Discovery

I would like to preface this post with the declaration that L&L's Hawaiian Barbeque sucks. It was probably because of a bad menu order, but first impressions stick. Screw informed opinions, a first bad experience is one too many. It will be the last time I ever go there for lunch.

For my first real day on the job, I got the chance to explore my charge's home. Houses can tell you a lot about the person who lives there. This was how I figured out that my charge, Noah, is an Axis child -- German father and Japanese mother. No wonder he looked slightly Asian.

Speaking of Asian, I visited a game shop in the area aptly named "Game Shop." The place was a total dive, a real rinky-dink operation if I've ever seen one. Such places could often be a treasure trove for used games, and lo and behold, I found a copy of Onimusha 2. I brought it to the front, but the Thai storekeeper was unable to find the disc. As he turned around to looked through a box of CDs, I was victim to the view of his asscrack.

Seriously, pull your damn pants up.

It wasn't too great of a day, I could've done without the bad food, missing games, and unwanted imagery.

Office Politics

This is purely an issue of politics -- office politics.

This kind of nonsense wasn't part of the job description. Now I find myself asked to navigate some fairly treacherous terrain, land laden with hidden mines where things may just blow up at any moment. I am, and will always be, an impartial observer. My inclination is always to see things from both sides, but for this case, I lean towards minority opinion. The ability of the minority to invite such an overwhelming majority to the contrary displays a skewed ratio of cause and effect. From one small ripple, a tsunami arises, and in that giant wave of water, all sense is washed away.

It is Week 4, and problems seem to spring forth from every crack in this organization. At our Tuesday meeting, after a jolly ol' round of office updates, the president revealed a troubling organizational issue. It has come up before, in a previous meeting, the issue of Club Outreach and Communication. This issue almost reduced the president to tears. The problem is either personal or logistical in nature, but when you're frustrated, it might be hard to tell the two apart. Because I know that I don't have all sides of this story, I'm not backing any horse just yet. I don't like to speculate on the particulars of things I know not about, so I will never declare anything I say as the absolute truth. I can only talk about the things that I have seen and heard for myself. Unlike most people, who spend inordinate amounts of time yapping, I never say anything. The problem with talking is that you don't listen while you flap your lips. The only thing you hear is the sound of your own voice.

So what is the problem here? I'm still not sure that I completely understand, but I'm picking up pieces here and there. Apparently, there's some interoffice feuding. The President's Office and Student Services aren't properly communicating with each other. The veracity of this statement is up for debate, and perhaps owing to my unfamiliarity with most of the people in the office (this is my first year), I can't sense it. I've heard stories to the contrary, but I wonder whether or not such stories are being painted with prejudice. There are many explanations for a rude or curt response from a comrade, and it does no one any favors to assume why without putting in the effort to actually find out why.

The fundamental attribution error describes the phenomenon in which we ignore any possible external factors and simply blame the person's behavior as a part of their personality. After being brushed off by someone, we could either assume "he's a jerk," or "he must be having a bad day." We can never know for sure unless we ask.

Any evidence that supports interoffice feuding is entirely secondhand to me. I heard of the case in which one commissioner went to Ben with an idea that was curtly rejected. It could be erroneous to attribute that curtness to the conflict of Club Outreach and Communication. It could simply be a case of personality, rather than any lingering side effect of Student Services vs. Office of the President. I can't comment on curtness, possible rudeness, back talk, or bristling in the presence of the "enemy." Another piece of this interoffice feuding was a story relayed by the president herself, to all the commissions, that "half of Student Services hates me." I haven't heard any such talk (then again, I don't hang out with the Student Services interns) around the office. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just saying I haven't experienced it for myself. Joy and Mareesha also told me that they had experienced some frigidity at Starbucks, where they greeted some Student Services people but were then promptly ignored. Borna, who said he was friends with all the Student Services people, also sees tension.

Even with all these people claiming that there was tension, all of them came from the President's Office. I haven't spoken with anyone from Student Services, but my biggest question is, did they feel the tension too? Does tension exist if only one side feels it? Perhaps I'm being too short-sighted here. Perhaps my peers were able to understand that any seed of tension will quickly grow and escalate into full-blown war, and that they had to take dramatic measures to stem such an event from happening. That would explain why a curt demeanor could suddenly transform into outright hatred, but a leap of logic is required to reach that conclusion.

From the office of the President's side, it sounds like conflict over Club Outreach translated into organizational discord, a sort poisoning of the well. Frustrated and angry, the executives said nasty things about the other office to their subordinates. These nasty things create fictional ulterior motives. Now the Office of the President wants an athletics commission, they want to take over Student Service's job of Club Outreach, and now rumors have spread, and these rumors have changed the interaction between the two offices. I wonder now, who is truly victimized?

If the Student Services people altered their behavior towards members of the President's office because of rumors, then certainly the onus would be on them. Alternatively, the president's story to the commission convinced all of us that Student Services is talking behind our backs, and this news altered our behavior. The question is, who is ignoring who?

This is just my hypothesis, but if I spoke with any of the Student Services people, I predict I will receive stories similar to the those I heard from my co-commissioners. In another scenario, they might not have noticed any tension at all, and it was all imagined on our end.

This is a real-life case of Rashomon, a story fraught with multiple perspectives and contradictions. Is there an objective truth in this web of deception?

Too bad I'll never find out.

Prey

The announcement of Prey 2 spurred me on to beat the original, an intriguing sci-fi shooter with portals before Portal made portals cool.

You play as Tommy, a Native-American who gets sucked up in a giant spaceship called the Sphere. The entire adventure revolves around his quest to save his girlfriend while navigating the Sphere's treacherous interior, filled with portals and gravity-defying catwalks. In the process, Tommy unlocks his heritage and gains access to his spirit form, which is necessary to solve basic navigation puzzles.

The game looks great with a dark, twisted, and fleshy interior. The lighting is moody and the monster design nightmarish. Unfortunately, the game ascribes to the template of corridor shooter, where the best tactic is classical strafe and fire. Enemy AI and level design aren't sophisticated enough to support the flanking style of gameplay Halo is known for. It boils down to point and shoot.

On the bright side, the game's armory is unique enough to make the task of shooting aliens fun. Pistols with secondary sniper function, bug bombs, and leech blasters are just some of the fantastic alien weaponry you'll get to wield.

The real star of Prey is the level design. The use of portals, perspective shifts, and reverse gravity makes the game unpredictable. Combined with the spirit form gameplay, simply walking through the ship is like solving one giant puzzle.

Prey's journey is fairly lengthy, easily running over ten hours, but the narrative is gripping enough to urge you on when times are tough. The game is a throwback to classic fps with a modern twist; a true bridge between old and new school.

Feel So Free

I'm a man of simple taste.

My needs are few and my wants even fewer. I am easily satisfied; so when I am asked about my long-term goals, it only follows that I give a simple answer:

Financial freedom.

What do I mean by this? I want the ability to do as I damn well please with my money without worrying about survival, without stress over loans, mortgages, or credit bills. All I want is gravy, no debt and pure profit.

It's nice to want things, but its a different story when it comes to actually achieving them.

How does one start a quest for financial freedom?

As with any quest, the first step is preparation. You have to stock up on inventory, armor up, and train before setting foot in the real world. The most important tool in this quest is money. It boggles my mind why people would take their most important tool and hide it, allowing it to languish in low-yield savings, or even worse -- doing nothing in a checking account. An offense even greater than inefficient utilization is the abuse of credit. You're taking your money and hammering it against objects you can't afford until your most important tool whittles away into nothingness.

Too much of our money's potential is squandered between debt and apathy. Granted, one cannot avoid operational costs since we need a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, and transportation to get us places, but one has to differentiate between needs and wants. The ability to do so will build up personal capital.

In the guide of sound financial advice, you will hear two things: cut back and save. It's a simple strategy that eludes too many of us, but it provides a steady path towards our goal of financial freedom.

I was never one for the tortoise.

I prefer to leap over obstacles to land in great positions without years of sweat and toil. It's a risky method of living, but the rewards are too great to ignore. If I'm going to go into debt, it will not be because of foolish purchasing habits, but because of risky investment behavior.

I have observed that nobody in my family has really dealt with investment opportunities either in the form of bonds or stocks. Maybe a CD here or there, but nothing that screams "Wall Street!" My brother-in-law is enamored with the prospect of real estate and believes that land is the key to wealth. I won't argue about the worth of homes and the gains from renting property, but I feel that land is still too much of a slow burner. Land requires development, development requires a lot of start-up and operational costs, and it could be decades before profit is realized.

An intellectual such as myself prefers to deal with the realm of ideas. Intellectual assets, not physical, are the real money makers this generation. Social networking, mobile devices, inter-connectivity, advances in communication technology is where the real action is at. Nothing will replace standard industry such as automobiles or basic home-keeping products, but their steady returns are dwarfed by emerging industries that never even existed years ago.

We can be tortoises or we can be hares. You can bet on the veteran and make a tidy sum, or you can put it all on the newcomer and win big.

Whichever path you take, your quest starts now.

Outliers

Everyone of us knows an outlier.

A special kind of person who seems to have everything in the world coming to them. A person who, through some exceptional means -- whether it be true talent, amazing luck, an affable personality, or a great support system -- enjoys life to the fullest. By the mere act of walking, all obstacles fold in awe of them as they waltz through the thicket of life. Friends nip at their heels, the only time you hear from them are when they post photos from foreign countries, and they shout status updates about car chases, shootouts, and explosions. They possess a worldly palate, having tasted delicacies from Africa to Asia, they have actually seen National Geographic scenery in real life, and they know how to find a good place to take a dump in five different languages.

All the while we sit in our homes and spectate their spectacular lives from afar. We ask ourselves:

"How do they do it?"

"What do they have that I don't?"

"Why are they off living the dream while I'm still stuck here dreaming?"

We can't even console ourselves with the thought that we may one day pass them because deep down inside, we know they'll always be above us, and we will be trying to catch up for as long as they live. Despite our envy and resentment, the moment we meet them, we are reminded of why this person is so much better than us.

So what do we do?

Be happy for these outliers?

Ignore them to maintain the integrity of averages?

Acknowledge their skewed life?

I can't speak for anybody else, but I can only take solace in the old adage that one man's garbage is another man's treasure.

Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam

Considering my heritage, I could've welcomed this addition to Bad Company 2, but I've held out on getting it for the longest time. Now that I've played it, my decision was justified.

It's not that Vietnam is particularly bad, it's just awkwardly skewed in a few different places. The maps are suspiciously flat, which reduces the role of Recons a great deal (my de facto class). Certain maps seem to favor one team over the other, leading to an imbalanced game. The terrain just isn't very interesting to navigate and there aren't enough guns. The limited weapon selection reduces encounter variety and makes everything repetitious.

Pass over this expansion, it's not worth it.

Discernible Taste

Food disappoints me easily.

I don't have a sophisticated palate. My food vocabulary is limited since I only use three adjectives to describe taste: bad, alright, and good. Anything else would be overkill.

So it's hard for me to grasp the concept of food so good it's a revelation. Whenever anybody recommends a "great" restaurant to me, I take it with a grain of salt. The number of times I've walked out of a recommended joint feeling ambivalent is too many.

Do I have faulty taste buds or unrealistically high standards?

Maybe delicious cuisine is just that rare.

Speechless

Work is work.

The only days that stand out are the first few, when things are still fresh and novel. After that, the days begin to blur. We fall into the steady rhythm of work, gaining such familiarity with our tasks that what was once challenging is now an old hat.

The first few days are always the most memorable, but nothing could've prepared me for the hideous scene waiting for me at work. The only word that can describe such a miserable state of affairs is...

...tragic.

The gaming set up that I had to work with was an insult to me, my hobby, and my job. There was an impressive stack of games next to the 360, except that some of them were obviously pirated and therefore unplayable on an unmodded console. Every unwired controller from Wiimote to 360 pad had dead batteries; 360 games were stuck in the PS2; composite cables were connected to an HDTV; and PC games were bought as console games.

It is up to me to remedy this situation with my expertise.

I sure got my work cut out for me.

Tutoring

I'm a slacker and a scrambler.

The former causes the latter. I have a bad habit of putting things off. I'm not special in that regard, but its a habit that always puts me in an awkward situation.

I got myself a tutoring gig at GradePotential, a sort of third-party liaison that connects tutors with prospective students in need of proper tutelage. Most people don't need tutors for English (even though they do), so I was called upon for my "expertise" in economics.

I was to meet my student on a Saturday morning and since economics isn't really my area of expertise, I was going to do a little studying so that I could do a little teaching. I planned to research the subject during the week, but I put it off until Friday.

I planned to do it right after work, but I put it off until night.

I planned to do it right after dinner, but my older brother started watching a pretty interesting Korean drama called "My Princess," so I decided to put it off after a couple episodes.

I tried accessing the online textbook but server maintenance from 12:00AM-4:00AM forced me to put it off until after a couple hours of sleep.

Since my meeting was at 10:00AM, I wanted at least a couple hours to study, so I set my alarm at 7:30.

Of course, since I went to bed at 3:00 in the morning, 7:30 was probably too optimistic.

So began a long course of nodding on and off at ten-minute intervals for an hour. I finally got up and read the two chapters I was supposed to review with my student.

Feeling confident that I had grasped enough of the material to wing my way through it, I drove off to UCI to do some tutoring.

As soon as I reached the school, my student calls me and says that an emergency has come up and that the meeting is canceled.

Did I just get bailed out, or did she?

I was going to come in and tutor her with one hour's worth of reading, an extreme disservice in my opinion. But she cancels a meeting and makes me waste 25 miles of gas, hours of sleep, and some piece of mind.

How many times have I scrambled only to have tests pushed back or deadlines extended?

Too many to count, and truthfully, this is the kind of shit that enables me to continue slacking and scrambling.

Pay Day

There's something about getting a wad of cash that threatens one's frugality.

The penny-pinching proclivity begins to waver in the face of potential purchasing possibilities. With all this money, I can actually buy stuff now! I can afford products and services that I couldn't enjoy before because of the lack of purchasing power that I now possess!

It is this same principle that has gotten many a credit holder carried away. Resist the temptation to spend hard-earned cash on nonsense. I suppose its because we spend the bulk of our early life not earning anything that the moment we do, we give ourselves the privilege to spend without consequence, and since we're all piggybacking off of our parents anyways, we are free to rack up debts without compromising our living situation.

Don't buy yourself into an unsavory statistical category and exercise a little restraint.

But everybody loves a payday, so why not celebrate?

How To Get A Job After Graduating

The goal of getting a job always looms over any fresh college graduate. It's an enterprise rife with disappointment and self-deprecating revelations. It makes us wonder:

"Will I ever get out of this hole?"

You have to do things in order to do things. Once you start an action, it makes all subsequent actions a lot easier to stomach. It's like pushing a boulder down a hill. The hardest part is getting it to move in the first place. Unless your name is Chris Redfield, punching boulders don't come natural.

For the rest of us, we need help. It could be through friends, family, a mentor, connections, a network, or just plain luck. As with most things, it's an amalgam of factors, not one, that gets us what we need.

So begins a new job for me that I got through my brother-in-law.

The first time I met my boss, Arthur, was like any other meeting with a slightly deaf seventy-year old. It was too early to be patronized so loudly. He had rough hands, a rigid posture, and one tone of speech: commanding. His interrogatives might as well be imperatives.

My job was simple: look after his 33 year-old handicapped son.

Before you fret, it's not a physical disability, but a mental one. He has a severe case of "I can't remember what I ate for breakfast" syndrome, or short-term retrograde amnesia. It's almost Memento status, but he still has the ability to make new memories -- it just takes awhile.

Arthur went on to explain the job duties, detailing all of his son's quirks and ways to deal with him. From the sound of it, Noah sounded like a micromanagement nightmare.

When I first met my charge, Noah, he greeted me as if we were old friends. I hypothesized that the nature of his condition necessitated a friendly demeanor to any and everyone since he'd never know if they'd actually met before...that, or he was just being friendly. He's a big guy, towering over me by at least a head and a half, with Asiatic features.

For all of Arthur's build up, Noah was surprisingly friendly and easy to look after. Arthur told me of his son's excellent NBA 2K skills since he plays a lot of sports games. His double digit blowout loss, courtesy of me, said otherwise. I played the Lakers against his Rockets and owned him easily.

He forgot it ever happened. If it was me, I wouldn't want to remember either.

I'll give the job a shot.

Rio

You know the influence of games is powerful when everybody associates Rio de Janeiro with Call of Duty. Dudes with guns running in the favela does not a Call of Duty reference make.

It's hard to discard mental associations though. Rio de Janeiro will forever be linked to memories of multiplayer slaughter.

And maybe Fast Five.

Fast Five

Simplicity is underrated.

When things are simple, it's hard to screw up. This is the principle behind Fast Five.

It's not a terribly complex story, but it works in the movie's favor. It's about fast cars and explosions, character depth is unnecessary by design, so try to ignore the forced relationships, shallow characterization, and empty dialogue. You'll enjoy the movie a lot more that way.

I enjoyed the movie, even though it still suffers from frenetic Hollywood shaky cam syndrome. If it weren't for the nonsensical "gritty" screen shaking, one could actually appreciate the complexity and composition of the stunts. Alas, the world of action movies is forever tainted by the Bourne Supremacy.

Curse you Paul Greengrass.