Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope everyone's day is going well. With so many reasons to be joyful, there shouldn't be a reason why no one is having a bad day.

Anyway, happy birthday to Jesus too!

The Real Christian...Please Stand Up

This was written by my friend and it resonates strong with me. This too bugs me about Christians who call themselves Christians but don't act like it. Same with someone who would call themselves a basketabll player and doesn't even play the game.

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Kinda of tired of everyone calling themselves a christian, yet not really being Christ-like. Just wrote down my thoughts I was feeling at 11pm.


Would the real Christian....Please stand up. not the Sunday Christian, not the Jesus is my homeboy Christian, not the Christian who thinks God is fine with all their sin Christian. I'm talking about the Sold out Christian who live a life of Purity, Holiness, and Righteousness. A Christian who deny their flesh daily, who picks up there cross and follow Jesus type of Christian. Not the closet Christian, the Humanist Christian, the Relativism Christian, but the Christian who READS and LIVES by the BIBLE type of Christian. The Christian who does the will of my father in Heaven. Not the homosexual Christian, not the Adulterous cheat on my Wife/Husband kind of Christian. I'm talking about the faithful to my vows type of Christian. The no sex before marriage kind of Christian. the Christian who repents and turns from there wicked ways Christian. Would the real Christian please Stand up. if that’s you please stand up.

This weekend was very busy. There was so much that went on and I don't even remember it at all.

I do know one thing, today is my girlfriend's birthday and so all weekend we have been celebrating it. Saturday, she wanted to get all our core friends together and watch Dumb & Dumber--one of the funniest movies of all time by the way. She got a good portion of gifts one being a Michael Jackson glove. There were a lot of gag gifts but she just likes to laugh so if it's funny, she doesn't care.

Sunday night she had a shindig with her some of her master's program classmates which she invited me to go to. It was actually really, really fun. For a group of master students, they were really funny. It was nice too as we got to think about the birth of Christ and meditate on that which I have actually never done. After that, we went to Mt. Soledad and watch the meteor shower--the clouds didn't help the situation but it was still nice. She had a great time doing that.

Tonight? I'm taking her to BJ's with a select few of other friends. It should be a great night. I think all the friends that are going are girls so it's just going to be one of those nights I don't really get to do anything except watch all of them have fun but I wanted to treat her to a pazookie (a large cookie with ice cream. So good). I already know this night is going to be fun.

It's amazing what sleep depravity does to you. There are a lot of details in my head but my lack of sleep is preventing me from going deep into descriptions. This is all I can offer. On that note, I am going to take a nap.

OST's at their Prime

Butterflies of excitement flutter around in my stomach when I listen to the Metroid Prime: Corruption soundtrack. There is a unique joy that comes from listening to this soundtrack and as I think about it more, all the Metroid Prime soundtracks do the same thing to me. I am never dissatisfied with these soundtracks.

Metroid Prime put a new age twist onto some of the series staple sounds; thumping drum effects on the original Metroid theme mixing it with strange cackling noises and eerie pitches; the Space Pirate theme with its warped synths to punch its theme home; and of course, the battle with Metroid Prime--powerful rhythms in keeping with the over-spacey aesthetic and long notations.



Metroid Prime: Echoes was a drastic turn on the original direction from Metroid Prime. It reflected the games atmosphere to a tee however and though most people would not consider its ambient tracks music, what it was supposed to do--set the mood--it did with perfection. From the memorable tunes like Torvus Bog which continued the ambient movement of Echoes to the best rehash of the Escape Theme, I believe, Kenji Yamamoto kept true to his style while providing what the game needed.



Then there's the world of Corruption. Yamamoto took what he learned from both of these games and combined them into, what I think is the most complete compilations in the Prime series. A blend of ambient like in Echoes, punchy rhythms like in Prime now became fused with the orchestral aesthetic in Corruption. The Defense Drone track, Bryyo and SkyTown all bring out some of the styles that Yamamoto implemented.

These soundtracks always wake me up when I'm at work. They are so pleasing to my ears! AHH! Good stuff. If you haven't really listened to these soundtracks, and you like video game music, then I would suggest nabbing these somewhere quickly. Your ears will not be disappointed.

Bye...?

My assistant quit today.

At work, my boss and my supervisor decided that I could use help from at least one more person. We decided to hire a friend I recommended who was interested in working doing camera work and such.

Four months later, she became jaded, selfish and unappreciative of the job because she felt like she was doing too much and not getting paid enough. Her job was a minimum wage job, working as a student assistant doing something most students wouldn't be doing. In fact, I was doing what she was doing, and more, before they hired me as staff.

What was so funny about her though process behind it was that she wants to be a producer or a director, if anything. The things she was doing, pre-production, post-production type of stuff, which is what I do too, was not in her "job description," which she doesn't have one anyway. She told me she was hired to do camera work--true. When I was hired, I was hired to video editing. The job required more. But pre-production and post-production is her world. I'm not even trying to get into Hollywood film or indie film. I just like doing trailers and promotional stuff, which is what I do. This is her world and she just through it all away because she wasn't getting paid enough.

I am upset because I put in quite some effort to get her the job and she just throws it away. What's worst, she never said thank you. I know you don't like the job and all but at least say thank you for looking out for you even though you didn't turn out to like it.

So my boss asked me if there were any other people that could replace her and I already had one in mind, just in case. Thankfully, he already knows what's up so any time he complains, I know it'll just because he wants excellence--not money.

I leave you with this picture. I saw this in the library and it was interesting how close all these green colors were. The colors are more in the background.

Arguably my craziest morning ever.

I haven't had a morning like this in a long time. This was easily one of my most ridiculous mornings. It might even make my top list because this is too memorable.

As you know, my car is in the shop. Well, I failed to remember this waking up in the morning. I woke up at 7 and while I was getting ready, the thought came to my head "Oh shoot. I have to walk to the trolley." At about 7:15, I make my way out of the house.

Walking down the street, I had another realization; my roommate Juan told me a while back that the trolley ticket boxes don't take card at our particular stop. Thankfully, I was still on my main street and a 7-11 was not far from there. I was just going to get cash back.

I walk into the 7-11 looking for something to get because it makes it easier on the cashier when you buy something to get cash back. I grab a Snickers, walk towards the register and on it I see a piece of paper with hand writing "No credit card." I've seen that before and it was only on one register like it was then. So I place the Snickers on the counter and I notify the guy that I have debit and he responds that are not taking any cards. I freeze for a moment and I reply "I can't pay for it then." I say "thank you" and walk off outside.

I have two options at this point. There is another 7-11 about 5-10 minutes up the street going away from the trolley. There is also a Starbucks 5-10 minutes up the street going towards the trolley. The dilemma became the distance. I could walk to the 7-11, which I knew had a cash back system and walk even further or go to Starbucks which I wasn't sure had a cash back system. Normally, I would just walk to the 7-11 and be good but this time, I took my chances.

I walked to the Starbucks and started looking at the menu. I felt really stupid doing that. Who goes into a Starbucks nowadays and looks at the menu? I stood there for a long minute before I decided on what I was going to buy. I felt really stupid. I chose to get an Apple Fritter and as the lady rings it up and I pull out my card, I ask "do y'all do cash back?" She shakes her head and somewhat shocked, I hand her my card and pay for the Fritter.

A little disturbed by the fact that I don't still have cash, I'm close to the trolley and I make the decision to walk over to the stop and see if they accept cards now. I step to the ticket machine and start going through the steps to pay for my ticket. When that screen popped up, all but the card were valid forms of payment. Now, I could either all the way back to the other 7-11 or go to Wal-Mart. I choose to go to Wal-Mart. Neither are really that close.

On my way there, I came across this woman who looked at me very strange. She seemed to look like a crackhead but I wasn't completely sure. She asks me "you a faggot brotha?" I wasn't sure if she had said what she said and I look at her confused. I said "what?" and she replied "Where you from?" I replied "LA."

"What?" she shouted back. At this point, I realize that she's a hard of hearing crackhead. So I replied in a loud, but as collected as I could be, "Los Angeles." She says, "That's a shame. That's a shame." Now I know she said what she said and I reply "What?" in total confusion. She keeps repeating her last words. The pedestrian man lights up so I walk away.

I finally reach Wal-Mart and to my joy, they have an ATM. Of course it charged me money to pull out the $5 I needed for the trolley but I don't care at this point. It's already 7:45.

8:25 is when I exhaustingly get to work. Easily, one of my craziest, if not the craziest, mornings ever.

Better than expected

I knew it was supposed to rain today but I didn't know that I was going to have get up at 6:30 in the morning to moderately hard poring rain. But that's how my day kicked off.

I took my car in this morning to get the check that I wanted on Saturday and the rain was not helping the situation since being without a car only means one thing--walking. Yes, I know busses exist but in Mission Valley, where the Chrysler dealership is, I don't know the bus routes go to and where the bus stops are. The bus stops I have seen don't even have any overheads for rainy situations so it would make more sense for me to walk to the trolley in the rain than to wait for a bus where I don't even know where it's going and don't know when it's coming.

Thankfully, they had a shuttle I could use to get to work--free. Their customer service was surprisingly good and although it wasn't the cheapest bill, I'm glad to get the kinks out of my car before something ridiculous happens to it.

On my way to work in the shuttle, I met a man who was a twenty-five year, now retired, library aid who has a family of Shelton's. The driver had a niece who got accepted to San Diego State, was number one in her class and also got accepted to Stanford. Both people were good guys and the small talk made my morning ride to work more enjoyable.

In other news, my awesome girlfriend finally finishes another quarter of school and hopefully I get to see her tonight even if it's just briefly. I'm really excited about it.

Lakers Win and Car Trouble

Kobe had one of the greatest game winning shots in history last night. Two guys on you and you can still pull it from a little under 3 feet behind the ARC, just amazing.


Before all the riotous celebration however, my car started acting up on the road. The gauges on my car began shutting off in quick succession. They would shut for about a half a second and sometimes it would shut off over and over again quickly. To add to the madness, I was on the road when this was happening and my car began sputtering and almost shut off a few times. By the grace of God, the only time my car every completely shut off was when I was warming it up in the parking lot this morning.

Some months ago, this was happening to me but it wasn't to this degree at all. It usually happened when my car was really cold though and once it got warmed up, it was fine for the most part.

I took it in to the dealership today and they said they don't have electricians working on Saturday so I'd have to bring it in Monday. That's a bit of a pain since the bus routes are pretty lengthy to campus, I think. I actually haven't checked so I shouldn't even wonder but from the dealership to campus by bus, it isn't short. I'm probably going to need to take the trolley. Monday will be a long day for me. Perhaps I just go see my girl on her break if I can.

Almost but no cigar

After sorting through more than 500 files worth of footage, I can honestly say, I am not quite three-fourth's of the way done but I am more than half.

At this point, all the footage is where I need it to be. Now it's just a matter of putting the files in appropriate folders. Some of the shots are a little harder to qualify something as. For example, we have a lot of campus shots--just random shots of campus. It's hard to categorize them into my main folder "Campus Life" because nothing is going on. I realized, I'm probably going to have to make a folder for each section of campus that I take to make things easier as looking through 300 files of wel-named, random footage is still a hassle. That is what's keeping me from being three-fourth's of the way done.

Hopefully Monday I will have this thing finished. It's entirely possible since my assistant isn't coming in.

Time to reorganize!

Before taking my break which included getting blasted around in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and talking to my girl, I was sitting in my office doing one of the most tedious, but necessary, chores I have ever done--reorganizing all our digital film on our server and my computer.

I needed to add some shots to a video in a collage form and this always requires looking through a lot of footage. Our footage is so disorganized so my boss recommended that I organize the footage so looking for appropriate b-roll wouldn't be even more tedious than it already is.

Imagine you have a crap load of groceries. They are all in different bags and you know that they go into specific place but things have gotten to a point where you have to organize the groceries in your cupboards a little better. You want to make sure your canned foods stay with your canned foods, your boxed foods with your boxed, etc. Unfortunately, this may require you taking everything out of the cupboards and putting them back where they belong or putting then in a much spacier spot. Essentially, this is what I have to do on my computer with files on our hard drive and our server. To add to this, I also have to rename files which at this point, I am in the hundreds.

A small look at what I have to work through:


It was a lot worse before this and it's still bad.

I was complaining at first but I realized this project was going to take patience and they were never prepared to deal with a lot of footage from our own offices (a lot of times other people shoot for us--it's lengthy explanation). Once I settled down and understood that it was going to be a very long process, things were going smoother.

I am far from done but I'm hoping I can finish this today before I leave. If not, then hopefully three-fourths of it gets done today.

Oscar Mike

Not realizing I named my blog based off of military alphabet "Oscar Mike" (which means On the Move), I found this on Giantbomb.com which gave me my revelation of my blog name.


Image taken from Giantbomb.com

Support this cause if you truly love the kids.

This is something I have to get off my chest. I thought this was one of the most amazing conversations that I have had with a person and that I have watched.

First off, for context purposes, I help out with a Christian college campus group called Ignite Student Ministries. Our goal is to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and to help students graduate with the know-how to spread the gospel also. Our group has a table we rent from campus that we use to put ourselves out there and have conversations with people and such. We're not beating people with the bible but if people are interested, we definitely talk to them about it.

So, a Hari Krishna monk approaches our table and begins to make conversation about God and Jesus and certain things we believe in. In my mind, he's a Hari Krishna so I don't know what they know about the bible, if anything so it comes as surprise to me when he starts bringing up several key points and scripture about the bible. To be honest, I thought he was legit at first but something wasn't really adding up and I felt a little uneasy.

He quoted a scripture from Luke, I believe, which talks about if we want to be disciples of Jesus, we have to hate our mother and father. He also put other scriptures with it trying to bring up the point that we should denounce, deny and throw all things that do not have to do with God.

Wes, our campus minister and leader of our group, told him that's not what that meant and that in the original context and translations it meant to put other things before God but not that those other things are bad, they just shouldn't be before God. This did not sit well with the man so they began a discussion about this. Wes explained that watching a Laker game wasn't bad and that if he wanted to, he could watch Lakers all day for the rest of his life if he wanted and God would be okay with that. At that point, the Hare Krishna person cusssed at him and walked away. I found it funny how we wanted to denounce everything but cussing.

Later, Ricky and Charisse, two members from our group, were talking to him and I crept into the conversation. He apologized to me for the way he behaved (he didn't apologize to Wes...). I could read he was only doing it to make nice with me so I would agree with what he was saying--which I never did in the first place.

We talked what we left off talking about and later he asked me how could you tell if someone was a Christian. I told him the love of God would be apparent in their life--everything marked out in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7. Then he asks me if Christians, disciples of Jesus, were the only ones capable of love. I replied with a "yes" and he shook his head and walked away to talk to someone else about this. What I found funny and interesting was that he called himself a Christian so I don't know what he would be upset about in my statement.

I disturbs me when people only talk to people looking for other people to agree with them. It shows they don't understand why they believe what they believe. If a person has confidence in what they believe then no matter what someone says, they still believe it. The evidence of their success is proven in their life so they don't need someone else to prove anything for them. It's been proven in their personal life.

Don't try to convince someone of something. Let the person evidence be the proof and no one will be able to deny it.

Welcome!

Welcome to my 18th blog. Yep. You are apart of a milestone in my life. My 18th blog.

Not really.

This is probably my 11th blog. I usually have a problem with keeping blogs going. I had one on LiveJournal for four years and after I left that blog I started bouncing around everywhere. Hopefully, this is my new home. Hopefully.

Some of you know me from real life, others from Raging Nerds. Either way, this is where I post my life endeavors and such. Interesting and uninteresting. Choose what you want to read. I don't give a flip. :)

So, first endeavor of my life is that I would life to share is that I got a girlfriend about a week ago. God has been good to me and He's the only reason why I got this girl cause she did not like me. Then all of a sudden, "I like you." Random. But God is good and I'm happy.



That's my girl! Proud of her.

See y'all where and when I see y'all!