#22, Sleepy Evening Again

Early Evening, Princeton-By-The-Sea, California, November ‘07, artistic view.

More rain, more sleepy weather again. It is raining on and off again, and the weather makes you very lethargic. Spent some time in front of a computer during the day watching YouTube videos, commenting on some, rating, and deleting everything else that I do not want to watch. I have been getting many videos like that recently. Some people send two, three, four, and even in one case, five identical emails with attached videos. Why do they do that? It only makes me mad, and I will not watch for sure if somebody is trying to force me!
Have you noticed that the number of mean and arrogant comments is way down on YouTube? Not sure if it is just me, since I did clean my account and many people got dropped, but things are overall much cleaner. Probably the initial, tumultuous stage belongs to the past and things are going to be more pleasant from now on. Let's hope so. Or, maybe I am just dreaming, the weather is indeed good for that.
Just a single case opposite to what I just told you. Someone called me a ****head after I pointed out to a girl singing Wuthering Heights that the song was originally sung by Kate Bush! I can handle that, I guess.
Nikkei is down 4% in Tokyo, let's see what NYSE does in NY in a few hours. Apple is down to 130 from 200 high not long time ago, a very major correction. Lots of house foreclosures in the San Francisco Bay Area, house prices are going down as well.
A quick trip to a bookstore to check if there are any new titles, also checking latest travel and photo magazines, kind of ritual.
Later in the evening, chicken and spinach crepes and coffee at IHOP http://www.ihop.com. Gas for my car, violin favorites CD playing inside. We can call it a day once I submit this blog, and finish a cup of green tea.

#21, Raining Again

So Pretty!, Waikiki, Hawaii, October ‘07, artistic view.

It is raining again. Yes, it is. There were several nice and sunny days, but now the rain is back. And it is quite cold as well. At night, after drinking a good cup of chamomile tea, you sleep very well. So there is something positive about it, after all. Too bad I cannot read more than two pages of anything before falling quickly asleep.
And did you check the financial pages lately? Things are going down so fast, it is incredible. DJIA is back to where it was in March of '07. Several good months of last year somehow vanished. And now, Hong Kong and Tokyo are joining the downward trend. Emerging markets, especially India, do not even look.
AC temperature is set to 70F in my place. At exactly 71.2F, the fan in my PC is turning on, making noise, and waking me up at night. So it is absolutely necessary to keep the temperature below 71F at any time. Can I turn the PC off at night, you might ask? Not really since it is running long simulations that usually take about 2.5 months to finish. It is basically on all the time. Buying a new one with a quieter fan, and a faster one as well, that's something I need to consider soon.
Did not shoot any video for YouTube in a long time, my dead iMac is preventing me from editing anything. I did not decide whether to buy a new iMac or switch with editing to Windows Vista and perhaps Sony Vegas. Any suggestions?
I am sure you were dying to know all of that.

#20, Five Facts About Me

Green Hills Near San Jose, San Jose, California, Spring ‘08, artistic view.

I have been tagged by newishness. Too bad it is during the time when my iMac and network are not working. I can barely make a video at this moment, will have to answer in a different way. Sorry for that. Here we go:

1. I used to travel a lot in the past. Usually on weekends, I would drive to different places and take pictures there. My photo collection is actually quite large. If you name a city in California, I either was there, or at least drove through it. The longest one weekend distance – I believe it was about 2200 miles, just to take several pictures somewhere there. Crazy, insane?
2. This one is related to number 1. What stopped me - speeding tickets. Since distances in California, Oregon, Nevada, or Arizona where I was going, are quite large, you need to drive very fast. And there is always somebody waiting for you. After several tickets I had to stop altogether.
3. I believe on three occasions ladies spilled something on me: a hot soup in California, a cold beer in Sierra Nevada, and an iced tea recently in Honolulu. And nothing happened. So it's not true what people are saying about that.
4. Every wall in my place has at least one oil painting on it. Some two or three. There are also many other paintings standing around. There is even one in my bathroom, a Greek scene. Still not sure whether I should keep or delete this point!
5. I used to fly gliders several years ago, but stopped almost completely. I do not have a fear of flying. However, every time I am inside a commercial jet, I realize how little time it takes to hit the ground. I am sure that most people who fly, would not, if they knew that.

If I may, I would like to tag these people, all are my subscribers, of course:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=danbergam
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=joey0028
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ArdieVerde
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=johnkline76
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=EmCSpiteri

#19, Time for Another Blog

Three Coconut Palm Trees, Oahu, Hawaii, October ‘07, artistic view.

It has been a while since my last blog #18. Essentially it is my iMac problems plus network connection problems, I had a very limited access to Internet. Was able to do a bit from a pay/hour commercial place, about $30/hour to be exact, way too much to use on a regular basis.
It is raining now in Northern California and has been raining for a few days now, a good time to sleep, and indeed that is exactly what I have been doing. The downside of sleeping during the day is that you are going to have some time at night when you cannot sleep, so adding a new blog is a way to kill that time.
You may be thinking if going away from YouTube for a while changes anything. No it does not. I honestly can say that I did not miss much, maybe two or three people, I certainly did not miss watching videos! And YouTube was supposed to be about videos.
I used to follow YouTube * Top 100 ratings very closely for some time to see who is going up and who is going down. Those stats are based on the number of subscribers and are updated every Sunday night California time. Now I can honestly say that those stats have very little to do with who is actually good on YouTube. I can watch maybe four people from the list of 100, and believe subscribe to only two.
You must have heard that Celine Dion finished her show in Las Vegas. But her DVD that is now available is really good. It's been playing here over and over again ever since it came from Amazon.com.

Reading now: This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin, ISBN 978-0-452-28852-2.
Also a bit more reading of financial pages, and it's time to go to bed, again.