Phone test

This is my first post using phone. And in fact, it's my first post I've written from my bed. I'm doing this as an exercise to get used to The touch screen, but also because I can't sleep. Speaking of touch screens, I've found that the qwerty keyboard is still a little uncomfortable for me, and thus, I'm using the good old T9 phone pad to write this. There's something about writing with two thumbs on a keyboard that I still can't get used to. But I guess practice makes perfect.

So here's a paragraph using qwerty. I'm so much slower on this thing already. I can't help but to be annoyed at how close the period is.to.the spacebar. I constantly hit the period button. The auto correct is nice, and I've found that you have.to.just keep typing and to just.trust that the machine will.save.you from making stupid mistakes.  So.many periods though.

Okay, so enough testing. Stupid period.

Brahm's phone, lyric, and meal

Went to the Brahm concert on Friday with my mom. It was good! We finally decided to sit somewhere other than the back, but ironically, we were so close that it was difficult to see the orchestra.  But we had a perfect shot of the conductor and violin soloist.  I failed to take any good pictures, but this'll give you an idea of where we were:

I could hear the bow slide freely across the strings, sometimes roughly, other times smoothly. And damn, that soloist was good in Second Symphony in D major (though I didn't enjoy his beer belly).  Best of all was the conductor, who was a mere 30 yrs old.  He's a European who did his thing back home, and began conducting on the world stage at 24.  Not only was he young, but you could feel his vitality in his conducting.  He was literally jumping around and swinging his arms fiercely across his body.  And best of all, he was having so much fun, like a youthful little boy.  He was so good he made headlines for his Smetana's Overture for Bartered Bride (so fun! - Imagine the young conductor moving his feet like a little leprechaun to this!).

I also gave in and finally ordered my HTC Thunderbolt.  I won't go into all my phone karma, but I've found it extremely difficult as a youth leader to do SGI activities without a good phone.  Constantly on the go and scheduling meetings here and there.  I should have done this a long time ago but I had determined to make it a present to myself for securing a job.  Instead, I'm going to use this for the sake of activities, and for those activities as my sincere contribution to kosenrufu.

Oh, and I've been addicted to Ada Limon ever since Heain informed me of her. I am NOT a fan of love poetry, with its its unnecessary romantic flairs, depressing endings and emotional implosions, but damn, she pulls this one off pretty well:

Maybe my limbs are made

mostly for decoration,

like the way I feel about

persimmons. You can’t

really eat them. Or you

wouldn’t want to. If you grab

the soft skin with your fist

it somehow feels funny,

like you’ve been here

before and uncomfortable,

too, like you’d rather

squish it between your teeth

impatiently, before spitting

the soft parts back up

to linger on the tongue like

burnt sugar or guilt.

For starters, it was all

an accident, you cut

the right branch

and a sort of light

woke up underneath,

and the inedible fruit

grew dark and needy.

Think crucial hanging.

Think crayon orange.

There is one low, leaning

heart-shaped globe left

and dearest, can you

tell, I am trying

to love you less.

I'll leave you with my go-to meal:

baltimore canon, cheesecake, tumblr & nokia

Let me first apologize for how poorly written this post will be. I'm a little tired and still have a few hours more to go to finish some assignments, but I felt compelled for whatever reason to blog tonight. So here it goes.

Yesterday, my mom and I went to a low key concert.  My mom tutors a 10-year old and 7-year old kid in Japanese, and both of them are violinists.  Actually, their mom is too.  The 10-year old, Ryu-kun, travels to New York every weekend to receive lessons from someone who teaches Juliard (though Ryu kun still isnt able to get into a special Juliard program for his age group). The short of it is - he is amazing.  I wish I could show you his solo performance ... some of the older professional violinists had their jaws hanging.

The group that their family is a part of is called the "Baltimore Canon," and its a kind of orchestra that plays for the community from time to time. It's composed of some professionals and other amateurs, nearly all of them japanese, but they're all darn good.  They play for free around Baltimore and DC.  We attended a DC one yesterday, but the one clip from below is from Baltimore (they played Rhapsody in Blue at the one yesterday as well):

The low keyness of it was great!  I'm attending some concerts throughout this semester with my mom at the Meyerhoff in Baltimore, but this was even better. Not only was it free, but everybody was very friendly and welcoming.

Today, at work, a young engineer came in to get some advice from our attorneys.  I was assigned to work with them, and at the engineer's request, she took us out to dinner at the cheesecake factory in the inner harbor. That made me realize how close we were to the harbor - just two blocks. I don't know where I am going with this, except to say that I'm enjoying my job even more, especially when people take you out to eat! (See previous post, "I can get used to this."). It also made me think of Irvine, during my SUA days!!

Sooo - tumblr. I checked out a friend's tumblr, and, wow. I didn't know that tumblr integrated so many cool things. I don't know if its flash or simple CSS or what, but these websites just make it fun to read. I particularly like these floating posts, where a series of posts are sort of floating in an organized fashion. Some are bigger than others, but they all have pictures to make it sort of look like a collage. Since I've convinced myself that I no longer make sense, I will stop trying to explain my attraction to tumblr...

I'll end by telling everyone again that my replacement Nokia, which I've had for... maybe a month or two (?) has died once again. It's not even a battery problem, Nokia's just plain suck. I can technically get a new phone with a 100 dollar discount with Verizon, but I'm waiting for the new LTE phones to come... they're freaking hot. You all might know that I'm a phone fiend, and I even check sites like www.phonescoop.com.  The HTC thunderbolt and LG Revolution will probably come out near the end of February, so I'm holding out til then.

footnote

I switched to chrome. It's beyond fast, but it's missing a few things. For example, why can't I make my bookmarks "bar" into an icon? The extra line is unnecessary. Also, why isn't there an easy accessible zoom button? Com'mon google, let's keep pace.

I've also been MIA for a few days because I had to finish a brief with my moot court teammates. The content is good, but as always, we gave ourselves a heart-attack by submitting it 4-min before its due. We were also forced to priority-overnight ship the physical bound copies. The school better reimburse. 

Because our schedules didn't match, my team and I collaborated over google docs, which is the absolutely amazing.  I always knew hat you could collaborate real-time, but actually doing it is an entirely different story. With that being said, when we copied our text from google docs to WORD, there were a few things that didn't translate over (if any of you care - if you save the google document as a pdf or doc instead of copying into Adobe Acrobat or Word, it will indeed transfer all data correctly). The most heartbreaking thing was that, in our rush to submit our brief, we didn't realize that my footnote didn't transfer over.

I can't explain to you how disappointed I am about my footnote. I will not be humble. It was an amazing footnote. It was well-research, well-cited, well-written and discussed a controversial issue of individual constitutional rights. I even cited a case in which Nike was involved. I know you all think I'm going crazy, but this footnote was the work of a saint, and it was my baby.  I will never live this up. 

携帯

My phone has completely died. I have decided that I will never buy a NOKIA again, along with Motorolas (dont' 'hello moto' me!). In any case, I went to Verizon and they're at least sending me a replacement of my old flip by tomorrow via overnight shipping.

But my 'new every two' (the policy that you can get a $100 discount on a new phone every 2 years) ends on December 4, so I am actually in the market for a new phone altogether. I don't have a data plan mostly because my family doesn't need it, but I am thinking of flipping the bill for the data.

Aside from the data plan, which I think I may go foward with, the real question is what phone? Now, I'm sure Julie will kill me for saying this, but maybe the iPhone 4, which is coming out on Verizon around Christmas/New Years....? I can't stand apple products in general, but as I've explained before, two of their product lines are undeniably the best in the market - the iPOD and the iPhone (I severely dislike iTunes, the iPad, and anything Mac related). I wasn't convinced  of their quality until recently. The new iPOD nanos have a clip... which is pretty damn simple but awesome nonetheless. And the iPhones HD video recording and video calling is just is pretty amazing (which is meaningless without a 4g wireless connection, which Verizon is rolling out right now with their 700Mhz LTE spectrum). The form factor is a lot more appealing on the 4. Finally, the touch screen on the iPhones are just amazing; I remember trying out the iPhone's touch screen on Cliff's in Japan and... wow. So in conclusion, I have to admit that the iPhone is too enticing not to consider (btw, I also changed to gmail recently from hotmail. I gave you a chance microsoft, but you failed me).

Anyway, now that I'm consideirng some iProducts, someone answer these questions for me!:
1. What the heck is the difference between a iPod Touch (which now has video calling and acts like a phone) and the iPhone??!
2. How many MBs should I have per month in a data plan? How much do people use usually?

By the way, i was researching some stuff on Verizon Wireless's website, and I found this picture on the GPS page:

If you can't tell, that's SUA.

eepad

I will promote the ASUS eepad. To all naysayers, let me just say this: It comes with Windows 7, something that most (all?) tablet PCs lack. The fact that you can touch screen W7 instead of using crude tabletPC OSs is pretty big for me. That means you can do all the same things you're doing on your computer right now with a tablet PC. And, like some tablets, you can dock the eepad into a laptop style keyboard or into a desktop-like docking station with a wireless keyboard.



Lemme say a word about laptops. While great for the mobile person, many people (students) still stay at their desks for prolonged periods of time. And, the way that laptops are made are not good for your body. Refer to the points of the hellish pain below:

One way to avoid these radiating red dots is to get a desktop. Desktops have their monitors and keyboards seperate, which allows you to set the height of the monitor to eye level, and to set the keyboard at elbow height. So, I think I would end up getting both the laptop and desktop docking station - one for the road and the other as a permanent dock at home when I'm in my chair for endless kalpas.

For all those people who have problems even with a desktop - well, that's just bad posture. Refer to the dicrepid men below.