Monday, December 28, 2015

Boring book, not my cup of tea.

Why do people enjoy reading about other ordinary people? Can they relate to them? maybe, but they are not interesting. Like at all. Not one bit.

I see a book, it's about a man and a woman, they work in a bank, they fall in love, the end. Sooooo boring. Sorry but my choice in books is to escape to a fantasy world where things are either super awesome or super bad that it makes me appreciate reality. But those in the middle of this are book that are just like real life, mundane and dull, why do they even exist? why are they so good? I'd rather much read a documentary, biography, a text book on molecular science from 1991 or even a how-to documentation and manuals for software I barely use, which are more interesting than some novels about ordinary people. Sigh. Life can be wasted. Like those who rant their emotions online simply because no one else will listen. But not such a wasted life as those who read the rants online.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

On the Light Rail

I wrote a little Poem while I was on the light rail in Sacramento. Going to work.


Weary and tummy aches,
head is hurting and something smells funny
people and can’t look at, eye to eye.
The little part inside of me, doesn’t want to talk to anyone
but it’s a 1 hour ride.
On the light rail.

So I’ll sit here quietly, staring at nothing in particular.
Cause I can’t look straight at you.
But it’s hard to do so, cause my neck is pretty strained,
Looking this way
On the light rail

You noticed I glaced a couple times in your direction
You didn’t seem to care so I gazed a little longer.
My foot began to fall asleep being in the same position.
So i shifted.
Here we are now, staring at each other
on the light rail.

Should I smile?
Is that too creepy?
Or is this frowny face I have on alright?
I just want to get off now, avoid unusual confrontation.
Look it’s not my stop, but I’ll get off anyways.
Ohh wait, so did you.
Now you’re walking going somewhere.
Probably off to work.
Maybe you didn’t notice me, and now I’m on my own.
Waiting at this stop.
For the light rail.

Selling an old car

Sob sob, cry cry, weep, weep...

I've had the hard choice of selling my car. The old Dodge Dart has got to go, and soon before it rusts into a lump of worthless metal. It's not the first time this though has passed through my mind, but this time I think it's the last nail on the coffin.

In today's world, most people buy high and sell low despite what they say. No one really makes a profit on trades unless that's your business. And cars are the same. The value of cars drop and you reach a point where it's no longer economically feasible to keep throwing money at it. Sometimes you've got to cut your loses and move on.

The Dodge Dart Swinger I've mentioned on this blog post before is a great car. I wish I could afford to keep it the way it is and even though I probably can after making a few sacrifices. I think the fun has been had.

The Dodge Lives!!!

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Old Band Pics and a Video

I almost lost these once but not anymore! Anyways since we never got famous, here's the old band.






Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Water and Our Slight Obsession with it in America.

Browsing the internet, I read somewhere that Americans visiting other countries seem to have an obsession with being over prepared, an example being... carrying water and backpacks full of stuff. Almost as of they are preparing for extreme sports or Mad Max end of the world type of deal, but that's not so ridiculous as it seems. As I type the words you read, I have a backpack full of nothing but waters and a few aspirins and snack bars. Why, am I going hiking for the whole day? No, I'm going to the state Fair.

Here in the US, we give great importance to our hydration, I mean check out our cups! And most especially water in public places. It's not that don't trust the source or cleanliness, but the availability is something to be embarrassed about here in Public locations across America. At least California. Nevermind that fact that we're in a drought as it is, but we have been conditioned to be prepared for hours of thirst and walking, despite being in a crowded area. Where water fountains have waiting lines, taste funny and are far and few. That is why we carry stuff around like we're waiting for the apocalypse. Water!

I also think that it's kind of like tradition, the being prepared for anything scenario, where everyone has their own needs to think of and will not rely on the government aide of public services to help us, due to the fact that they let us down all the time. Because we're rebels.

Of course this is just my point of view.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Honest 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger (Slant 6) Review.



It's the kind of car you’d expect a old 40 year old man to be proud of as he as he slowly walks out of it and tells you all about how he became a successful man even though he's probably just like you, with the exception that he’s just been around a little bit longer. Like the car, it’s been around for just enough time that it’s almost time to retire, but not yet, because maybe you haven’t saved up enough in the 41k so you might as well just wait it out. And maybe you’re not as efficient as you were back then or even good looking either but you might still turn some heads, it’s just not the people you wish.


The 1970 Dodge Dart is or was.... a good looking car, but to most it's kind of ugly, old and slow hunk of metal. Maybe because it reminds you of your grandparents’ car, the kind they would drive and keep in good shape, simply because of sentimental value, and because they're cheap. who knows, perhaps someone out there really loves these types of cars, and maybe by the end of this post you’ll see why.


The Model I have is a 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger with the Slant 6 engine, The most common of the Dart, the second slowest and the cheapest. It's not very hard to believe that in the 1970's this cost $2,237 1970 dollars. Which in today's price rounds up to about $14,000 2015 dollars. Very affordable for a good looking car in my own opinion.


The newer Dodge Dart is nothing like this except that they both don’t come with AC (Oh burn!). But honestly it just feels cooler driving around the older Dart. Not the kind of cool you feel when driving a Mustang or Camaro with the speed and young folks thumbs up of approval. But the cool that you know you're driving a real car and not random automobile down the street.


You’re like the guy who drives to a store just to buy a soda pop and parks by the curb while you step out for a drink with your shades on kind of cool. The kind that doesn't have to prove he’s cool as he nods politely to his neighbors or anyone that passes by. Hey dude. You're alright.


The car is not aerodynamic and very well insulated, driving in it feels like you shouldn't worry about dents and dings because it’s just a regular grocery-getter, with style. This Dart wasn't meant to go fast, it was meant to get you there, eventually.


Do you want to keep this car original. NO, nope nope. Stock is sooo bad, this car is asking to be fixed and modified. 1 barrel carb, small radiator, small fan blade, points ignition. small exhaust. AM Radio..... If they built this car properly it would have been a powerhouse and given V8's a run for their money. But only hot rodders and mechanic’s knew or cared about the slant 6. Because normal enthusiasts get the V8. Everyone else got this grandpa hand me down, without the paint job.


It was the 4 cylinder of today. Only hipsters and old people know about the slant 6. It's earned a reputation for being reliable, but I haven't seen it be reliable, it just won’t die is all. Do you call an old person reliable just because he hasn't died yet? No, he’s a survivor and about to kick the can soon, but he’s not reliable, he just lived longer than all of you. But I guess it's true what this one guy told me, "the engine will outlive the car."



Vapor lock. If you’ve been driving the car around and turn it off. Go into the market for a quick 5 or 10 minutes, then prepare to gas it while turning the key because it does not like to start with a carb full of gas that seems to soak in while dissipating heat from the exhaust manifold. I can’t prove it. But I know what this car wants and it’s a gasp of fresh air.


Turning, don't even try it, without bucket seats you'll need the door fully closed or else you might fall out or lay your head on the passenger's side, the Dart invented the term "Body roll" with it's thin tires and brick like features this car can do 80 and make you slow down to 60 and think "You know what, 60's fine, better drive slow anyways I might want to save some gas. for now." Sure it can go faster, but with a theoretical top speed of 99MPH, no one's crazy enough to drive a stock Dodge dart without kissing their life goodbye. And 3 speed auto tranny


But 0-60 or 1/4 mile times are actually kind of fun, like risking your life every time you step on the gas, so it's hard to convince some people to actually put the lead out when driving this beast. Today's drivers are chickens when you're in the dart.

But you wouldn't even want to drive fast. This car will turn you into the old man you never thought you could be, yelling at youngsters to slow down as they barrel down the highway while you go at a steady 65MPH because you want to get there alive while saving fuel.


Good luck trying to listen to the radio, even if you upgrade your system and soundproof the car, it's still road noise, engine noise, exhaust noise, everything but the music noise.
No AC. Man up or install it yourself, at least it’s got a heater.


So much space... especially with the front bench you can fit 6 people and that's soo much more fun than a van. So practical you can  convince someone it was a wise buy, although secretly you know it wasn't.


It almost makes me wish I got the V8, it makes me wish I knew more on fixing cars, and it makes me wish I had more money to make it the car it should have been. But it’s a done deal and just be happy with it.




Look at all that engine room, do whatever you want in there, go ahead, touch it all. That's what the car says and that's what it was made for. Install headers, hyperpack, new Radiator, carb or even a turbo, anything is possible!!!


Slant 6 sounds great, it’s not the v8 brum brum brum. More like a CHT CHT CHT CHT



Comfy... with couches for seats, steering so easy there's never been a car made for old people like this one. Just add power brakes and you're 100 year old grandma could drive this thing. Use your pinky, it dares you. Just stop driving so fast.


There's almost no reason to buy a Dart unless you've got nostalgia for the car, or want to make memories. If you're looking to buy a Dart, All I can say it, have fun with it. Don't care about what other people think, don't keep it "original" but fix it to make it better. It's a fun car and make it look nice or leave it as a beater, it doesn't care, because it's a freaking Dart. Annoy people as you roar by in your sleeper hot rod or your piece of junk jalopy.


It's not the car people wish for, but the car they wish they kept.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Installing Arch Linux LXQT for fun.

Today I installed Arch Linux with the LXQT desktop environment. It was not as satisfying as I thought. Although I am able to install everything I wanted, once I got to the point of setting up the ALSA control panel for the sound card. I just gave up. There's no point. I realized I know Linux enough to do this. I just didn't have a need for this hard to configure rather quick and lean distribution, that and I got really lazy and tire. So I'm going to install Windows 7 and give this computer away.



Thursday, January 29, 2015

Guitar Upgrade

When I started playing guitar, I had a steel string ugly acoustic thing that I never liked to play, it was hard and the steel strings hurt my fingers. I heard from a somewhat experienced guitar player that I should switch to nylon strings. He didn't know that guitars are made for one type of strings and neither did I, for my guitar was actually MADE for nylon strings and the guy who sold it, put steel strings on it, making it a terrible guitar. The upgrade (or should I say restoration?) was a huge difference and helped me in my guitar learning experience.

I never took good care of that guitar cause I always saw it as a cheap thing that was hard to play and never sounded professional. However even after buying a nice electric and other acoustic guitars, I still held onto that one as my personal favorite due to it's sound. I enjoyed playing many classical pieces and even composed a few on there, but then came the day that it was falling apart, and I wanted a replacement so I don't end up killing my beloved ugly guitar. So I went to Kline music thinking it would be easy to find any cheap old guitar that would outperform mine. It wasn't. I had to really find (in the good section) a guitar that had the bassy, no echo, feel of mine and when I did. I loved it. I don't have much to say about the new one. because this story is about my old classical guitar.

 Anyways, that's my story. i cut it short since I had a lot to say but not many people who read it all.

Monday, January 26, 2015

Musings on Vanity or Fashion.

I don't really care about my appearance as much as some people. But I care just enough to get by my everyday life and a few ventures in the outside world. What I have found quite bothersome is people who put so much emphasis on their appearance that everything else is put into a lower priority. Keep in mind that as I write this I'm staring at what I think is an example of such a person.

Perhaps a slick new hairstyle that obviously that it took longer than 15 minutes to set into place though he will deny it. A tight fitting suit that looks more fashionable than practical. Topped off with a bow tie, although I have been guilty of wearing one from time to time. Clip on. 

Besides all that I've mentioned, I do not envy them, I just feel other things should take precedence. And many would not agree with me, but it's just pure spite directed towards their wastefulness that irks me. That is all.


Monday, January 12, 2015

CSI: Sacramento

This is the script for our next upcoming film, still in the works. I just wanted to share this just to remind everyone I'm still working on it. 

Characters
Lead Detective: Erik
Partner Detective: Josh
Spencer: Spencer
Mario: Mario
Dead Party person. Natan
Sheriff: Raquel
Sheriff Assistant: Gaby
Allisa (Girl from party who got interrogated): Gricel


Crew
Camera guy: Natan
(We’re going to record the voices on a separate device so we can hear ourselves talk) Sound guy: Erik


STORY

The scene starts with the camera zooming through the open door of a house a house playing loud music at a party.
Camera cut scenes to a party with the guests going all crazy, loud rave music, drinking, lots of food, then blending stuff, tv playing a movie, popcorn, violent pillow fight, and whispering junk like dares and stuff, they laugh all crazy and sneak out.
The camera angles up to the night sky and it comes down on.....

2 car guys, (Beemer and Jay)
Camera transitions from up high to down to the rear end of the cars as the cars are revving their engines. Both cars in one shot.
A quick shot for each driver as they look at each other, nod.
Camera from behind on the ground watches them peel out.  
A short slow street race starts. Camera Sidewalk view.

After the drag race, two guys stay late and chat with each other talking about how this was much better than that lame party.
Beemer’s car is in the background playing some music.
Jay hears Beemer’s BMW revving the engine and they barely see the car peel out and drive off with the thief. (camera is behind them watching the car peel out)
(camera behind Beemer watches him dial 911 on his cell) He call the cops.


At the police station the lazy sheriff picks up the phone, goes “uhh’, and tells the assistant to “Give the job to the mystery crew. We only handle “real Cases” in this town.

Camera moves in Mystery Crew business card laying up on the Sheriff's desk.

Mystery crew member Erik picks up the old rotary phone ringing.
“uh uh, yeah that’s correct, ok right away. Wait... Do you take Debit?”
Camera angle swiftly moves to Erik’s partner (P).
and proceeds to yell, “Hey I need 20$ for pizza!” “Oh and the cops called, we have work tomorrow!” (Camera fades to day and the scene of the street where the drag race appears.)

The Mystery crew arrives a day later, in an old Mopar (Erik and (P)) camera watches them drive in. Drivers side. Erik comes out, While camera stares at his feet and moves up to his face while he close the door.
Camera looks at (P) quickly does the same.
Jay and Beemer are there waiting, Jay complains,
“What took you so long?”
Erik says,
“Relax buddy, we’re professionals, we know what we’re doing.”
(P) mutters to himself that the trail is all cold. He starts to investigate the road where the car was driven off look at the tire marks and take a cotton swab and put that in a baggie. Erik talks to the guys and asks questions in the background while (P) is inspecting the road. He says that the thief was maybe driving like a noob and trying to drag race, the two guys agree like they were scared. (since they don’t want to get fined for driving recklessly) Erik gets suspicious. (suspicious music)

(P)’s phone rings, he says it’s a call about a murder mystery and says he’d rather solve that one instead. “Good luck on finding your car, it’s definitely stolen, we’ll send you a bill in the mail.”

The mystery crew decides to ignore the fool whose car was stolen and go try to solve that case instead. Erik then says to Beemer, he may be in contact with him if he finds anything about his car. Maybe. Probably. Unlikely. Beemer and Jay feel abandoned.


As the mystery crew drives over to the river to investigate the dead body and the surrounding area. the Sheriff ( and her assistant are there) says this girl is dead from stab wounds all over the body. But (P) figures out that the murderer only made it look like a stabbing murder, and put ripped up weenies and ketchup all over her. And as he investigates this further by looking at the rocks and the broken plants, he imagines that the girl drove there, fell out of the car dead for some reason, and then someone took her car. Erik wonders if there is a car thief on the loose. (The girl driving to the river, falling out unconscious and having her car stolen will be like a dream sequence. kind of how CSI does it.)



The Mystery Crew takes the body to the lab in a black bag and input the dna data into the computer (using a scanner to scan the hair. Erik asks why did they have to bring in the whole body if all they needed was a hair. (P) was like, “Don’t question my methods!”) the loading data says, “data compiling, please wait 8867682376 years for results. Erik gets annoyed how long it’s taking and walks over to the server to do this manually. later.... find out she was just injected with a serum that makes her seem dead and it took effect after she was driving home maybe, fell out of the car when some joyrider took her car. (another Dream Sequence) The computer tells them all that from a DNA Hair sample.

So now they go out looking for two missing cars and who drugged this girl. The “dead” girl wakes up with a terrible hangover wrapped in a bag. she can’t get out. no one sees her. She says, Hello?” The camera fades out into a police station.


The Mystery Crew then goes to the DMV to see if they’ve seen this “Dead” girls car and what hopes to find what it looks like. Cop investigates on their computer system, but according to the records, she doesn’t own a car, or even a license, or even a social security number.


So Mystery crew and sheriff assistant drives the one of the girls’ house (Alisa) for an official on the spot interrogation. Erik busts down the door. Fails and just knocks instead. When the mother lets them in, they pull out the official paperwork and the mom starts crying saying. “Ohh my baby’s a criminal, I always knew she had a bad side!” And runs out the house.

The Sheriff’s assistant ties the suspect (alisa) to the chair.
Erik -”Where were you on the night of the 27th? Huh! Answer me punk, Say something?!”
ALisa - “Um I don’t know, what month?”
Erik - “I’ll make this easier for you Ally! Yesterday. where. where. you?”
Alisa - “I was at a party, behaving and having fun, my mom picked me up at 12:00, she can verify...”

Erik thinks she is lying (sherlock holmes moment, voice in his head, (She’s shaking her hand, refuses to look at him, voice is higher pitch. But in reality she just had something stuck in her eye that made her uncomfortable. and was scared at erik’s knife.) (P) plays good cop. Erik Bad cop. But she pretty much lies about everything. “We were just having a very safe party, watching movies and doing each others nails.... and stuff like that, what more do you want?” Erik then pretends to tip the chair over and she get’s really scared and spills everything. He finds out it was a dare to steal a car, and when Iris’ friends found her, they drugged her so she wouldn’t remember anything. They were all arrested. The girls also took the car and tried to drive it into the river. bye bye BMW.
(P), was like, “It’s ok it’ll be alright” and slaps handcuffs on her, “After you serve time in juvenile hall of course.” and they both but a bag over her head and carry her out, and put her in the trunk of the Mopar A.

Mystery crew now realizes that the car “dead” girl stole the car from Beemer and and now it’s in the river. So they go look for it at the river to fish it out when Zerin then sees a BMW parked like 10 feet away and asks (P) what kind of car was it they were looking for? Erik decides to close this case and report it.

As the chief of Mystery Crew reads the report, says everything looks good, but asks where the dead girl is.. Apparently everyone else forgot about her so the Sheriff goes to the dead body place and hears her singing “daisy” and gets her out, but she’s barely alive so the Sheriff rushes her to the emergency room. DR. Whaaat? comes in and says he can save her, but he needs to get drunk first, so he drinks a bottle and slams it on the ground. then he gets to work with this skill saw, but his assistant says he has the wrong tool, and he’s like, “you’re right”, and pulls out the sawzall. the show ends with a fadeout of a hospital. and the theme song from House. Whatever that song is.


(After the credits finish, Erik goes to explain to Beemer what happened to the car.
Beemer, “So my car is in the river?”
EriK, “Yes.”
Beemer,: Darn
ERIK: The good news is the crane company offered to buy it for a 100$>”
Beemer> Well it’s better than nothing.

Erik pays Beemer and then goes back to his newly purchased BMW and drives off.