TheSanDiegoChannel.com - Backstreet Boy Says Next Album Its Last

Awww ... I liked those guys so much. :) But then again, my tastes have changed vastly over the past year, so I don't know anymore. Most of their old stuff was good though ... hopefully they'll go out with a really good final album. But ... I guess, in the end, it doesn't matter if they break up or not. It was eventually going to happen, so whatever. And they've been together for over ten years ... eventually you're going to get annoyed with each other. ;D

I went to Metrotown today afterschool to try my luck to see if it wasn't too late to still apply for a job. I went to Bluenotes, Roots and Old Navy, but none of the managers were there. I'm beginning to think that there's a conspiracy against me. :P At Bluenotes, I talked to one of the employees and he wrote down my availability and stuff, then thanked me for applying. At Roots, they said that the manager would be there tomorrow, so I held off on submitting my résumé. Then as I walked out of the store, I realized that I'm busy teaching piano tomorrow, so I can't come. Oh well, I guess I'll go back on Saturday. Then at Old Navy, I talked to some lady who seemed kinda manager-like, and she took a brief look at my application. Then she said thanks and bye. So ... yeah. I didn't actually do anything, which is a bit disappointing. All through the day, it was pretty much all I was thinking about, because I wanted to make sure that I made a good impression and all. My résumé and cover letter seemed to go over well with most of the people that I showed today at school, and they only had some minor comments regarding changes. Hpefully I'll get at least a call back. Oh well, we'll see how things go. :)

I created a new category for this, since it looks like it's going to be a recurring subject. I actually got a hit from somebody researching on how hamburgers are made. But most of them are from people searching up lyrics or pictures of their favorite music artists. Disclaimer: These might not show my link at a later date, due to the changing nature of search engines. They all show me as one of the top 20 hits as of the posting date. :)

Google.com:

"no matter what they say words can't bring you down" lyrics
lyrics- "you are beautiful no matter what they say, words can't bring you down"
sixpence none the richer breathe your name video
"A moment like this video"
surrender - kelly clarkson lyrics
Justin Guarini songs
"how hamburgers are made"
"McDonald's" + "parody"

AOL.com:
souljahz pictures and wallpaper

I've got mixed feelings right now. Not about Linux, but about life in general. I've been trying to deal with this certain issue for such a long time, but it doesn't seem to be going away. It's been a couple years, actually. Whenever I think I've beat it, it comes back the next day. I can't even seem to hold on for a whole week. I figured something out though, but I just don't know what to do about it. I don't know if it's supposed to make me happy or sad, so I'm kinda in the middle, with mixed emotions. I just want this to be over with. It's been so long since it started. I know that it'll be over with eventually, but sometimes I wish that time would come sooner. I guess I'm glad that I'm dealing with it in a slightly better way than I used to. I feel confident that I'll be okay eventually, even though I'm hurting now. But nobody gets through life without problems. Hardships help us to learn and grow, so I'm thankful for that. I guess doing my biography on Kelly is actually helping a little bit. I know that it's probably incredibly stupid and cheesy, but she was really determined to become a singer, and she didn't give up, even when life threw her around in every direction away from her goal. I'm not exactly sure that all the information I have about her is true, but nevertheless, it's still an encouraging testimony.

So many ups and downs
You don't know where to start
So many nights you cry
Life was breaking apart

It may seem real hard
Ain't no help in sight
But don't you worry
About it tonight

In the morning, you'll be alright
In the morning, the sun's gonna shine
In the morning, no clouds in the sky
When it's dark in your life
Just wait for the daylight

I'm having second thoughts about switching over to Linux. My main concern is that I can't use Photoshop in Linux, because it runs only on Windows desktops. Hmm ... I'm willing to stick with Windows for that. So unless Photoshop ports to Linux some time soon, I think I'm probably going to get a new HDD and set up a dual boot so that I can pick whichever one I want to use. :) I've heard of GIMP, but I don't know if it's as accessible as Photoshop is. Would I be able to find hundreds of tutorial sites and forums for it, like I can for PS? Not sure. And besides, I need a lot of Microsoft products for Desktop Publishing. I definitely need Office and various Adobe products in order to survive that course. I'm happy about my 99.2% in it. :) I was a little worried, because I've been slacking off for most of that course. It's usually at the bottom of my priorities, and oddly enough, it's my highest mark. Definitely not a representation of where I spend most of my time. Ah well.

Oh, and by the way, I killed my ShoutCast and Apache servers. I've been getting BSODs since then, so I'm trying to troubleshoot my way through the problem.

I just watched the new Nick Carter video. Why? I'm not sure. I don't like him anymore, and I guess that this video just confirms it. It's got a pretty cheesy storyline, where he's at a café or something, and he's performing this song, which is a recollection of a relationship that he had. It cuts to the relationship, where he's dating this skanky girl who can't keep her clothes on. While he's driving, she won't stop smothering him with her breasts, so he stops off at a motel. Somehow, I'm doubting that he's just stopping for directions. Anyways, Nick sits on the bed while she performs a striptease, then suddenly the girl gets mad. Probably because Nick thought that she wasn't being skanky enough. They start yelling at each other, then she runs off. Nick gets depressed. Somehow I'm just not feeling for him. He breaks a chair. More shots of him performing in the café. Then a quick clip montage of various stages of the relationship. Then as the song closes, skank girl walks through the doors of the café, not knowing that Nick is there. As she listens to the final lines of the song, a stupid grin comes across her face. Fade to black.

Eh, maybe I'm just being too critical. But really, the video takes away from the song, at least for me. Actually, this was one of the few songs that I liked off him album. Too bad he had to go and ruin it. :P Oh well, at least I don't have to worry about how I'm going to pay for his album. I'll save it up for something better.

"No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focussing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead ..."

Yes, I know it was two months ago. But I'm doing my French biography on Kelly Clarkson. :) While listening to the "A Moment Like This" finale, I'm beginning to realize that it's foolish to think that the audience was quiet during any part of the performance. I know I would have been screaming my head off if I were in the theater. :) Yet the final sound mix has only Kelly, and just sparse moments of cheering during various parts of the song, save the beginning and end. I don't know why I'm bothering to write this here. Oh well. It's still so darn cute, though. :) Aww ... I'm even willing to forgive Nikki's horribly flat note at the end.

I've written about three paragraphs of the biography right now ... I should really be getting to work. Most of my stuff is taken from the episode of "Driven" that VH1 did on Kelly, which aired a week or two after she won American Idol. Errgh. I better get back to work, otherwise I'll never finish this.

Wow, I actually sat down and watched an entire half-hour of television today! I think it's one of the first times I've watched a show since American Idol ended. The only reason why I actually watched it was because Justin was watching the Simpsons do a parody on various pieces of literature: The Odyssey, Joan Of Arc and Hamlet, to be exact. The funniest one was Hamlet, where they all end up dying, since the entire story was condensed into about seven minutes. Ophelia's introduction to her death was about a span of ten seconds. :)

Hmm ... alright, I think I managed to make my own computer a server, but I'm not totally sure if it's accessible to the entire Web. If you'd like to do me a favour, please just click on this link and tell me if you get a Powered By Apache page, and not an error page. Even if you never comment on my posts, I'd appreciate if you just left a short note if the page loaded, and if possible, how long it took for it to load. Thanks in advance. :)

If this works, I might be able to actually host a small MP3 archive or something. We'll see how it goes. Oh, by the way, that link will only work when my computer is on, so if it's 4 AM or something, don't expect it to work. :) I might buy an old, old computer to run Linux and leave it on forever so that I can use it as a Web server.

Name-dropping works! You know how I posted up my playlist a couple days ago? Yes, well that caused me to have a lot of search engine hits, apparently. Also, my rant about unconditional acceptance got me hits as well. Freaky. Here's a list of Google searches that you can do that will turn up my site amongst the top twenty results.

At Google.com:

"surrender" "kelly clarkson" lyrics
just guarini - get here lyrics

At Google.ca:

UBC unconditional acceptance

There's more search queries that gave me hits, but they weren't on the first page, so bah. :) I got a couple at Yahoo! from people searching up Tamyra Gray lyrics, and somebody else searching for Michael W. Smith's song "Breathe". And also somebody looking up the longest sentence in literature. :)

Yum ... lunch was good. White Spot's bistro shrimp fettuccine is the most expensive item on the menu, but that's alright, I didn't have to pay. :) Sautéed shrimp, mushroom, artichoke and garlic in a nice alfredo sauce, served with garlic bread. Ahh ... so good. I don't think I'll need dinner tonight. :) Justin's meal had endless fries with it, so I had some of his second order of fries ... nice and tasty. I don't know why I care so much about food right now. I'm usually pretty indifferent, but I guess it's because I was reading a six-page article on McDonald's while at the barber's. Oh, yeah, I got a haircut. Exactly the same as always, so no surprises here. But anyways, I learned a lot about McDonald's today. Apparently, they've been taking a nosedive in the past seven quarters to a measly 43% of the fast food industry, so they're desperately trying to improve their service and their image. They want to make their menu more fresh and appealing, which is probably why they're heavily promoting their Lighter Choices menu. Their main rival is Subway, because people seem to be more interested in subs and sandwiches than in burgers nowadays. There was a study amongst the top sixty fast food franchises for quality of food and taste, and McDonald's came in dead last. They're even thinking of phasing out 1000 of their locations, because of their poor performance. A certain McDonald's manager wants them gone because they're not putting Armani wallpaper on their walls like he does. :P Oh, and there's an upper-class version of McDonald's, which is called Prêt à Manger. It's still as speedy as the original, but the menu is more refined, and the atmosphere is more like Milestone's or something. Eh, I know too much about McDonald's now. Don't want to eat their food anymore. ;D

Went to Brentwood Lanes with the church guys. Hehe our whole team was so sad ... in the first frame, our highest score was 4. :) I ended up taking second place with 72 points. Or at least I think it was 72. Something around there. I wasn't paying enough attention. Jeff bought us all deluxe nachos ... mmm, good stuff. :D After our first game, half of us didn't feel like bowling anymore, so we played some pool. I didn't want to play though, so I just watched. Stupid Jon jumped the ball and it hit me! Argh. :P But ah well. Justin started to play some video game, and I watched him for a while. I think it was Marvel vs. Capcom, because I remember seeing Captain America, Megaman, Ryu, etc. I remember the old days when I used to actually care about video games. That phase of my life faded away quickly, though. ;D

Talked to Jonathan for a while about music ... seems like he only like rock ... haha. Oh well, I realize that I've become a lot more diverse now. Even though I've been in a pop ballad mood lately, I have a lot of different kinds of music on my computer. I think that ApologetiX is really cool! They're a parody group, who takes secular songs and remakes them into Christian songs ... it's really funny. Sometimes the parody is actually really serious though, but not always. I like "The Real Sin Savior", which parodies "The Real Slim Shady". I love the lyrics. :)

"Chick-a-chick-a-chick-a he's crazy
I'm sick of them ‘born agains’
Walkin' around askin' if you know God
Speakin’ of You Know Who
Yeah, but there's no proof though"
Yeah, probably got a couple of you who think I lack proof
But no worse than what's goin' on in America's classrooms
Sometimes I wanna get on TV and just spread the truth
But can't, but the school can tell me we come from evolution
"My mama was a fish, my mama was a fish!"
"And if we're monkeys you might as well forget original sin!"
And that's the message that we deliver to little kids
And expect them not to question on their own if God exists

Bwah!

Thanks to much toiling over SHOUTcast software, network configurations and port openings, I finally have a REAL radio station, where it plays more than one song. :) It's not perfect because it's home-based, so it only plays when I'm playing something on my Winamp at home. And it takes over your Winamp for the duration of the time that you listen to radio station. You can close it at any time though, of course. :) I'm tired, so I haven't changed the radio link, so click right here to listen if I'm home.

Yay! :) I still think that Callan should have sang his "Juliet" song for her today. Mean. ;D Ah well, it's not like I was dying to hear him anyway. I didn't eat any cake today because I'm trying to not eat chocolate for the rest of the year. I slipped up once or twice, but I'm pretty much clean. But so far, absolutely zero pop. Oh. I think I'm getting old. I mostly drink water, I refuse to drink pop, don't eat chocolate, don't go to parties, find sexual humor repulsive, etc ... it's like I skipped from age 15 to age 55. Ah well. Okay, this post has absolutely nothing to do with Suzy whatsoever anymore. But I guess there's some relevance because she's afraid of getting older, or at least she was joking about it.

Eh, I can't talk about Suzy forever. ;D

Marks are depressing ... I'm not getting unconditional acceptance. Ugh, I especially get irked when people reprimand me for not being content with 96% in Biology or French. I mean, of course I'm happy that I have a high mark, but I want higher because I need to pull up my 83% in Math to try to average out to 92%. Right now, my average in English, French, Biology and Math is 89%, which is just not good enough. Except I'm a little confused. On the early admissions page of the UBC Web site, it says that you need a 92% average in your entire first term, not just your top four or whatever. I'm a bit confused now. Because I might actually make it if I use my entire term (which excludes Math 12, since I took it last year). Mr. Low's going to let me hand in that first assignment, so I'll probably end up with 97% in Desktop Publishing. I doubt they'll let me omit Math 12 in my grade reporting, though. Sigh.