Ooh boy~ You're Hustlin' Me

Haven't updated my blog in awhile and my social network feeds are kind of dead so I might as well update my blog while I'm sitting.

I'm sort of at a loss for words so this might end up being a very short entry. This is (what I hope to be) my final year of undergrad. I have around 28 units left to take, I think. Then I can file for graduation and figure out what to do with my life from there.

After I got home from my jog one night (which was quite adventurous because I ran into a skunk and possum on the way home. YAY night crawlers!), I found my dad having fallen asleep on the couch with a cap on (weird...). I take off my sweaty clothes and go into my room to sit a bit and then I hear my brother giving up helping my mother, so naturally she goes to my door and asks me to come down. I told her that I'm taking off my contacts and next thing you know, I'm installing a faucet. After being hands on with things, you take a lot of free amenities/services (like public restrooms) for granted. I was half naked (I wasn't expecting to go under the sink so I was topless and still in my compression shorts) and on my back, crawling under the sink to twist things in and whatnot. Oh the strain on my short arms!! (LOL!) Eventually, I got the job done which gave my mother some relief because the other men in the house both share the same temper and personality (stubborn and self righteous).

This wasn't the first time I played handy man either. Our washing machine one day kept giving an error so I looked it up online and I got solutions I couldn't comprehend. So hours later, I had the genius idea of going on YouTube (so useful! and how can you not in this day and age?) and looked up something like "GE Whirlpool Washer won't drain" or something. I showed my mom and was like "we can do this ourselves" and she gives me some shit about the house having three men and they should be doing those things which left me dumbfounded because I always thought my mom was a feminist who believed that she doesn't need a man to do things men traditionally do. Sooo...I ended up taking matters into my own hands because that shit just pisses me off and it didn't look hard. Took out the screws which covered the bottom off the machine, opened the cap which lead to the drain pump and its filter, and found a chunk of fabric, some coins, and some crap which gave the error in the first place. After that, I was like "YOUR WELCOME." to my effin' mom's face and called it a night.

Go me!

So anyway, in another event, my psychotic neighbor one night couldn't sleep and blamed me for the "loud" music I play during my showers. Apparently, he doesn't know how to close his own window because I don't really need someone to dictate how I live in my own home. My own parents can sleep through my music WHICH COMES FROM MY FIRST EVER ANDROID PHONE. The volume on my Samsung Intercept isn't even on maximum volume either. The measure he took to get his point across was to knock on the front door and ring the doorbell at 3am but my brother ignored it because he didn't know what the fuck was going on and so that old man waited until I got out of the shower and pleaded from his window to mine. Talk about fucking creepy! I was fucking naked too! but whatever, it's been a week. I've lowered the volume of my phone by one bar and continued with my life. If continues to be an asshole about it, we'll see how it plays out. It's not the first time him or his psychotic wife has complained to us. If he doesn't like living next door, fucking move. I've lived in the same house since I was like 7. I'm not going anywhere soon. Ugh~ people are so selfish and inconsiderate. How stupid would it sound to call the police for a noise complaint when there's no party and the music is coming from a smartphone speaker? Yeah~ And if I ever get some like blackmail'ish threat about having some weird ass shit about me on video naked out of the shower, I'm sure there's a criminal offense for that...sooo...I don't really have a problem.

With idiots aside, I've built a new computer and I'm very pleased with it. I'm so glad I don't have to crawl under the table to change USB plugs anymore because the front USB ports of my old case died years ago. I was relying on the motherboard and a PCI card with 2 USB ports for the longest time. I also finally have USB 3.0 ports if I ever have anything that is compatible with that for faster file transfer times. Woohoo~!

Here's my case with my ghetto two tables put together which stations my desktop, pencils, phone, supplements, cosmetics, skincare, etc. I kind of dislike how the drive bays are placed so deeply into the case but I've grown to adjust to it. The DVD burner also gets caught into the USB cables sometimes so I have to watch out or it'd drag the wire into the drive.

Cooler Master Storm Scout SGC-2000-KKN1-GP No PS Mid Tower Case (Black)

This is the case from the side. There's actually a button to turn off the LEDs (which is what I do) and the fans included are so much more quieter than the ones on my previous build. It doesn't even sound like it's on. I can sleep soundly~

My specs are of the following...

• Gigabyte Intel Z77 LGA 1155 AMD CrossFireX/NVIDIA SLI Dual LAN Dual UEFI BIOS ATX Motherboard
• Intel Core i7-2700K Quad-Core Processor 3.5 GHz 8 MB Cache LGA 1155 (I was scared that an Ivy Bridge processor would give me compatibility problems with my motherboard so I opted for a Sandy Bridge one) 
• Cooler Master GX Series 650W ATX 12V V2.31 80 PLUS SLI Ready Power Supply
• EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti FPB 1024 MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 2DVI/Mini-HDMI SLI Ready Graphics Card (I just needed some cheap mid range video card. I don't play games... at all. What I really need is a long mini HDMI to HDMI cable so I can watch videos on my TV without having to move from my chair.)
• Corsair Vengeance 8 GB ( 2 x 4 GB ) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) 240-Pin DDR3 Memory (I might add another 8 gigs of RAM but I don't see or feel the need for it right now. Buying another 8 gigs would've put my desktop over budget anyway).
• SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 ST2000DL004 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (I'm also using the hard drive that didn't die from my last build as a slave drive on this one, so I was able to transfer my shows and music over YIPEE!!)
• ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner (I was considering a blu-ray burner but we don't even have a blu-ray player so I just got a new DVD burner because my other one was super wonky)

My build amounted to about $960 and was $160 over my budget of $800, but I thought it was okay since I felt that I jumbled enough things around to be able to have all the specs or things I wanted. I bought everything except for the hard drive and DVD burner from Amazon so I saved about $80+ in taxes and fees (so I sort of actually was still within budget). The last two I bought from newegg since they came in bare parts which made them cheaper. The hard drive was around 120$ for 2 terabytes and the DVD burner was $20 or so.

Here's my huge box from Amazon ^____^

I always seem to have trouble once I feel like I'm done building desktops. In early 2008, my desktop wouldn't turn off because I was stupid and didn't realize there was a plastic film covering the bottom or top of the processor so it wouldn't power on. This year, the processor didn't come with a plastic film but I went through maybe an hour of trouble shooting, making sure everything was tightly put in, and later realized one of the plugs was still empty. After hours of updating, I was also pondering why one of my fans wasn't spinning but the LED would light up. I thought it was like a temperature controlled fan but none of the reviews said that. I eventually found that there was one last plug in the back with a really short wire that needed to be fed with power so I had to drag a plug into the back and squished it amongst all the other tied wires. My computer is finally properly working now! I can process videos pretty fast now too! I can basically process a video based on how long it is. So if I make a 14 minute video, I can expect it to finish processing in around 20 minutes (opposed to 5 hours with my old core 2 duo build).

I've also officially moved away from XP and am now running Win7 (though Win8 is out for testing). Unlike previously when everyone was using those iPhone emojis, I can actually see the equivalents of those smileys on this computer. I would just see boxes before. As of right now, I've just been continuing to rebuild my old music library which I feel is about 75% fulfilled.

Besides being the nerd that I am, I bought some stuff that you may or may not have seen in any of my videos.

I got these Asics running shoes to replace my cheap-o Walmart shoes from my high school days. What can I say? they're SUCH an upgrade. I bought them from Amazon so they were discounted, shipped for free, AND I didn't have to pay tax. They may be the most expensive pair of shoes I've ever bought at around $45 but they're very well worth it. They're light, cushioned, have reflectors (!), and have that shape for running. Apparently they make shoes for three types of feet and so I went off with the descriptions Asics put on their site. There's a  "pronation" chart on their site which tells you which feet you may have and which is the best shoe for your kind of feet. I know I'm not flat footed for sure but I'm not sure if I had too much of an arch or not. Just to be safe, I got a pair which was more cushioning rather than "structured cushioning" since I seem to have some minor joint problems anyway.

I also got another pair of compression shorts from Under Armour. These are the most basic of them which I don't hate but I don't love them either. They're $21 from the "outlet" section of the site and is great for when it's like insanely hot and stuffy and you want more air down there, but when it comes to gripping your muscles together, it kind of lacks. I think the extra $12 for the core compression shorts is a much better investment if you want perform better. I'm actually going to buy another pair but I'm not sure if I should just take advantage of the free shipping now or use the free shipping code I got which expires at the end of the month.

Furthermore, I bought some stuff from Macy's but I'll probably be done with that store for a long while since I'm pretty stocked on undies. It's like the only reason why I ever order from there because they've discount them good there (+ you get ebates cash back  on top of that!).

Got them in the most obnoxious color, no? ahah. $13.59!

Got these in black/olive so they're basically that but inverted. Sorry I can't post the picture of the one I have because they aren't even in stock anymore. They never had a picture of my pair online anyway. $15.99

Got these in "lawn"/ very bright green. I kind of wished I got them in purple instead. O well~ 17.99$

For swim time, but mine are navy in the white part, then white stripped, and sky blue instead of navy with a white string. They can be seen here. From Hugo Boss for 25.99$

Lastly from that order, I got this which was recommended to me by a dashing feller on twitter (@bigfatjiu) . I really like it and I'll make a video on it soon. Hell broke loose on my chin and forehead recently. I blame my whore-moans.

When it comes to me being a fat ass, I'll begin that part now...
Well after I built my computer and was finally done trouble shooting it, I asked Lisa if she still wanted to hang out and she was still up for it so we went to a place close by to eat. Basically this was our Cafe Xpress replacement since that place shut down. I'm still sad that I can get free milk tea refills anymore but a cafe with good food and boba is great!

A friend of mine's 24th birthday came up recently and she wanted to go to this restaurant called "Dan Sung Sa -- 단성사" in Koreatown. That place is, like, the weirdest setting I've ever had dinner. It was like a sheltered alleyway and we walked through a maze to get to it. The food was good but I wouldn't really want to eat there again (lol). I think she partially wanted to go there because Anthony Bourdain from Travel Channel dined there before.

And later on, I went to have some soondubu with Lisa because she's like my only friend. (lol).

But speaking of friend, my other friend just came back from her year of teaching English in Busan, South Korea several days ago. She's asked to hangout but we haven't arranged an actual date yet. Haven't seen her in over a year. Crazies~! I'm wondering if things will actually follow though anyway. I've kind of given up on our friendship. I wonder if she reads my stuff.

Sooooooooo anyway, I started running for a little over a month on top of what I've been doing regularly since summer started. I've lost about 4 pounds and about maybe 1~2% body fat (according to my wacko scale). I don't really see too much of a difference besides my moobies and arms looking a wee bit more defined. I'm currently standing at around 165 pounds and aiming for 160. 160 is suppose to be the weight I should be seeing more definition since it's the goal weight I've calculated being the percent of body fat I want to lose x my weight at the time, if I lose that amount SOLELY in body fat though. I don't mind being a bit  thinner though because I want to fit into my old jeans but yeeeeeaaah...I don't really care about size much at the moment.My coworker said I looked skinnier recently, so I gotta be doing something right.

flexin'...(of course...)

From the picture, you can see more faint looking lines around my abdomen but I still have that goddamn pooch. I've lost much of love handles though and I feel the most minor improvement in appearance on my stomach. I also feel more of that sexy abdominal stretch these days~ mmmm.  Oh! and I dug out those jeans because I would have the hardest time buttoning them and I would see my thighs want to burst out of the parts I destroyed. They fit just right as of now, but I want to lose some of my legs a wee bit more. I hate how I have to pull up the bottom half because I have effin' thick calves. They aren't anything to be ashamed of though.

Sad to know that I'll be starting school again in about 2 weeks. That means I won't be able to work out as hard as I have been the past month or so. I'll be having class Monday-Wednesday nights, so I'm thinking of  working out on Wednesday nights after class, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday with Monday and Tuesday being my breaks to read and do school related things. And of course there will be some unexpected dinner dates then, but it's okay with me. I just need to keep up that drive (which I think YouTube sort of helps because that shit makes me SO self concious LOL).

Mmmkay! I'm going to shower now. I shall reread this after to fix any typos and such.
Au Revoir!