Who knew Billy was so hip? I mean we knew he was a cool guy cos he gives out a lot of his money to people who need it, but going on Jon Stewart, very cool. We all love Bill Gates, one of the greatest men living today - pioneer of marvels that have changed and will continue to change the world for a very long time, and the money does not get to him. The money does not get the better of him. He has a great sense of humor, puts everyone else before him, has a great, supportive wife; and treats his kids like they should be treated, normally - they won't turn out to be snobs. Even though he may give them a crappy allowance, we still all love Bill Gates. He went on Jon Stewart last night to promote his company's new operating system, Windows Vista - and he humors Jon throughout the whole interview - the whole thing is hilarious. It was only a little embarrassing, like Bill's exit, but he's a busy guy like Jon says. Lucky for Jon, he gets his own copy of Vista - Ultimate. Now, Bill, I am very loyal to your stuff, but I have not once bought an OS in my life, and I don't plan to start... unless there's some awesome rebate or something - even when I can afford it. I'm downloading a copy from my favorite tracker, Demonoid, but it might take a while (so I apologize if the site's slower than normal, haha). Newegg.com says it's selling the Ultimate for two hundred bucks, but I think I'll save that money and buy another hard drive - but everyone, that two hundred buck deal is amazing, and it's not even the upgrade version; if you want to get a legal version of Vista, definitely get it from Newegg.com. It seems pretty love/hate so far for the Vista... and I think I'm sure to love it. When the install goes well, I'll Insha Allah let you guys know. And, to watch the twelve minute interview (including a minute of extras from the show), go here to download it in all three flavors. Take care everyone. see u.

Oh how long have I been waiting for this day, it has finally arrived. I was hoping for a Chargers/Saints Super Bowl in two weeks, but as the Chargers were horrible last weekend the Patriots are going on to the Championship Game. And even though I thought the Colts would lose their first playoff game, I surely did not want them to; they beat both their playoff matches, the Chiefs and the Ravens. In the NFC, it was Saints all the way - obviously. And now they're here, first Championship Game. ever. Second Playoff game. ever. First Super Bowl appearance. ever. Do I think that they can beat the Bears? Hell yah they can. Grossman is good? Sometimes - has he been good lately? Last week. The man has to be the dumbest athlete - the last game of the season, he was more into the fact that it was New Year's Eve than he was playing his final game against the Packers (and possibly Favre's last game ever), he managed a passer rating of 0. Wow. How about the Bears defense? Not lately. Afraid of the "Monsters of the Midway"? No. (and watch Hester on returns. He'll probably drop half of them.) This Saints team is doing amazingly. The best offense in the league. Drew Brees would've been MVP if it wasn't for an awesome player from his team last year, Mr. LT. The Deuce and Reggie duo is a lot scarier than the Bears' defense. That secondary of theirs is just awesome, considering even that most of them are brand new (most of the damn team is brand new), and Joe Horn, can we see you in the fleur-de-lis please? Their defense has been great under pressure too - Scott Fujita and Will Smith (haha, I still can't get over that name). And that head coach [of the year] is the smartest play-maker of them all. So after this game that starts at Noon PST on FOX  is over, who's going to win? Da Saints. The breaker of all the records. The team of America. Win so that conspiracy theory remains, haha. Today is football day everyone, a fun one, so everyone grab a TV and enjoy yourselves. Take care everyone, talk to you after the Saints are in the Super Bowl, Insha Allah. No paper bag for me. Bring on the snow! haha. see u.

I originally was not going to update today, basically because I was too tired. But I was thinking about it, and I convinced myself to finally link this ESPN special, Ali Rap (from December). It's basically a kind of run down of his past that includes famous fights and famous people speaking about Ali. It's all centered around quotes of his - it's actually the television version of a book by George Lois (who did the graphics for the special, and who also spoke) of the same name. Many athletes and musicians are interviewed, speaking very greatly about Ali and his past. Anyone who is a fan (such as I am) of this amazing athlete and human being will absolutely love this special. ESPN ran a couple other specials about Ali, but I decided to capture this one - unfortunately not in HD; though, I caught it in HD and it was wonderful. I don't want to go through a biography of the man, cos I really hope you all know him, but if you don't know much about the great Ali, or love him, download this special and indulge yourself in what is, Muhammad Ali. Happy Birthday, The Greatest. Take care everyone. see u.

Am I the only one that gets a little uneasy when seeing this Alpha Dog poster (or any other ad) for this movie? Not because the orange colors bleed into your eyes and then boom there's this very contrasting gray sitting in the middle, but because Anton is dead center (no pun intended... haha, I kill myself - woops). Alright, enough of that. If you don't know anything about Jesse James Hollywood, you might be a bit confused by what I just said - I was alluding to what happens to Anton's character. I'll forward you to another post of mine that explains the story.

The movie was pretty good, but I was going into it with low expectations (based on some moderate reviews). There were some stuff that was just damn good, and then again there were times where it was somewhat difficult to watch, not during those fighting sequences, but during scenes where Emile Hirsch acted. But wait, does that make sense? When Emile Hirsch acted as Johnny Truelove was when I couldn't bear it? Doesn't that mean the whole thing? He, surprisingly, and fortunately; was hardly in this movie - Anton and Justin Timberlake were mostly in it, and they were both pretty good. The only times when Anton seemed a little off was during his one liner parts - there's a scene in the movie where Anton wants to go with his older brother (played by Ben Foster - who by the way dude, had to have been the best actor in this film) and he says "yah" maybe five times in a row as a response. Every other time, Anton did amazingly - we even had to laugh at times because it was so not like him (there were a lot of people in the audience that knew Anton sitting through out the theatre, I even think he was there and ran out right when the movie ended, not too sure though...). Justin also did a pretty good job. If you didn't know he was in that boy band or had a music career, I would totally see him as some white-thug kind of guy. That Ben Foster was also damn good. I read something online that compared him to Alex de Large and Johnny Boy, dead on. I would also like to add, remember that scene in American History X when Edward Norton's character, Derek, kills that black guy outside of his house? Multiply that character a couple times and you get Jake Mazursky. I was freaking scared of the guy. There's this one scene where he and two guys go to Johnny Truelove's house in the middle of the night to try and kill him... it was damn scary. But definitely not the best scene in the movie - that part goes hands down to the killing scene. The atmosphere that is created is so eerie, it cannot be compared to anything else in the film - the acting in this scene is beyond anything. I don't want to go into any details because if you kind of enjoyed yourself during the film, you will definitely enjoy this ending part (which sadly was not the real ending) - and if you know any of the people who play the characters, like we did with for Anton, then you will definitely love this scene.

But there are still some downsides to the film - don't go into this movie thinking it's some masterpiece, because it is far from it. I told you that both Anton, Justin, and Ben acted quite well (oh, and I want to add that Chris Marquette, who played Keith, was damn good and Shawn Hatosy, who played Elvis, was also pretty good - the girls were also pretty good), but there were a few that were like, what the hell? I mentioned Emile Hirsch and how he just looked awkward up there. He didn't come off as anything, whenever he cursed, it felt so fake and he looks nothing like Jesse James Hollywood, or any other major drug dealer - so I don't think it was a great idea to cast him. Some people complained how there are posters our there with Justin being the only person there, but there's nothing to complain about, he was in it the most, next to Anton. The two other big stars that are seemingly in it a lot are Sharon Stone and Bruce Willis - they are barely in this film. The girls that Anton gets lucky with are probably in it more than them. So don't go into it hoping to see a lot of them. There were a couple major flaws in the film, I'll just go through a few - I'll let you enjoy 'em on your own. The major, and I mean MAJOR, flaw occurred twice. This film takes place in 1999, since when were XBOXs around in 1999? and since when was Call of Duty on XBOX in 1999? They play it twice, and the XBOX is totally visible in one of the scenes - I did not like this (although it was pretty funny). Another thing that I didn't like about this film was some of the writing. One of the examples occurs around the part where Johnny's dad finds out about the kidnapping, things start to get exponentially worse (on Emile's side) for a ten minute period of time - though, as soon as it comes back to Justin's part, it becomes better (and leads up to that killing scene I mentioned). Another thing I hated was that the film didn't end there. It seemed as if they were trying very hard to attack Jesse James Hollywood and his case because they included things after Anton's death. I mean, I understand if a few things were shown after his death, but twenty minutes worth of stuff? Anton's death was one of the most intense parts of the film - they decided to kind of ruin it by going into a life story of how Johnny Truelove goes into hiding and then gets caught in South America. I found it highly unnecessary. But hey, every filmmaker puts stuff in a story for a reason - perhaps Nick Cassavetes' reason was to stick it to Jesse James Hollywood - if so, you probably succeeded man, and pretty well too.

So if you want to watch a movie full of drugs, sex, nudity, comedy (it was damn funny too), violence, and Anton (who takes part in all of that by the way - and I won't tell you too much, but he drop kicks Justin Timberlake in one part), all done by kids who are alone (who by the way are linked up in some other movies and TV shows, like "Huff" and The Girl Next Door), then catch this movie. But don't be like me and complain about the XBOX in theatres - or choke on your Twizzlers. It's a fun movie (and don't tell anyone, but Imadul told me the best part was when he saw Anton's ass...). Now how about let's talk about some other stuff? That worthless speech by our president a couple days ago? Some more deaths? Some new toys? Some lawsuits? Some company name changes? This crazy, cold weather? Nah, don't have time. This weekend is huge for football (you already know my picks), starts in a couple minutes, Insha Allah. Go watch (CBS and FOX). Oh and Happy half Birthday to my car (oh, and Happy Birthday to "mags"). Take care everyone. Go Zach Mazursky! and Go Saints! see u.

What's this? Not only am I posting number four in five days, but the graphic I'm posting is the back of a 360 that... looks strange. What's that extra thing on the bottom? HDMI. Is that some custom fix that some 1337 h4x0r fixed up? (sorry, I had to watch Attack of the Show yesterday cos Christopher Grant from Joystiq was on... I HATE that show.) Alright, so just a little over a year after XBOX 360 was unleashed, we are here with another 360, and updated 360. What's new updated? Other than that HDMI out, there's a new hard drive, 120GB that may or may not come bundled with the updated 360; and a new, smaller, much better 65nm processor (that I don't even have in my damn computer!... yet). You'll notice by the graphic, the Engadget logo. Engadget released this news about five hours ago, from a tip Ryan Block got. That's basically all the information (s)he gave Engadget, except that we'd be getting v2 "soon" (check out the post here).

So that means everything is still not official - but should be as all the 360 owners have been looking forward to these updates. PS3 came out a couple months ago and, not surprisingly, is doing horribly. Microsoft was smart enough not to deliver with a built in next generation DVD (they support HD DVD), but Sony was not as smart as it released its backed DVD, Blu-ray. I'm not saying that I prefer HD DVD (or not prefer them), but it doesn't make sense to push a format when there's a known "war" going on. Let's hope that Microsoft does not have a built in HD DVD drive in this so-called Zephyr, or it will forever be remembered as 'that worthless XBOX with that HD DVD in it' (assuming Blu-ray wins). Now how about the new processors? The new 65nm technology has been postponed, does that mean we'll have to wait too? The new processor will only mean good things: possibly making it faster, quieter, and cooler (both temperature and its rep); all things we are looking forward to. But if things get out soon (and are not delayed like other Microsoft products) things are looking up, which is good because things were never looking down for Microsoft, haha.

Some things that I'd like to see? Perhaps a different colored case - don't ditch the white of course, it's a great, great change; just perhaps think about releasing a black, perhaps special edition - I'd buy it. And make wireless more, don't just make the controllers wireless. How about built in Wi-Fi? That would be really nice. The ability for people to connect to the Internet (or their Zunes) without the need for some attachment in the back - I know it would help a lot of people out. How about a bundled HDMI cable? (a guy can only wish....) With all this new information, I kind of feeling like voiding my warranty once and for all. But that probably isn't a good idea because there's one more thing I'd like for Microsoft to do. Perhaps a service (like software companies do) that allows the consumer to purchase a discounted version if they have the old one - like if you have registered your 360 online, then you are eligible for a [n extremely] discounted price on v2. That would be sweet. Alright, that's all I have for now. If any updates come up, I'll be sure to Insha Allah let you guys now. Take care. see u.

Well, last night's Leno wasn't that great. The first part of the interview, Justin and Leno talked about everything but Alpha Dog. When the commercials came and went was the time when Justin decided to talk about the movie. Leno said he really liked it - but many Sundance viewers have to disagree (but everyone seems to like the acting, ah em Anton).. Anyway, Anton wasn't mentioned at all in the show, and the whole interview was pretty dumb... except for when they showed the clip of Justin on " SNL". For those of you who didn't watch "SNL" that night when they showed this SNL Short (don't worry, I didn't either - I haven't been too happy about SNL lately), here it is on YouTube. It's a three minute music video about a special gift that guys should give to their significant other - Andy Samberg (one of the new guy son "SNL") and Justin give the instructions in the video of the procedure, but step one is "cut a hole in a box", haha. This video is pretty hilarious, so if you haven't seen it yet, go over to the YouTube page and sneak a peak. But be a little ware that there's one word used constantly that some people's parents might not be too happy to hear coming from their son or daughter's computer, as most of us know what the Internet and teenagers are associated with in the parents' eyes. But if all's good, watch it. So I basically ditched the Timberlake interview altogether. What did I switch to?

Jimmy Kimmel of course. I love his show. Who was on his show last night? The beautiful Courtney Cox... Arquette (don't you just love that graphic?), haha, made most famous by a short-running show on NBC called "Friends". I really like that show, and I was interested in watching her new show on FX, Dirt. But the problem was, even after the oh so many ads for it, which were all great, haha; I never caught the date of the premiere. Kind of like how it took me so very long to realize that Geico was a car insurance company... haha (come on, its commercials were so nice that I never realized they were advertising something). So although I missed the premiere, FX is nice to its viewers as they show a couple reruns through the week. I think the next one's Friday. This interview went pretty well, Courtney at first seemed not too into it, but near the end she seemed like a lot nicer of a person, which makes me really happy cos I think she's awesome, she even complemented Jimmy on his interviewing (which I guess can be seen as somewhat arrogant, but who cares. Courtney rules.) - the interview is pretty hilarious too. So I captured it and it's ready to watch. But that's not all. This show is really good, Kimmel's monologues are the longest, which is good cos they're also hilarious, because they include random video clips (these guys are great with video clips - the editing team at the show is very talented) - but that's not what I captured. The other thing I captured is something right after the monologue. Often times he has these little segments where Guillermo, the parking lot security guard; or his Uncle Frank, also in security; or his Cousin Sal, an arrogantly hilarious guy; or someone else goes onto the streets and does funny stuff (oh, and they're all really related). This time we have Cousin Sal inside of an ATM machine in Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada messing with the people trying to use it. It's all very, very funny. Oh, and in both of the clips you'll notice Jimmy's beard. It's beard week over at the show (and Mustache Friday on Friday cos he's going to shave the beard), so don't be shocked. I kind of prefer Jimmy with a beard... but I'm kind of partial to beards. Alright, so get those clips here. That's all I have tonight. Oh, Charles Barkley might be one of the most annoying people ever - he's cool and all, but does he ever shut up? And almost everything that comes out of his mouth makes him sound like a damn idiot, haha (I'm watching Lakers play the Kings - Go Lakers). Oh, and Go Democrats - oh and how about our first Muslim rep? Props to Mr. Keith Ellison on (D-Minnesota) for being sworn in on the Qur'an. Democrats, Women, and Muslims in office. I'm totally liking this. Take care everyone. see u.

Coming out of 2006 was pretty strange. In its last week alone, at least three well-known people died: James Brown, Gerald Ford, and Saddam Hussein (all of whom died when I wasn't in town and only with one of whom will the guys at South Park have a field day). Excuse my language, but we're dropping like flies. Only just two weeks before these other deaths, the great Peter Boyle passed, and before him, the great Robert Altman. I don't mean to spook anyone, I apologize if I have, but it's just something I was pondering - who's next? PS3? Let's only hope, haha.

Now let's stray from the topics of death for a while and jump into some happier stories. Who do you think won the Rose Bowl two night ago? Duh. Well in case you missed it, USC won and Dwayne Jarrett did very well - his last time playing college football (assuming of course that he doesn't come back next season - no official word from him yet). It was a great defense game so if you wanna catch the whooping, I uploaded it to the site. Still in its three flavors, DivX, H.264 (the most superior format), and WMV9. The download includes the full game, some pre-game stuff (including the tribute to the former president and Michigan Wolverine) as well as some post-game stuff (seen in the graphic). You can check out the stuff by going here - the H.264 version isn't complete yet, but I'd wait for it if I were you. Oh, and sorry if I ruined the ending, haha. Before I jump away from college football, I'd like to do a transition (into the NFL) by talking about the Cardinals firing Dennis Green. Who might replace him? ... Pete Carroll? I really hope not (and I'm sure all the other USC fans will agree with me), but why would he anyway. He came to USC from the NFL. I just wanted to bring the rumor up, haha.

So Wild Card Weekend is upon us. This weekend on NBC, CBS, and FOX is when the bottom four teams from each conference will go head to head to make it to the next round. If you're curious about the schedule (and you better be), check out this Wikipedia article. I'm glad the Chiefs made it in - although I had fun representing the Saints when I went over to Kansas City last week, haha; I think the Chiefs might beat the Colts because of Larry Johnson. The rest I'm not too sure about, except I'll say that I have a slight feeling that the Cowboys and Giants will both lose. That's all I'll say about that.

Before I head out, I want to quickly remark on some other current film news going on that I feel we are all a part of, one because of our location and because of the actor in the film. If you don't know already, our very own Anton Yelchin is in a film called Alpha Dog (and if you didn't know, he was supposed to play Protag in our film Pit Stop before it was delayed). In Alpha Dog, he plays the younger brother of a guy who owes Johnny Truelove money - Truelove, and some other dudes, kidnaps him. This story is all based on Jesse James Hollywood - the notorious drug dealer and one of the youngest people to be put on the FBI's most wanted list at the at of 20 in 2000. The film follows the fictitious Johnny Truelove (Jesse) and his drugs, money, and fame while kidnapping Jake Mazursky's younger brother, Zach Mazursky (Benjamin and Nicholas Markowitz, respectively). Zach seems more like one of the guys rather than ransom and their abduction weekend hits its highs... and then suddenly its lows. Anton plays Zach. Emile Hirsch plays Truelove. Justin Timberlake, Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, and Amanda Seyfried (the super dumb one from Mean Girls) are also in the film. If you know about Hollywood (Jesse James), you know what happens to Anton's character in the film, haha - but it's all very fun to watch our Anton play along side these big stars in a story that took place in our home town just a few years ago. You can either read up on him or (perhaps if the film turns out to be good) watch the film to find out what happens. Anyway, I bring this up because the film opens wide next Friday (and the premiere starts in about ten minutes) and Timberlake is supposed to be on Leno tonight - I'll capture it, Insha Allah and if anything good comes up (like, oh, I don't know, Anton's name), then I'll upload it. Oh, and after the FBI found Hollywood after the five year hunt, there's a court case going on and Hollywood's lawyers were pretty pissed that the film's coming out as it could sway the jury's decision. Very cool. And this is all Valley news - makes it cooler. And Anton's very immersed in it - coolest, haha. Alright, that's all for tonight everyone. Take care. see u.

So, it's 2007. Any changes? Well, to start, I've redesigned the whole damn site - do you like? This one took me probably a week to do (and then I've been working all New Year's Day, because I haven't had time this past week, to fix some last minute problems) and I'm still not completely done. As of now, you cannot go back to old posts, so I need to change that later, Insha Allah. So let's run down some of the new things, shall we?

To start, this thing has gotten a little wider (just by 20 pixels though), just to make everything a little bit more backwards compatible - and it just looks nicer with some more space. The top has gotten taller and it has a new menu. I decided to do away with the whole drop down thing as it was getting really annoying, I thought, and it just didn't look very nice - now we have six things to choose from and there's a little graphic above, plus, there's a cool rollover effect (that's preloaded, by the way) - oh, and now ThaDogg is in the menu.. The border is very different as well - originally there were some weird dashed things going on, not sure why, I thought it looked nice at the time; and now there are straight edges with two sides rounded. There's an outer glow going on too and there's a margin all around. You'll also notice I've done away with all the clutter, i.e. the Adsense and the little messages I had on the top - it's a lot more simpler now. And without the Adsense, the pages now load a bit faster, which is always a plus. So instead of the Adsense (and by the way, just for the record, I made $55, haha), and the Firefox "idiot" thing I had, I replaced it with a Firefox 2 button as well as a Site Meter button, that was there before but sized differently now; I might think about adding a few other buttons there later. The links are totally different now too - now when there's a link, the underline is one pixel lower than normal and another color, then when it's rolled over it changes to a normal underline as the text color. Also, when there's a link listed that has already been visited, it has a dotted line - looks very nice. A lot of .CSS is used now. Now when you move over images, the border changes - this happens when you're posting comments too, the border of the fields change. Also on the comments, the names and the dates colors change when rolled over. Rollover color changes also occur on this main web log page when moved over the title, which changes the underline, as well as the date, time, and post title. And also on this post page, you'll notice that the text contours to the edge of the image with a margin of 5 pixels - it now floats, much better than having that empty space like in version 2. There are a lot of pages with major errors - I was really sloppy before. I need to go back and fix it all (as this whole thing is hand-coded now), so I apologize in advance for the accidental ugliness.

I think those are all the major changes that you'll see. I'm growing and so is too the site, so these changes are necessary. I've done away with a lot of clutter, like I noted, because I felt that a lot of things weren't necessary. I started this website for my own creative freedom, and after more than a year, I started to realize that all this freedom was somehow not as liberating as I had originally hoped, I had to tone down the nonsense - personally, I think this is the best design yet. One down side. I'm going to stop the redesigns every month. It can be quite tiresome (and frankly, it's hard to come up with new ideas every month, haha). Instead of changing the design every month, I'm going to spend more time making this site better in other areas, Insha Allah. So if you want, comment and tell me what you think about the new site.

Before I end this post, I want to say a proper good-bye to 2006. It was strangely a very good year - I never really think about years and feel like I'll miss them, but a lot happened in 2006 - on the top of my head I can't really come up with many things, but I know there was a lot. So let's raise our mice to honor a great year, 2006. Alright. This post is made just for the new design, I'll Insha Allah post tomorrow on some other stuff. Take care everyone. see u.