In no particular order...

Aria
Nodame Cantabile
Escaflowne
Kanon
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu


Honorable Mentions
Maison Ikkoku
Spice and Wolf

1)  Patriot offensive line was horrible.  They were unable to keep Brady protected which led to the breakdown of the passing game.  Brady had 5 sacks... way to many in this type of game.
2)  Patriots overall played sloppily.  Seemed like they incurred too many penalties which hurt them or helped the Giants on key plays that allowed the Giants to continue the drive.
3)  Giants defense was definitely better than the final season game.  They definitely confused the Patriots offensive line by bringing different looks and late blitz.  Manning's composure was almost like his bigger brother. 

I think NE lost the game.  NY didn't win it... they just made less costly mistakes.

I went to watch this.  You can read more about it from wiki.  The music wasn't as good as some of Andrew Llyod Weber's earlier works.  It felt similar to Jesus Christ Superstar where Weber attempted to bridge modern guitar/rock sounds with traditional symphonic sounds.  At points in the musical, the music was just TOO LOUD.  The plot line also reminded me too much of Phantom of the Opera and similarly a tragic ending with a glimmer of hope.  The musical itself had  a few comedic moments which didn't seem to work very well.

The price of $28 wasn't too bad though.  For  1 week engagement, the show wasn't all that packed.  Mid/Upper balcony were empty.  I relocated from mezzanine with a strained view to mid Balcony with a better view (and more space!)

Up next...  My Fair Lady, Avenue Q and Annie.

As an experiment, surprisingly 6k on Thurs.  And 6k on Friday.

Nonetheless... 6k is probably a pretty standard baseline which needs to be supplemented.


The local chinese food court now has a taiwanese style restaurant. 
www.wisteriatw.com

10k on Mon.
9k on Tues.
10k on Wed.

Trying to walk in such a way that doesn't place emphasis on the outside of the feet first is pretty hard.

After thinking about this trip sometime last week, I decided to go.  Quite a few people were up in SF.  The trip would probably be worth it if not only to catch up.  The plan was to drive up Friday and leave Monday. 

Friday:
Left home around 10:30 am.  Hooked up the iPod to the not so reliable radio transmitter similar to this.  Unlike the link, the one I have is an earlier model so only had eight channels to scan from, it wasn't very reliable and I had to search multiple times in order to find a decent open station.  Overall it worked up the 5 but near the city, I began to get interference from real stations.

Took 373 miles and 14.865 gallons.  I stopped once at Laval exit to grab some coffee and snacked a little.  I arrived around 4:00 pm at the Great Mall in Milpitas.  Since Wilson was still working, I thought I'd try to catch a movie to pass the time.  Unfortunately, none of the showings fit into the schedule.  For dinner went to Ramen Halu, the broth wasn't the best I've had (Santa's broth still remains top).  Once at Wilson's place, setup the sleeping stuff outside in the TV room.  Unfortunately, the laptop hard drive died.  It began to give me errors which led me to just stop trying to correct it. 

Saturday:
Morning was spent diagnosing the laptop.  Went to Fry's to buy a 100Gb hard drive.  Also bought a nice cooling tray for the laptop.  After lunch at a Diner in Saratoga, it was time to fix the laptop.  We weren't meeting with Joe, Ernest, and Po until 5pm.  We had some issues with drivers (ie didn't know what I had in the laptop) but that was fixed pretty easily.  With the OS re-loaded, the machine booted up much faster and I began the long task of re-installing everything.  I also stored some of the essential drivers for the laptop on a separate USB drive as well.  As I'm typing, I'm missing the Dell Media Experience which allows the computer to auto recognize DVDs that are loaded.  I find that little program to be pretty handy.  I'm hoping the Driver CD in Boston will have that particular one.  Else, I'm stuck looking for a decent backup that hopefully will allow me to resume watching Anime/JP/HK DVDs.

At 5pm, went to watch WAR.  I didn't think there was enough action scenes between Jason Statham and Jet Li.  Fight scenes were good nonetheless... it just needed more.  Afterwards, Korean BBQ at a true mom and pop restaurant.  The locals even helped the two owners by cleaning up the tables for other customers.  They were apparently *that* busy that they couldn't properly bus the tables when they left.  Of course, I think another hired hand probably would have helped... legal immigrant of course.  Afterwards chatted and watch Wilson/Ernest miserably fail at MGS.  Failed to get online cheap tickets to the Jersey Boys musicals unfortunately.

Sunday:
Since we couldn't get tickets online, Wilson and I went to SF to buy the tickets.  Got limited view orchestra side box.  We should learn to try and bargain these tickets down. -.-  The musical itself was interesting.  They primarily used Franki Valli and the 4 season songs to retell the story of how the 4 seasons came to be.  Afterwards, went back and had dinner with Cynthia. 

Monday:
Woke up later than I had hoped.  Started driving around 10:30.  Had lunch at Gilroy and officially headed back down at noon.  There was a detour on the 152 which took the "local" roads around an accident.  That detour took roughly 45 min.  I took one stop again at Laval street exit again.  Unfortunately, I resprained the same ankle.  I was in total shock and I was light headed for a good 20 min.  Didn't drive just rested.  I got back around 5pm.

***
Overall... good trip except for the fact that I reinjured the ankle. =[

- One free lunch at the insistence of a "stubborn woman."
- Two phone calls.
- Two instant messages.
- Lunch with parents.

***
This seems to be a "tradition" that I go through.  I've always planned on cleaning up the textbooks, games, and assorted items that I've stored over the years yet I can never seem to "finish" this project.  Usually something else comes up and when I finish, there is usually no more time left to do a proper job.  However, I have managed to chip away at certain sections of my room from time to time.  For the past few days, I've been dealing with what I view as the biggest obstacle to a reorganized room: the bookshelf and the assorted stored books under the bed.  The books that I have takes up 5 shelves.  Most of these books I never read anymore and have lost their utility to me at some point --books on computer programming languages, old college textbooks on fascinating but not very real world applicable subjects, and uninspiring inspirational books. 

Uninspiring inspirational?  Ya... you know those books that are  meant to inspire you but after reading the book they are in reality very uninspiring. 

I also reorganized my current game collection.  I have quite a few games for PS (FF7, free Madden 01, Lunar Silver Star Story, FF Anthology), a few games for Dreamcast (Grandia 2, Legend of Dragoon) and al lot of PC games.  They've been stored away aside for a few games into the closet.  I also tossed the boxes that some of the games came in which I kept for no reason.

Finally, my large CD collection has been properly stored.  They will no longer collect dust.  Although with the advent of the iPod, CDs are pretty much a collection of the past.  I still will get CDs only because I can't the mp3 versions elsewhere legally and illegally.  They are mainly Japanese imports and the Japanese artists are putting out great songs that are WORTH buying.  The RIAA should take note and report back to their bosses that good songs result in CD and music sales.

So... does anyone want some books?

and it is much cooler than Boston.

I've been crippled again.  Due to all the construction thats going on around BU, there is a lot of uneven pavement, loose gravel and general walking hazard when not paying attention.  About two weeks ago, I wasn't paying attention and I sprained my ankle again.  I sprained it before the weekend so I managed to put weight off the ankle for almost 4 days.  I didn't massage it until the 4th day which was a bad idea.  Unlike last time, I waited until the pain fully subsided.  I think its a mistake since the ankle is stiff now.  Still have to strike a balance which is hard to determine.  I did notice though that my feet tanned a lot. 

In the past 3 weeks, I've finished Melancholy of Haruhi, Samurai 7 anime, and Samurai Champloo.  All came highly recommended.  All were watched in roughly 12 hours.  Ya... I stayed up late watching some of the episodes. 

Today my PSU (no not a Phantasy Star Universe but Power Supply Unit ) crapped out on me. It came with the current computer that I got close to 5 years ago -- maybe even longer than that. I'm too lazy to check the email receipt that was sent to me.

I replaced the old "Enlight" 420W with a new "Antec" 650W from Best Buy only since there really wasn't anything decent to choose from. I hope this one won't crap out on me. Installation was pretty easy but it is a pain trying to connect all the power outlets through the already cluttered cables that connect the Mobo to the DVD and Hard drives.

I spent 4 hours from the time I woke up, to discovering my PSU may be the likely culprit, to buying and finally installing the PSU and booting it up. What a pain...