblings

Rain drops are falling on my head. I don't think I have to wash my car anymore. Well, better for it to rain water than for ash to keep falling from the sky. My tires still seem rainworthy so that's good. It could be, though, that I'm driving a little bit more carefully now since I was reminded yesterday what it's like to drive in the rain.

It rained a little bit during the carnival. At times it rained a little harder than others. It's a good thing it didn't start pouring until the carnival was well over. The rest of the College and Career people and myself took some of the junior high and high school kids from our church. I ended up driving two guys and two girls to the fairgrounds. The kung fu outfit I was wearing inspired them to spout off lines from Kung Pow on the way there. The place was pretty neat. I didn't play any of the games, but one of the booths had good Hawaiian food. For just $5, they serve big portions of rice, chicken, pork, salad, and macaroni. I thought the shredded pork tasted like lechon (a Filipino dish - roast pig). Good stuff! Anyway, Faye wore a chinese outfit, too. What a copycat. ^_^ Mike wore a big afro wig and basketball warmup clothes. So I suggested that I was Bruce Lee and he was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (Mike's 6'7" tall.) Jed and Aimee had medical/lab coats on. Lanie, James, and Mae had the fashion timeline going with their flapper outfit, zoot suit, and 50's clothes. Marli had her feline costume that she got from Party City while Kevin wore Filipino basketball attire. As soon as I get pictures, I'll put them up. (Hint hint to all you guys who brought cameras that may be reading this. ^_^)

Woo hoo! It rained today, at least for a little bit. The temperatures are getting lower, too. I generally like colder weather anyway. I find it easier to sleep when it's cold than when it's hot. If it gets too cold, you can always put on more layers of clothes. There's a limit to how many layers you can take off when it gets too hot. What are you going to do? Take off your skin? Anyway, it's supposed to rain some more over the next couple of days, but I hope it doesn't get rained out at the OC fairgrounds tomorrow night. At any rate, the rain will really help the firefighters out there. Those wildfires have been going on for too long. It's indeed an answered prayer.

It wasn't really raining that bad, but it was enough to get the ground a little wet. I lost traction for a few seconds while driving uphill this morning. It was kinda weird. The stoplight turned green, and I stepped on the gas. The engine revved up, the wheels turned, but the car hardly moved forward. The steering wheel was shaking somewhat erratically. I thought I was going to slide back into the car behind me. So I think my tires are getting bald, but I'm not too sure. I need a penny to check. Stick a penny upside down in one of the grooves. If you can see the top of Lincoln's head, then the tread has worn down to less than 2/32 of an inch, the legal limit for minimum tread depth. Ahh... whenever you need a penny, you can't find one. Whenever you don't need one, you have too many. It's probably time to get new tires anyway. I've had that same set of Uniroyal TigerPaw tires ever since I bought my car over 70,000 miles ago.

Final decision: in the spirit of Missions Month (at least in my church... I think other churches designate other months besides October) I'll wear something international, something Chinese, for tomorrow. If you've ever looked through my pictures at Friendster, you've probably seen what I'm talking about.

I could dress up in the school uniform from Battle Royale. Just khaki pants, a khaki jacket, a white button up shirt, and a black tie, and I'm all set. Oh, but I have to wear one of those metal collar things around my neck. It might be too obscure, and I don't think a lot of people would get it, though. Maybe I'll just wear flannel and pretend I'm Clark Kent.

Speaking of Clark, Smallville's episode tonight mentioned how Clark's powers are affected by his exposure to the sun. His powers were having uncontrollable and random effects due to a solar flare that had just taken place. What a coincidence. I just read an article about how we were hit today with the strongest solar flare since 1989. I doubt the Smallville writers did that on purpose considering how the episode was probably filmed months ago. Besides, I don't think solar flares are predictable that far ahead of time.

I think I've figured it out. The closest relationship I can think of is Under the Tuscan Sun...

Disclaimer: I do not know why there is an ad for a lesbian film at the top of the page. I have no idea how Blogspot would come to the conclusion that readers of my blog would be interested in such a thing. ^_^;; It doesn't seem to have any relation to Battle Royale, Kill Bill, wildfires, Halloween costumes, or other topics I've written about. Hopefully, it'll change soon as I continue writing about other things. However, I think this exact post might influence the ad selection algorithm even further, though.

The fires continue. Thankfully, my area hasn't been affected. I live about a block from a canyon in which I've seen a least a couple of brush fires occur. They have been minor ones, though. I hope that all the people that have been evacuated, or have lost their homes, or may still lose their homes, are okay. I've heard that the sky was pretty dark over near Rancho Cucamonga. Actually, last Friday, I bought a car wash ticket from one of my co-worker's as part of a fundraiser for her son's football team. The car wash was this morning at some OSH parking lot about 20-25 miles from my house. I never brought my car, though, due to the ashy weather. No big deal. They can keep my donation. It's less work for the kids, too. At least they don't have to wash something that would probably get dirty really soon anyway.

So anyway, as a Halloween alternative, Rock Harbor (a church I've visited a few times) and a few other churches in Costa Mesa are having a carnival type event this Friday at the Orange County Fairgrounds. They are encouraging people to wear a costume (but no masks.) I'm planning on going, but I'm still thinking of what to wear. After church today, we went to Party City to look at some relatively cheap costumes. Some were just too freaky that I wonder how people were able to conceive of them. As for the rest, none were really appealing to me. I would also have to take into consideration that what I wear that night would probably be what I would be wearing during the day at work. Also, I have to figure out how to store my wallet, car keys, and cell phone if I wear something without pockets. I don't know... I'll probably just look through my closet for old costumes from previous years or from skits and stuff. I have a week to decide.

Kevin made a comment on his blog about some major brush fires around Southern California. The fires seemed to have gotten worse than they did yesterday. I don't know if it is as noticeable elsewhere, but down in Irvine, the sky is still an orange color, and it has been that way for the entire day. I feel like I'm wearing orange sunglasses. It's pretty surreal, as if I'm on another planet. The sun is a deeper orange, almost red color. Plus, it's been raining ash! My car, along with everything else, is covered with a thin layer of smoke debris.

Hmm... interesting. I just noticed that the Blogspot ads at the top of this page seem pretty dynamic. I think they change depending on the context of recent blog entries. My banner advertises the Battle Royale novel by Koushun Takami and has some Battle Royale search results from Ebay. Amy's has a link to some wedding store and something titled Wedding Gifts for Parents. Kevin's has Short Term Missions and Women of the Harvest(?!). Anyway, time to go to bible study...

Ever had those times in which you feel really sleepy, but you don't want to go to sleep just yet? Your eyelids feel really heavy, but every other part of your body is still wide awake. Well, that's how I feel right now. I'm actually typing this with my eyes closed half the time. Anyway, this kinda reminds me of the time when I watched my brother put my baby nephew, Landon, to sleep. It was way past Landon's bedtime, but he kept wanting to open his eyes even though you could tell he was getting tired. "Why are you trying to fight it, huh? Why are you trying to fight it?" I guess you just had to be there... It's probably a lot better that I feel this way now in the safety of my own room (as I babble on and on in my drowsiness...) than if I was behind the steering wheel. That's not a good feeling at all. Very scary and extremely dangerous. Avoid it at all costs.

I came in to work today, and everyone was just standing around, chatting away when I got there. It turned out that there had been something wrong with the electrical power to the server room for the past hour and a half. So although the lights were on and we were able to turn on our computers, a lot of things didn't work. No email, no network access, no phones, nothing. I couldn't even get on Blogger to write about it at the time. Even the security system controlling the doors wasn't working. (No wonder the doors were wide open when I arrived.) From what I understand, people on the outside would get a busy signal whenever they called, they could not access our website, and emails would be returned as undeliverable. It probably looked like the company just disappeared off the face of the earth.

Anyway, it took about four or five hours to get things somewhat operational. I think they had to use a whole bunch of extension cords for the time being. But before that happened, I think it only took me about half an hour to complete all the tasks that didn't depend on the inactive resources. I tried cleaning up my cubicle a little, but that didn't take very long either. For the rest of the time, I ended up helping a couple of people "test" one of our prototype LCD flat panels that had a tv tuner in it. ^_^ "Today on Maury: You're the father, and I'm going to prove it!" Also, my high scores for Snake II (level 9) are now as follows:

No Maze - 1103
Box - 1152
Tunnel - 388
Spiral - 72
Blockade - 99
Twisted - 27

I haven't written much in a while, but I'm glad it's the weekend. Anyway, I saw Under the Tuscan Sun with some friends today. It was an okay film; it had its moments. However, in a way, I'm somewhat relieved that I watched it during a matinee. It was interesting enough to keep me from falling asleep or from walking out of the theater, though, and that's a good thing. But I don't think I've ever walked out of a movie before (except for a couple of times in which I realize I'm watching the wrong movie in the wrong theater.)

After that, we were in the mood for some Italian food so we went to Pasta Bravo for dinner. How predictable is that? Then, we spent some time at Barnes & Noble. While browsing through the graphic novel section, I saw a copy of Rurouni Kenshin on one of the shelves. I didn't think that the manga was out yet, but then I realized that it was volume 7 of the original untranslated Japanese manga! It was the beginning of the Kyoto story arc which included the fights between Kenshin and Saito. I asked one of the Barnes & Noble staff if the book was a part of their regular inventory that they sell. She tried scanning the barcode, but since it was not a standard US UPC bar code, nothing came up on their system. Since the book looked a little used, we came to the conclusion that a customer must have accidentally left the book in the store. Then, someone working there assumed it was part of their stock and shelved it. The Barnes & Noble employee then told me that if I can read the Japanese writing, I was free to take it with me. They couldn't really charge me a price for it, anyway. The only price we could find on the book was in yen, and it's not as if they had any currency exchange rate tables handy. So I walked out of there with a free comic book.

Wow all of these strikes going on... I haven't really felt the effects of the MTA strike in LA since I live in Orange County, but as far the grocery workers strike, I know that Albertson's (at least the one by my house) has been closing earlier lately. I also didn't know that some LA Sheriff's deputies were also calling in sick a lot these past couple of weeks.

At work today, people were kinda joking around about going on strike, too. Yeah, there were only four of us there at the time. Everyone else was either sick or not there yet. We all just laughed it off, saying, "How effective would that be? No one would see us or even care." Come to think of it... with so few people left in the department, the effectiveness could go either way. We could be considered either dispensable or extremely critical. The topic lasted all of about two minutes or so, but I do wonder how much seriousness there was behind the laughter.

A couple more Kill Bill and Battle Royale relationships:

1) Sonny Chiba is apparently in Battle Royale II, but I haven't seen the movie yet. It just came out this summer.
2) Ai Maeda (who played Kitano's daughter in BR and BRII) was the anime voice for Lucy Liu's character.

That's all for now. I might write some more later, but I'm going to get something to eat right now. Besides, Smallville's coming on soon.

I woke up late this morning... as in "about ten minutes after I was supposed to leave my house to go to work" late. So I had to take the toll road today. Drove about 80 mph for almost the entire way (and at times, without even stepping on the gas during the downhill section.) Then I found out that they raised the peak hour toll rate to $3.50 last week. Even after all that, I still ended up being about twenty minutes late for work. The scary thing is... it didn't bother me that much to not get to work on time. I don't know. I hope I'm not pulling an Office Space thing and becoming too apathetic about my job. It's kinda hard not to, though. With at least two people gone (hopefully temporarily) since the beginning of last week, I can't help but feel overwhelmed sometimes.

Our department's already short-handed to begin with, and I think I've been doing the work of three people recently. Not only that, but we have one of those credit card terminals, the keypad-type things, at work. The credit card company that installed the terminal upgraded the software on it a few days ago, but they didn't really inform us of exactly what changes there were in the version. I had to find out the hard way through trial and error and some calls to their help desk. So anyway, I found it somewhat frustrating and uncomfortable using someone's credit card as a guinea pig like that. I would end up worrying about whether I charged their credit card twice or not. Actually, I probably feel uneasy handling someone else's money unless it was in a more tangible form like cash. Like the other day, someone gave me a blank (but signed) check for a specific purpose. Tempting... (but just for a little bit hehe) I don't think I'd make a very accountant, treasurer, controller or whatever.

So I guess my work day was pretty busy as usual. It was so busy today, though, that I had to leave work a little late. That's what I get for coming in late in the first place. haha But for the most part, I was looking forward to going to worship team practice tonight. Singing, playing musical instruments, and just praising God. Hmm, I think that's sort of like looking forward to worshiping God in heaven, but on a much smaller scale. So yeah, there's always something good to look forward to...

I thought I'd try to customize the layout a little bit. First thing on the list was reducing the font size. The default size used with this template was a little too big, even while viewing it at 1280 by 1024 resolution.

Being a big fan of skit videos and stuff (I have Kevin C. to blame for that ^_^), I like finding out about videos other people have made. Here's one I've encountered recently: www.newtruetalent.org. I thought Fobman was kinda funny.

Ok, so it's a Sunday night, and I finally decided to start my blog. I'm not really sure what I hope to accomplish through this, but it's certainly another way to develop carpal tunnel syndrome. I already type enough as it is while I'm at work. Maybe I should get one of those ergonomic natural keyboards for home use, too. Hey, maybe someday, someone surfing the web will stumble across this website and decide to make a movie about the stuff I've written. I think that's how the Korean movie My Sassy Girl got started. That has got to be one of my favorite chick-flicks... one of the few I'll admit to enjoying, in fact.

Speaking of movies, I saw Kill Bill with my brother yesterday. I was looking forward to watching it, and it was better than I expected. It's too bad that I have to wait until February or so for the second half of the story to be released. A lot of things you may have heard about the movie's violence is true; Kill Bill is quite violent. I don't know... what I thought was the most violent part actually didn't even have any blood or any outward signs of injury at all. But I kept wincing at this hospital door scene. Despite the gore, the movie had an interesting story, nonetheless. Plus, there were cool bonuses like Yuen Wo-Ping choreographed fight scenes with a whole bunch of katanas, an extended anime scene featuring an animated Lucy Liu, a significant amount of Japanese dialogue (I got to practice my listening comprehension), and Chiaki Kuriyama -- Chigusa from Battle Royale!

Now Battle Royale... that ranks as the most violent movie I've seen thus far. A bunch of high school kids are placed in a deserted island, are each given a random weapon, and are instructed to kill each other in accordance with a law passed by a sort of dystopian version of the Japanese government. Working with the high school ministry, I didn't know at first how to approach this, but I liked the movie for the characterization of the students. They didn't act like they were in the middle of some CS mission or Quake deathmatch. They acted the way you would expect kids to act. A lot of them didn't want to kill their friends. Some of them didn't trust the others. A few had some past grudges to resolve. The majority of them were just plain scared. By the way, I thought it was interesting that one of the scenes in Kill Bill looked like it was it ripped straight out of Battle Royale... err, I mean, it was an homage, an homage to Battle Royale.

Well, I better stop now before I end up on another tangent. I should go to sleep soon anyway. It's gonna be another long week at work.