I have nothing really to say today, except for a bit about Free Willy after the words - you can get them here, or here:

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People often ask me what my most watched movie was when I was a kid. I immediately think, why the hell are you asking me? Then I realize that I really do not know what I watched the most when I was a kid. Earlier today, TCM premiered Free Willy - the first time they've ever showed it on TCM. It's supposedly a great film about friendship - I've always loved it, I just never knew it was TCM worthy. Well, I did the words while watching it, and after I finished the words (which was fast as they only take me about ten minutes tops), I sat through the whole thing and realized it's a really short film. I remember it being much longer when I was young. And did everyone else know it was shot in 2.35:1? I had no idea. Damn VHS panning and scanning - I don't think I've seen it on TV for years too. The beginning of the movie brings back so many memories of my childhood. The thing that stands out the most though for me is when they steal that cake in the beginning. I never got that image out of my head, all of them at that skate park stuffing themselves with cake with their faces all greasy and sweaty - I never knew as a child if it was because of all the cake they were eating or was it because they were so dirty, all I knew was that whenever I ate cake from then on, I felt like my face would be really shiny if I ate too much. It's really great how these films we've watched when we were young have such a long lasting effect on us; I think it is alone in that, nothing else can influence us like how we were influenced as children. And what influenced us will definitely not influence our kids, unless we forcefully expose it to them. That's just a fun little though I had today. Alright, that's all I have. Oh, and I'm having some permission problems with Linux so you probably won't be able to comment - and won't be able to get all of Imadul's pictures. I do not have any energy at all tonight to attempt to figure it out, I've already sat down for an hour to figure it out and kept going in circles, so I'll try to get to it tomorrow, Insha Allah. Take care everyone. see u.

This morning before the Laker game, one that ended about an hour ago, one in which we lost; I edited and put together the pages for my new Samsung DVD Burner, the Samsung SH-S183L, you can view the album here. This burner is quite fantastic. I bought it from Newegg and consulted only Newegg on my purchase, and I am glad. Why? Before I reviewed this drive on PriceGrabber, this drive had a rating of 2/5. That is a very sad score, especially for such a wonderful drive as this one is. I have no idea what the other reviewers were saying in their complaints: bad firmware, did not work on Vista. Both terrible lies, and both given by users who have both only had their accounts for a month. I wrote a review, and have already received a helpful (by me, haha), check it out here and rate it as helpful!

Okay, enough with the rant about idiots (and let me clarify that it was a rant about the idiot users, not PriceGrabber as I really love PriceGrabber). This drive really is spectacular. I got it for about $40 from Newegg.com with absolutely no rebates. It was free shipping, I think all I paid was $38 for the drive and then a few bucks for tax. Not only that, but because Newegg is so close to where I live (it's in Whittier, California), I got the drive in like two days from when I clicked submit. Before this new drive, I had a very old Pioneer DVD Burner when they started to become popular, I bought it for almost two hundred dollars and it had a write speed of probably 2x. I know, I feel bad for me too. I was still stuck with that until a couple weeks ago. Now I have a beautiful 18x speed (granted I don't have any 18x discs with which to burn that fast), 16x read speed, 8x Dual Layer speed, LightScribe, and SATA ± DVD Burner from Samsung. I can now burn any DVD in under five minutes, it used to be almost twenty, and that helps oh so much. Oh, and that's not even when turning on the "Magic Speed" option where it does it at super fast speeds - yes, you heard me correctly, you can regulate whether or not you want to crack your disc at super high speeds, haha. Although I probably won't be using the LightScribe functionality (just for fun of course) because one, it needs a special kind of disc and two because it's monochromatic, but the idea of turning your burned disc upside down in your drive (an act no one would ever do in the past!) and having an image burned onto it is definitely a futuristic kind of thought, I love it. This burner is without a doubt the coolest single thing I've bought in a while. It looks so beautiful too!

But before I go, I want to say how sad I am with the Lakers. Game 3 comes around and you slaughter the Suns. You are guarding every man and you are taking it to the paint like you just discovered the idea of paint, the first two games are gone. But in Game 4, another home game, Games 1 and 2 come back and the idea of Round 2 slips away minute by minute, point by point, assist by assist (damn Nash). You did not feel you could beat the Suns, you did not hit the team's weak spots, you could not deliver when everyone knows you have the ability. And now Game 5 is approaching, it's an away game; you know that to stay alive this is the game, otherwise the Suns go to Round 2 and you are yet again stuck in Round 1 to find yourself looking for a person to add over summer to bring the Laker name back up. It's a must-win situation. Which Laker team will you be? We all hope for the Game 3 team, no doubt about that. Wednesday night at 7:30 PM on TNT. Tonight, though, we get to be entertained with the great Mavericks and Warriors match up. Warriors all the way. Starts at 7 PM on TNT tonight. Alright everyone, take care. see u.

Before I update you guys on some new stuff here, let's first throw these words out at you, one by one. Okay, that will take too long. I'll do it all together. Get them here, or here:

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Okay, now that that's out of the way, I put up some more photos. Well, they've been done for about a week, I just added captions to 'em yesterday (I am so lazy when it comes to captions, it really took me only five minutes when I thought it would probably take me thirty). It's related to that photo to the left - no, nothing to do with the mid-season finale of South Park (which was about hobos), but it's of that Laker game we went to a couple weeks ago - yah, very far off. Well, It's up, and now you can relive our day, especially now that the Lakers are in the Playoffs. We lost the first game of round 1, but I'm pretty sure we'll make up for it. We are not that bad. And how about the Warriors, eh? I'm rooting for them all the way, Dallas sucks. The Warriors are amazingly good. The Laker game is the second part of TNT's double-header tomorrow night at 7:30 PM - don't miss Charles' insanity. The Warrior game is also the second part of TNT's double-header, but on Wednesday at 6:30 PM. Both, I think, will be great games. Here's a link to the album from our big Laker game, 68 photos, real fun. Here's a link to Imadul's photos, again as my camera was taken away by the Nikon lovers - he has more game shots.

I mentioned South Park's mid-season finale earlier, it was pretty good, you can catch it on its page. The thing that I loved most about it was that it was poking fun of Dawn of the Dead, and the great film Shaun of the Dead just ended it's big run on Comedy Central the weekend before its airing. The whole greatness was only exponentially magnified by the fact that the Shaun of the Dead guys were coming out with their American release of Hot Fuzz two days after the finale. Well not only was the mid-season finale great, so too was Hot Fuzz. I saw it with Imadul, and others, on Friday night. We got into this argument, that I obviously won cos he sucks at arguments, about the way Simon and Edgar were poking fun at all the movies. He named all these movies that they supposedly mocked when in actuality he was wrong. Anyway, the film was great. It follows Simon Pegg being demoted from his London "policeman officer" job to a country side job because he was so good that he was giving every other London cop a bad name. In this new city, Sandford, Simon's character finds out everything is corrupt, so he tries all he can to bring everything back to how it should be, not just for the greater good. Yet while he's trying to do all this with his great partner, whose traits rub off on each other, mysterious murders spring up all over town. It's a really great film with lines that will be stuck in your head all night, yet, I much prefer Shaun of the Dead because it has more of a friendship vibe between Nick and Simon - I really liked that. Nick and Simon went on Kimmel a few days before the film was released in America, and I captured it. It's an okay interview, but it shows really well the relationship that they both have, really great. Oh, and I also captured something the same night - it was a rerun of a Conan show, but to celebrate his birthday last week, I'll add it up too. Jim Gaffigan did some stand up on the show as well as unveiled a new clip of his cartoon featuring him and Conan, Pale Force. haha. Well, that's about it. Take care everyone. see u.

Very short post today, I'm just here for the words, you can get them here, or here:

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How about this Virginia thing, eh? If you haven't heard about it, there were two shootings up at Virginia Tech - a reported 33 people were killed, including one of the gunmen, making it the largest school killing in American history. This whole thing started at about 7:15 AM Eastern (local) with a shooting in West Ambler Johnston Hall, killing a man and a women. Police arrive and were talking to a "person of interest" (who they say is not a student) while a second shooting occurred, making them believe that the first event was not directly related to the second. The second shooting occurred in a classroom in Norris Hall somewhere around 9:00 AM Eastern, killing the remaining including the gunman himself. Around this same time, an e-mail was sent out to the students explaining what had occurred, as well as posting the news online. The school and classes are now closed, and there are counseling centers ready to take students. The police are not letting out any information as they want to make everything correct the first time, not to create any sort of confusion. Check out some news channel, preferably not FOX News or Headline News, as listening to them makes me laugh hysterically - which probably isn't a good sign. Probably check out YouTube tomorrow because there was at least one video that the news people were using. There are a lot of people upset, not just because of the shooting, but because of how the college reacted, or a lack there of in their opinion. Alright, take care everyone. see u.

Tonight's a big night. The seventh spot now belongs to the Lakers as the Nuggets jumped to six after the loss last night to the Suns. Clippers is not too far behind (but the team is in Dallas tonight). Tonight's game in Denver, if won, leads the Lakers to number 6, a spot we want as a Round 1 match up with the Spurs is a lot more attractive than one with the Suns, I think. Kobe's gotta score a good 50 if Odom and Smush don't get into it as much as possible - but let's hope that doesn't happen (even though it'd be fun to watch), let's hope they all get into the action. Watch KCAL 9 tonight for a great game, Insha Allah - in HD at 409 on Time Warner Cable, game starts at 6 PM... which is like right now. Okay, now for those words, you can get them here, or here:

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Senior Fashion Talent Show's on Wednesday night, Imadul's hosting - so buy your tickets. Not sure why I'm promoting - probably cos I'll be taping it; not sure who's editing that nor how they're going to distribute it (my guess is Bill will edit), but just thought I'd kind of support it. Melo Sux! Go Lakers! Take care. see u.

Let's talk some Lakers. I didn't have this long absence because the Nuggets won that game we went to Tuesday night, that is far from it because we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves that Tuesday. We started off our day by heading to the movies, the game started at 7:30 PM, so we had some time to kill. I picked up Imadul. When I got to his house, he asked if I wanted to wear his old Carmelo Anthony jersey, I said yah. Old. Old and small. But it looked awesome. We picked up Carie and headed to the movies. On the way I remembered I Think I Love My Wife and how much I wanted to watch that movie - I decided that if that was still playing at or around the same time, we are ditching all the other movies, The Lookout and Reign Over Me were our other choices, and jumping straight for Chris Rock's comedy. It definitely did not disappoint. We all kind of went in there with pretty much no knowledge except we all loved either Chris Rock or Louis C.K., or both. The theatre was empty so we were able to verbalize whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted - until an hour into it when these idiots came in... but then again, they weren't the most idiotic as some other person came in with probably ten minutes left. Wow. The film is spectacular. The best relationship movie I've seen in a while - mostly because it was my kind of comedy. If you've ever heard Louis C.K., you'd know how he views relationships and marriage - he holds this very bitter view of it. You feel that inside he enjoys the whole married with kids thing, but the way he talks about it, makes fun of it with a great big smile - makes fun of his wife and daughter - it's all so funny. This film has that feeling lingering. It's about a married man with two Kids, Chris Rock. He says he's happily married, but his definition of happiness changes from the beginning to the end with the help of this succubus character whom we all learn to hate through the entirety of the film. It's about Chris understanding what marriage, his marriage, is really about. A great story for anyone in a relationship or anyone that at one point was sucked in by that succubus character - very entertaining to say the least. At a little over 90 minutes, it's a great watch. Not your typical comedy about relationship - at all, trust me - but if you're into their kind of humor, you're going to love it.

So the film ends, we walk to my car - and Asian kid with a black sweater that says his name on it, a Pakistani kid with a Carmelo Anthony jersey, and a Bengali kid with a Kobe Bryant number 8 jersey. I don't know whose idea it was, maybe Imadul's, but we decided to get masking tape. Why? So we can write "SUX" on Melo's jersey. Is that genius, or what? So we end up dropping by Robyn's house to pick up the masking tape - she lives right where we were, and she is an artist (pronounce it the pretentious way) so she has these things. The jersey ends up amazingly. We take the tape with us just in case we need some, and we ask her to tape (different kind of tape) the game for us, just in case we get on with this awesome jersey. But FSN doesn't do those kinds of things, record people in the crowd cos they're tight as hell. So we get to the Staples Center, all fine and perfect, nothing bad happened - at all. Except for when a bird got in our way - we were on the 110 and this damn bird was blocking us from changing lanes to exit, I didn't want to cut him off, so I had to slow down and pass him from behind. The other guys were too scared to take a photo - they were rolling up Imadul's window while screaming like girls. The jersey was a hit. Everyone who saw it and said something about it, loved it. Great idea, whoever it was. A few people thought I was rooting for the Nuggets so they said something like, "right on, Nuggets!" then I held up the bottom and said, "SUX!" And they shouldn't have said "Nuggets", cos "Nuggets" is singular and "SUX" is used with plurals, so it wasn't grammatically correct when they said it - they should've said "Denver". We also took Imadul's 8 jersey and put "x3" next to it to make Kobe's new jersey, I thought that was hilarious - only one person said something about it though, sorry. Anyway, we go all over the Staples Center, or nearly - we went up to the third level to see how high it is, it's actually pretty nice up there, except it was much too high, when you're at the ledge, you can seriously get pushed over and fall to your death - not because it was ten stories high or anything, it was actually probably only ten or twenty feet to the second floor, but because there were rabid dogs down below. After we get our food and drinks and whatever (the pretzels are amazing!), we head to our seats. I took a photo of the people sitting next to us when we were up on the Third. That's what we called it, by the way. The Third, so that the people up their don't feel sorry for themselves. It's actually quite nice up on the Third. So we get all relaxed and situated in the seats that will be ours for the rest of the night (it took us a little to discuss where we'd sit, we ended up going by birthdays - coincidental that our seats were our birthday? I think not).

continue reading what happened at the Laker game....

You guys, I've always loved Carmelo as an athlete, but I had no idea how cool he was. So, a couple hours ago, Kimmel gets him on (Amy Poehler was also there) and it always gets me how big athletes look when they're in front of normal people, Melo looks huge! haha. So he walks in with this black shirt and dark blue jeans with this wide grin on his face - he's laughing throughout the interview, really enjoying himself. Even though he mumbles a bit and talks kind of dumb, you can't help but like the guy. Kimmel and he talked about Melo's suspension and how he wasn't able to be around during the games, they talked about Melo's kid and their names, about Melo's new mobile messaging service, his MySpace account, and of course about the Lakers, who's a better player, he or Kobe. It really did seem like the audience was not a Laker audience but instead a Nugget/Melo audience... but perhaps that was just because Melo was sitting right there. Anyway, Carmelo Anthony is really awesome, he made a couple jokes on his own and out of responses, and looked pretty relaxed, even if he sat pretty still. So, I like the guy, but Melo, I'm sorry, but you guys are going down tonight. You guys are going downtown (Los Angeles). Kobe might've been quiet points wise on Sunday against the Kings (a game to which, by the way, Imadul went as well), but tonight he and Odom and Walton and all the other awesome guys are going to slap you guys silly! Tell Iverson to get some eye drops and get ready for a great game! Oh, and if you wanna watch that interview, you can catch it here. And remember to watch the game on FSN at 7:30PM PDT tonight - it's going to be hot. We'll be sitting on the Lakers' side, so keep your eyes peeled! And let me just thank lakerstown again for the tickets, such a nice guy and such a nice seller, if you need Laker tickets, buy 'em from him... unless I'm bidding on the auction, haha. Alright, take care everyone.

April Fools!! Did you like it? I forwarded everything modenadude.com to Google! I love it. Google also had its own April Fools jokes, TiSP and Gmail paper - one is a wireless connection that works through your toilet, and the other is e-mail printed out and snail mailed to you for free! Great ideas. There were a bunch more April Fools jokes around the net, as there always are. ThinkGeek is also rather notorious with coming out with items that you cannot buy at all, but just tease you into pressing "Add To Cart" and then get hit with this. Those tricksters. Geeks.com offered to rent a Honda ASIMO, a six month trial! And the crazy people at MuggleNet faked that they had already reviewed the new Harry Potter book that is due out in July, Insha Allah, Deathly Hallows! Those rascals. All in all, it was a good April Fools' Day full of hilarious new products and depressing new tricks.

Okay, but this next thing is far from an April Fools' joke. Last week, I decided, "Asim", that's me, "Asim, you should go to a Laker game". So, I randomly said aloud to my buddies Imadul and Carie one day at school that we will go to the Nuggets/Lakers game on the third of April. We all got excited, even I, until I came to the realization that I had not even looked at the tickets. Turns out, they were sold out, which is good and bad. Good because it'll probably turn out to be a great game, sixth and seventh seeded teams, two games between each other, Iverson, Melo, Kobe, Odom - it has to be awesome; and bad because we wouldn't be able to get the tickets. But that did not stop me. I looked on the trusty eBay site. And sure enough, I found a bunch. But I wasn't going to settle on a nose-bleed seat, it had to be the best for my buddies and me. So I found this seller, lakerstown, with this auction. After being rejected for a quick $350 transaction, I decided to bid. After a long and suspenseful week, I ended up winning the auction by sniping Bidder 2 (I was Bidder 1) with 12 seconds left! A very intense auction it was. It ended at $450. But you can't put a price on fun. So, this all means that tomorrow, Tuesday, April 3rd, Carie, Imadul, and I are going to be at the Staples Center watching the Nuggets try to beat the Lakers, Insha Allah, which they won't by the way cos the Lakers rule all. Oh, and I'll be wearing this. Imadul and I will both be brining our cameras of course, Insha Allah, so stay tuned for photos from me and the sister site, ThaDogg. His might be up faster, but mine will definitely be better, haha. The game's at 7:30 PM PDT on FSN for the people down here in Los Angeles. Go Lakers! Oh! And Melo is on Kimmel tonight. I'll Insha Allah grab it and post it up before the game. Oh, and before the game, we'll be watching The Lookout - so that means I will have seen two of the March movies I wanted to see [The Namesake [which I absolutely loved by the way) and The Lookout].

But the last thing I want to say before I go is something I should've gave you guys a long time before. The new computer photos. I re-did the photography section, the old stuff isn't up there yet, but I promise you they will be. I like this new photography section, so if you don't, leave a comment on what you would like to change and I'll try and make it better. It's really intuitive, I think. Try it out - arrows, big photos, polaroids; real fun stuff. To start you guys off, I'm throwing 208 photos at you. So check it out here. That's all. Have fun everyone, talk to you very soon, Insha Allah.