December 11, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

“The Problem with Buses”

This book is dedicated to Daniel Kim and his father, for showing us that there’s more to buses than just the ride. Special thanks to Joe Kim for, well… everything.

“… one goes and another one comes.”

We all know the bus system can be problematic. Everyone has their share of crazy stories. 20 things you should know about buses:

1. There are a lot of buses that will take you to where you want to go and you don’t need to make reservations.

2. Unless you’re crazy and promised to get on a bus, nothing’s going to stop you from taking another one.

3. They rarely run on schedule; expect to wait a solid half hour at the stop.

4. Conversely, they’re not going to wait for you when they’re ready to go, no matter how fast you’re running or how close you are to being in the door.

5. No pick-ups between stops!

6. When you want to get somewhere quick, just take a cab.

7. Regardless of where you’re going, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

8. Flat tires suck. I guess that’s true with all automobiles. I feel like it’s worse with buses though.

9. For the longer trips, you REALLY want one comfortably equipped.

10. It’s better when you’re the only one riding.

11. Bus trips out of town are NOT cheap.

12. And it’s not going to be cheap getting back to where you started either. In fact, sometimes it’s more expensive.

13. Stay behind the line. It’s there for a reason. It’s dangerous and unlawful to step past it. Plus, the driver’s going to yell at you.

14. The bus needs to go its own way, even if there’s a clearly better route.

15. Yellow school buses all look the same. It’s forgivable if you get confused and get on the wrong one.

16. Caution: When you’re wasted you might think any bus will do. This is certainly not the case.

17. Don’t be afraid of pressing the tape when you want to get off.

18. You’d think they’d be in the library reading books or something, but there are surprisingly a lot of nerds on buses.

19. Buses can be pretty dirty. I mean, you never know where they’ve been or who’s been doing what in them. Watch what you touch.

20. You can never be sure of how long a bus has been around. Maintenance is pretty good at keeping old buses looking fairly new.

Yes, we’ve had some pretty bad experiences, but at least we’re learning from them.

Posted in Randomness | 3 Comments »

August 31, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

www.wowio.com

You won’t be disappointed. Promise. Cross my heart, hope to die. Totally free site lets you download pdf versions of books LEGALLY. You can get a lot of good classics (including a large portion of the works of Shakespeare) and even more random books you’ve never heard of. I can’t remember the last time I found something so good. There are just a few catches. For one, you can only download five books a day. I don’t read that fast, but it’d be nice if I could just download the books I wanted on the spot instead of making a list (which isn’t actually all that bad since WOWIO kind of makes a queue for you automatically). Second, each book begins with a plug from the sponsor. For all the books I’ve downloaded, it’s been Verizon, but that’s not too bad. I don’t think it’s worth complaining about until you see Big Macs in Fast Food Nation. Third, and this may be a pro for some of you: your name is printed into the pdf along with the ad. I personally think it’s a neat little personalization.

If you want an idea of what I think looks good, go under the comics and graphic novels section and check out Lullaby.   From the book description: “Join JIM HAWKINS, ALICE (From Wonderland), PINOCCHIO, LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD, and the PIED PIPER as they join forces to stop a dark magic that has been warping this wonderful world into it’s own image, and discover who is behind the unleashing of this darkness…”  Try and tell me that doesn’t sound badass.

And remember. I found it first.

Posted in Media | No Comments »

July 17, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

Arghhh. I’ve been meaning to write this up before Book 7 came out, but I’ve recently discovered that Deathly Hollows has been leaked, so please excuse the rush job. I’ve been informed that some douche got his hands on a copy of it and videotaped the entire book. Don’t ask me how he managed that, but it’s somewhere floating around on the internet now. Don’t ask me where to get it, I saw a snapshot of the first page and stopped there.

So, until July 21st, I highly recommend unplugging your internet, locking yourself in your home, and avoiding all forms of contact with the outside world. Do NOT order delivery. Do NOT pick up your phone. It takes a second for someone to shout out “Snape kills Dumbledore!” [Sorry to everyone that hasn’t read Half Blood Prince yet. If it’s any consolation, I haven’t read it yet either.] You’ve been warned. And that’s my CYA.

Now, the reason I wanted to have this written up earlier… Dumbledore kills Snape. That’s the facts. I’ll go into a bit more detail later. Before that, I’m going to proceed to give my predictions for Deathly Hollows. And again, I haven’t seen anything past the first page, so I make no claim about the truth of these statements, but I’ve been known to be right about a lot of things.

To start: Snape’s good. Harry thinks he’s bad. Again. He’s going to be chilling with Voldemort’s crew up until the very end. Then he kills Lucius. By the end of the book, Snape either dies, or becomes the boss of some significant wizardry organization. And maybe he gets to teach defense of the dark arts.

As you may or may not have heard, someone close to Harry Potter will be dying in this book. Name? Sirius Black. Rowling will absolutely not kill off one of Harry Potter’s “close friends.” Reason: Kids will cry. Many will be traumatized. Parents will send Rowling their therapy bills. So Ron and Hermione are safe. The older Weasley brothers are done with school, theoretically they shouldn’t even be in this book [but we all know they will be]. Ginny can’t be killed for reasons I’ll get into later. And Neville’s been getting scrubbed for way too long [4 books] to bite the dust. I might give her Cho Chang, but that one’s kind of a stretch. I don’t think Harry has any other friends [I really don’t give this kid enough credit].

So here’s the logic behind Sirius Black dying. Again. He never exactly dies. He kind of just gets sent into another dimension and no one knows where he ends up. But he’s Sirius Black - that’s synonymous with bad ass. He was one of those prodigy wizards, he’s going to find a way to come back. People love him, so it’s going to get the effect rumors are claiming. At the same time, he’s been taken out of the picture before, so people won’t be totally flipping out when they read it. Again.

How will Sirius die? Killing curse. Same thing as Harry Potter’s parents. Rowling’s a fan of subtlety. More often than not, she likes to throw in a little bit of irony too. Supposedly Voldemort learned not to underestimate the “power of love.” Yeah, I think not. I’m sure you can see the brilliance of this “plot twist.” I feel pretty convinced that, despite all rumors, Harry Potter does NOT die. Rowling’s trying to pull a fast one by making us believe that the possibility is up there, but she’s not going to pull a double. Please.

The Harry Potter series continues after Deathly Hollows. Maybe not Harry Potter, but some spin-off will spawn. I have bets on Ginny getting her own series. She’s a solid character that we don’t quite know enough about. In her first year [Harry’s third?] she goes on her own crazy adventure that we don’t really hear about. One of her close [and whacky] friends is already established [Luna Lovegood]. Plus, she’s 2 years younger than Harry Potter’s crew, so in her 6th and 7th year, we’ll get to see what the aftermath of Deathly Hollows is like in Hogwarts. Not to mention, you get the story from a female perspective and we get to see how crappy Ron’s summers are. To recap: Ginny won’t die in Book 7.  She’s going to be big in future Rowling books.
Neville saves Harry’s life. Again, this kid has been getting scrubbed far too long to not do something important.

Dumbledore kills Snape! This is a bit more of a joke than anything else, but I’m certain Dumbledore comes back. And Rowling makes a nod to Lord of the Rings, as he comes back as “Dumbledore the White.” Now, that one sounds like a joke, but it was serious. Dumbledore’s first name, Albus, means “white” in Latin. Do your homework kids. Dumbledore is absolutely, positively a tribute to Tolkien’s Gandalf. In a poem titled “Errantry” by Tolkien, a dumbledore is a beetle known to visit the shire every year. Check The Tolkien Reader for a reference. I didn’t, but I’m well informed.

Do you seriously want me to believe that Hogwarts is going to be running without Dumbledore. The Ministry despises Hogwarts. The only reason it’s, for the most part, the way it is is because Dumbledore is at its head. If you take Dumbledore out, the Ministry can do whatever they want with the school, and then it’s all over. There wouldn’t even be any magic in the school. It’d just be like a boarding school… where giant spiders eat kids.

Trust me, I’m certain on this one. Dumbledore’s coming back.

And he might kill Snape.

Posted in Looong, Fun and Games | 3 Comments »

July 15, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

Welcome to Loserville! Population: 6.6 billion. Home of the chumps.
I’m surfing the interweb, just doing the daily routine when I notice a small text ad for an online quiz. Now, I love taking these stupid quizzes. I know they’re fixed to make you think you’re a genius and give them money, but every so often you can find a rare gem that will tell you something different. Today I found The Loser Quiz. I already know I’m a loser, I just wanted to see how big of a loser I am. I mean, the town of Loserville, like any other city, works on a hierarchy. Wouldn’t it be great to beat the top of that hierarchy as the Mayor of Loserville? You’d be able to say you run a town full of losers that will do anything you tell them to. Anyway, back to my story. The quiz takes me maybe 5 minutes to fill out. Unfortunately, I realize that my answers aren’t quite as loserific as they could be. But hey, I’m not one to lie on a quiz [though, lying on a loser quiz must SURELY make you a bigger loser]. So I finish up my quiz and bring down my hopes to “Pathetic Loser” and click Submit. Then these jerks want me to sign up for some offers with their sponsors. Sorry guys, but I don’t think signing up for some scammy credit card deals are going to boost up my loser score. NO THANKS!

Seriously now, I’m not THAT insecure. But it really makes me wonder with all these online pyramid schemes and the like going around, how many people in the world get suckered in. Are you really going to pay to have a machine tell you either a) You’re an Uber Loser, you need to buy more iPods, or b) You’re an anti-Loser, give us money to help stop the spreading of loseritis?

Yeah, as usual, I don’t know where I’m going with this. What I do know though, is that the world is messed up.

Posted in Randomness | 1 Comment »

June 23, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

Because I want as many people as possible to hear this:

—

L: Why are you mad homophobic?
D: I’m not! Why do you have to be mad gay?

—

I’d love it if you shared this with everyone you know.  We told my boy D that we’d be spread it around.  I just want to see how far it can go.

Posted in Randomness | 1 Comment »

April 1, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

Wasn’t I awfully surprised today when i saw 30+ new comments for my post “Five Stars“? I mean, really, I’m not nearly that popular. I can see why that post might spread, but 30+ comments? They were ALL spam (not totally surprised) linking to newsfeeds or forums to buy drugs. So thanks to cialis and viagra, I had to put on this plugin that requires you to do a little math problem so that bots don’t spam me. Sucks, I know, but TS. They’re all single digit addition problems, but if the question is too difficult for you, shoot me an e-mail or something.

Also, just wanted to tell you all that I do have a few pieces lined up that I just haven’t had a chance to complete.  Friday night I went a little crazy and started drafting a bunch of stuff, which I proceeded to delete about 8 minutes later.  Saturday I had a moment (a couple of hours actually) of inspiration, so there’s one topic I really want to write something deep on.  It might be a little while before I can get some time to write it all out, but I think it’ll be a good one.

Posted in Rants | 2 Comments »

March 30, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

Someone needs to tell James that he’s not allowed to send me videos anymore. You don’t want to know.

Posted in Randomness | 1 Comment »

March 14, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

I know, I said I don’t like writing about what I did, but today was too overwhelming. It had a triple.

The single: 300. That alone is enough to warrant a good day. Literally had my jaw hanging open from disbelief for over half the movie.

The double: White Castle. The crave hit after catching Harold and Kumar the other day.

The triple: Kristine Sa’s Hopeless Romantic came in the mail today. This isn’t just your regular every day CD. There’s a reason I had to buy a physical copy instead of just downloading it. The packaging is out of this world. I haven’t seen anything like it before, and neither have you.

There were a number of other good things today, but nothing that would move the day up to a quadruple (unless you add them all up together, but of course it doesn’t work that way).

Real quick fun fact: I love the word double. It’s applicable whenever something happens twice or extra. Triple is about 50% better than double. The quadra is 33% better than that, and so on and so forth. The highest count I’ve ever gotten up to was a hexa, but it was something bad. To be specific, I believe I was measuring in units of crappy, so it was a hexa-crappy. Yeah, that was bad. I dream of the day I get to say dodeca-nice (that’s 12). Unfortunately, I have no idea what the word for multiples of eleven is.

Posted in Randomness | 1 Comment »

March 6, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

Early 2006, my guy Dave and I come up with this theory. I’m all about theories. Absolutely love them. So here’s the set up:

We’re all hanging out in my boys Phil and Dave’s room. And we’re watching television or checking stuff out online or whatever it was that we did back then when my boy Phil goes “Hey Zac. Have you seen my powerball?” Pause. Raise an eyebrow. “What the crap’s a powerball?” Phil rolls open the drawer of his desk and takes out this plastic ball thing, gives it a flick with his thumb, starts spinning it, and the thing lights up. “Holy crap! That’s awesome!”

Now a technical description, because I have people here wondering what the hell I’m talking about. As I’m sure you’ve figured out, this powerball is a little different from the powerball where you pick 6 numbers and hope to win millions of dollars, but it’s almost as good. Maybe even better. The powerball is a gyroscope powered device commonly used by athletes to exercise one’s forearm, wrist, and/or grip. Spinning the device causes the gyroscope inside the ball to spin and create force. I’m a little fuzzy on how gyroscopes work exactly, but I know spinning them is awesome. In any case, you can get these with counters that measure how fast the gyroscope is spinning and such or with LEDs. Phil had red LEDs.

Within hours, Dave and I are online trying to buy our own. Prices are something like 25 bucks for a normal one, 35 for either LEDs or the odometer dealy, or 45 for the combo. So what’s the decision here? Well, LEDs are just fancy lights, there’s no real practical use for it other than to know that the powerball is spinning (I neglected to mention that there are no batteries - the LEDs are powered by the gyroscope and no, I don’t understand how) which is pretty obvious if you’re using it. The odometer’s kinda cool. We can “race” with it and actually get a figure on if we’re improving. But… 10 bucks for some gimmicky add-ons… Hmmm… What to do… whattodo…

I think it’s pretty obvious: Buy the ones with the lights!! So what’s the theory behind this?

EVERYTHING is better with lights.

Let’s face it, things that light up unnecessarily are just straight up cool. Pens with lights rock my world. No USB device is complete if it doesn’t light up. Laser pointers blow the minds out of any household pet. Street cars with neon lights are kicking [and illegal for bonus points]. Anything and everthing can be improved with lights. Maybe not necessarily lights, but anything that creates a glow effect. I say that because glow-in-the-dark things don’t technically have lights, but they’re kickass nonetheless. Why else would Asian glow be so trendy now?

If you still don’t believe the theory, I think you need to check this site out:

dealxtreme

I don’t usually trust people that think the letter “x” is cool unless it’s in “X-Men,” but this site amazes me. Light up shot glasses. You want a set. 2 bucks a pop shipped. Yeah, buy them now. How’s all this stuff so outrageously cheap [mini 200x zoom microscope WITH light for under 30 bucks shipped]? Well, it’s based in Hong Kong, so expect poor craftsmanship [read: bootlegging]. Whatever though, if your light up pen breaks down you’re only out a dollar, boohoo. Also, be sure to check out the LED powerball for under 9 bucks shipped.

Quick story before closing this up. Shipping is apparently about 2 weeks via Hong Kong Post. I’m not 100 percent on this, but a while ago I imported something from China on eBay and it may have been shipped HKP. I actually had it delivered to my apartment within the week. Here’s the kicker: The delivery man was totally an illegal immigrant that couldn’t speak English. I swear, that guy just got off the boat to hand deliver my package. Keep in mind, I’m in the mid-west, boats don’t get here that easily. So if that’s standard service from HKP, try not to think of it as shipping and handling, think of it more as a fee for a good laugh.

Posted in Fun and Games, Randomness | 4 Comments »

February 21, 2007 by zeeliciouszee.

My fried rice is the bomb.

Posted in Serious, Randomness | 1 Comment »