• food places:
  • pho bac
  • philly’s best
  • sushi riki
  • tenko
  • the taco factory (tustin)
  • lee’s sandwiches
  • wahoo’s
  • trabuco oaks steakhouse
• Diedrich’s coffee (they have the best cappuccinos in the OC dammit!)
• being so close to in-n-out/costco/pinkberry
• the bike trails
• all of the awesome parks and tennis courts
• hi-time wines
• the irvine spectrum, especially watching movie openings there!
• UCI!
• my friends who live here (but don’t think i won’t visit!)
• my 949 phone number that was so easy to remember
• being so close to Jim’s Music… i will always shop for my instruments there
• 50 mph speed limits
• bevmo!
• the goathill tavern and the anthill pub

on the flip side, there will be things i will not miss:

• the racial/economical/etc profiling that i’ve experienced
• everything closing at 9pm
• the commute to work
• the high prices
• that neighbor that tries to open my door unannounced
• worrying about whether or not i will have a place to live next year

exciting things coming in the future! no time to fear change i say!

-m

after several weeks though, i have to say that it seems like it won’t really matter who wins. both seem to have some plans which benefit some and not others. and meanwhile, both voted for the bailout plan. i easily would have picked the one who opposed it.

now, as the election is coming soon, i’ve been thinking long and hard about who to vote for. i’ve decided that i will do something a bit unconventional and write in a vote.

many people, my dad included, have said that it’s a waste of a vote. i don’t see it that way. the right to vote gives us the right to pick someone who sides with our views, even if they are not part of the “mainstream.” so why not pick someone, instead of taking a “lesser of two evils” path or some path that puts you in a position to only choose between two. i KNOW that who i vote for will not win, but it doesn’t matter: what matters is that i got to vote for who i wanted and i am able to voice that opinion. not many people outside (and inside) the U.S. have that chance!

so please, even if you don’t like either of the main candidates, go out and vote for someone. the right to vote is a beautiful thing, please take advantage and speak your mind!

-m

i honestly think that we as humans find the need to classify things. it’s easy to see: biology class and our classification of living things. the periodic table. the menu at mcdonald’s. grocery aisles. we seem to be drawn to classifications. so, it wouldn’t strike me to think that people do classify their friends… high school friends, college friends, work friends, family friends. at what cost do we classify these people in our lives and what happens when people mix?

i may be using the incorrect word here. maybe i’m thinking about “labeling” our friends instead of classifying them. like our best friend. how does one earn that label “best friend”? and is there a “worst friend”? how do you earn (or give to someone) this “label”?

this ties in to the notion of “levels” of friends. if someone (or some people) are not your “best friend(s)”, then are they just “friends”? is there some sort of level or criteria that is somehow reached or fulfilled to be “best”? are there people who you might call a friend, but are at a level “lower” than “friend”?

it’s tough to answer any of these questions really, because it really makes you take a look at yourself both how you see you and how you are reflected in the friends that you have. i am a believer in the saying that “you are your friends,” and i think it takes a lot of observation and reflection to look at the people you consider friends and see that part of “you” in them. in contrast, maybe that is why we lose touch and stop being friends with people: maybe we grow or change and we no longer see that part that we “are” in that person anymore.

friendship is one of those concepts that people have struggled to understand and has been deeply philosophically examined through the centuries. i don’t think we’ll ever have a true definition of friendship and i think the struggle of who is and who is not a friend is part of discovering the meaning of life. so, while the modern dictionaries may call upon a group of people to agree on a meaning for the word “friend” (that’s typically how definitions are put in dictionaries if you didn’t know), the words of Aristotle have always been the closest definition for me:

what is a friend? a single soul dwelling in two bodies

thank you to all my friends!

-m

My dad gave me a paper with that definition on it when i was like 10. i’ve believed in it ever since. thanks pop!

-m

iris and i went to washington d.c. for the cherry blossom festival a few weeks ago… we toured the capital like most tourists, but we’ve been there a few times already, so we were really just catching up on stuff we hadn’t seen yet… there was a bit of a moment i had where, when we were walking thru the Roosevelt memorial, i said to myself: i wonder why we haven’t had presidents like these, who had convictions like these, in a long while?

unfortunately it doesn’t look like 2008 will bring us one, no matter who wins =/

i’ve finally gotten around to building a new computer… i was telling pip today that it’s been almost a decade since the last time i actually put one together myself. the reality of it is, building a computer hasn’t changed much really, but the amount of options that are out there is crazy… there are too many socket types and chipsets and ram types to keep track of nowadays, but a good guide like the ones that are published at ars technica can help… i used the hot rod guide, but with a few modifications to save on the final cost… it’s such a joy, i can’t believe how much fun i’m actually having building it! the sucky part is having to clean the desk to make room for the new comp, AND to back up my old data (most of which i probably will not even bother to use, so i’ll end up deleting anyway)…

finally, the second half of thrice’s the alchemy index came out this week, and i am enjoying it very much. the second half encompasses the elements air and earth. i still think that the first half, the fire and water albums, are a bit stronger, but as a whole the entire set is magnificent. in this set i have been enjoying the earth disc more, but air has some great tracks as well. their lyrics are very profound and i love how the last song is kind of macabre, yet hopeful and simulates someone (or something) being buried. if you listen to their entire discography, you can see their evolution as artists and it’s amazing. go check them out!

so that’s all for now really… pip and i are trying to work out a new schedule and format for 8bit Ideas, and we have a new logo in the works which is being designed by a great friend of mine at seeing spots. please check out their work!

-m

8bit Ideas

-m

i suppose we all ask ourselves that each year, don’t we? it seems like each year gets shorter and shorter, tho’ in reality time isn’t getting faster, i think it’s our lives. i remember when i was younger, a year seemed like an eternity… how many months of school did we have to sit thru?? and didn’t summer feel like it wouldn’t end??

it’s strange to think that the one thing that seems in flux, time, is the one thing that’s actually constant… which means, it’s actually us that is in flux. what is it about us that causes us to flux, especially the older we get??

actually, i think it’s going to be some sort of bell curve of flux for our lives… we start off as slow, and somewhere in our ‘middle years’ things happen in a blink of an eye, then we start to slow down again… guess we’ll see if i’m right in about 50 years, eh??

i’m not sure if i really have much to say about 2k7… i think i had more work to do at work than ever, but i also think i had more play to play also. i mean, work was tumultuous with all of the shakeups in the company… and it’s been my biggest challenge in my career to date. at the same time, i think i’ve been able to see more clearly where my strengths and weaknesses are, and where i want to get better. i’ve definitely had to step up to more responsibilities, and i think i’ve done an ok job at it. can do better next year i believe.

iris and i got to travel a whole bunch this year, which was fun. 2 trips to napa, yosemite, an east coast trip, seattle, and vegas like usual. lots of fun, food, drinks, and friends. i can’t wait to see what’s in store for next year. who wants to come play?

lessee… 1/4 on my new year’s resolutions from last year. oh well, tack them on to 2k8’s list.

finally got a new car, and yet i still miss the teg sometimes.

after all that, sometimes i feel like i’m still searching for something. i just don’t know what yet. maybe 2008 will bring more clarity?

in any case, i want to wish the best 2008 to everyone. i hope everyone’s year doesn’t fly by!

-m

i miss you. all of you.

there are many of you who i see very often, and there are those of you that i see every once in a blue moon. but for anyone i consider a friend, and who i hope considers me a friend, i want you to know that i miss you.

life has been so crazy for all of us… has anyone but i wondered how it got this way? what happened to our weekends? when did we stop being able to call each other on thursday or friday and know that we could still squeeze some time to hang out? when did life start requiring us to plan 3 or 4 weekends in advance? or is it just me (and iris) that have to do that nowadays?

i look thru pictures of us and our good times, and i miss them. i wax nostalgic on memories of not-so-distant pasts, cling onto the smiles and frowns, laughter and tears, triumph and heartache that we experienced. and yet, with each day that passes without a renewal or reminder of those times, the harder and harder it gets to recreate them in my head and in my heart.

so to you my friends i say this: let’s not let these moments pass and fade away. i know i’m guilty of not being a good friend sometimes, but please know that i still think about you, even if i hardly ever drop an email or im or even a facebook/myspace/social network message to you. and i hope to work on it, so don’t count me out just yet.

please say hello and tell me you got my letter. then maybe we can take some time to hang out, catch up, and create some new memories, even if but for a few minutes or a few hours. i think we all deserve time with friends.

always,

-m

we did a lot of cool thing out there… one of the highlights for me was definitely checking out the experience music project & science fiction museum… the exhibits were awesome! and being that jimi hendrix was originally from seattle, they were showing clips from various performances in their theater… his rendition of the star spangled banner from woodstock still gives me chills…

another awesome place is the museum of glass, where we spent almost 2 hours watching the glass artists make some cool pieces…

and of course, pike street market and the ferries were kick-ass!

i think seattle is one of the few places where iris and i actually came home and said “you know, moving here for a year or two wouldn’t be so bad…” the weather, of course, is nothing to home, but we both just loved the feel of the city… for me, it really does seem like a place where the technical and cultural seem to meld, which is fantastic! at almost every corner you’ll find a shop (like a coffee shop) that has free wi-fi access. music and art play big roles in people’s daily lives. it’s really cool. and the cofee is like no other.

i like to go back again, but i’m not sure how many sights we left hanging… so, i don’t know when i’ll be back, but i hope it will be soon so i can taste that chocolate-y goodness of the small coffee houses and the fresh washington air.

-m

had a bbq on saturday… the weather was perfect, the food was excellent, and friends and family came to eat!! we did the usual faire: carne/pollo asada, ceviche, etc… unfortunately there was no beer, but it still made for excellent gathering!

on sunday iris took me to the griffith observatory, which was perfect for a geek like me!! the planetarium show is really great, go check it out!! i’m hoping we’ll go back soon to catch the stars at nite. she then took me to dodgers stadium, where i was bombarded in the stands th shirts that spelled ‘happy bdysmrka’… that confused the heck out of me, and it wasn’t until i saw kenny that it was my cousins being their laughable selves and surprising me for my birthday! that was so much fun, despite the dodgers losing…

on monday (the actual day of birth), my dad decided that he would take iris and i out to dinner with all the ‘adults’, which essentially meant aunts and uncles… lucille’s of course! i still don’t know to this day how me, gold, fry, and bean could ever have eaten one of those backyard bbq feasts… it was a great time with the aunts and uncles, and i love them dearly, so it was a nice, mlellow way to end the celebrations…

the best part of it all: iris bought us a Wii for my birthday! how cool is that?!

i definitely have awesome people in my life.

-m