Katamari Damacy

Upon hearing such good reviews for this game, I went out to Best Buy and bought Katamari Damacy. The premise of the game is simple, yet is supposed to be so addicting and fun. Basically you control a really sticky ball that rolls around and collects things. At first, those "things" are small, like oranges and bananas. However, as you gather more items, your ball can grab bigger "things" like cars or even whole buildings. Sounds absurd but it seems a lot of people like it. I haven't gotten to try it yet, but I'll write more on it in a couple days after I have played it for awhile.

USC vs. ASU

Well, this weekend my USC Trojan Football Team faces another challenge on it's path toward the National Championship. On Saturday they will be playing the Arizona State Sundevils in Arizona. The popular opinion of the sports writers in the country says that ASU's offense will be even better than the Oregon Ducks' offense. Who knows how well they'll do against my Trojans' defense. I am a little more at ease though, because the Sundevils' stadium is not as hostile and loud as Autzen Stadium in Eugene, OR. I can't wait till kickoff.

Catching up

Well, it looks as if I might be getting on the path towards catching up with my Phase-Locked Loops class. I have started the reading and homework today, which is 6 full days before it is due. I hope that I will be caught up and understand what is going on, or if I don't, at least have well-formulated questions to ask the professor.

Tired

I'm so exhausted. I'm just not managing my time well with school starting again. This morning I could barely stay awake in class, and to make things worse, I had to stay at work two hours later to make up for the lost time spent at school. No progress on my homework for Phase-Locked Loops. I will definitely ask the Prof for help after class tomorrow. I just need to get a grasp on the concepts like frequency being the rate-of-change of phase and rules that usually cannot be visualized. Wish me luck.

PPL's

I decided to sit down and study for my Phase-Locked Loops class. From doing the first homework, it's obvious I'm still a little shaking on some of the concepts. I will see if I can schedule to meet the professor at office hours sometime soon.

HSX Results

This week I decided to try out the shorting strategy on HSX. I really thought that two of the movies going into this weekend, "The Corpse Bride" and "Flightplan" were over valued. It turns out I was only correct on "The Corpse Bride". So I'm shorting more shares of "Flightplan" now, hoping that the stock will drop a little on Monday to let me recoup my losses.

Trojan Triumph

Yesterday my USC Trojans didn't let me down. They got off to a slow start in hostile Autzen Stadium, but came back to win 45-13. There were a lot of questionable calls for both sides during the course of the game. In the beginning of the call the bad calls favored Oregon, but toward the end of the game the refs made a couple of bad calls in favor of USC. The game really was a lot closer than the score would indicate, but I still believe the Trojans would have had the W in the end.

Game Day

Today is the first real test for my USC Trojan Football team. They are going up against the Oregon Ducks at Eugene. I just hope that the team has stayed focused in practice this week and that they won't be too relaxed on the field. The game starts at 4pm here in California. Too bad I'm going to a housewarming party at 4:30pm. VCR don't fail me now.

2nd Day of Class

Well, I attended the first meeting of Phase-Locked Loops today. It didn't help that I was tired, but even if I was wide awake I don't know if I have had enough background in the subject to really get a lot out of the lecture. I did learn that Phases-Locked Loops are related to the subject of control systems, and I really liked the control systems class I took a while back, so I think I am going to stick with this. Let's hope I'm not making a mistake. Anyone out there know a good tutorial for Bode Plots?

Santa Clara University - Quarter #7

Well, today was the first day of the Fall quarter at Santa Clara University. It sucked. Actually, the class I had was pretty good; Finance and Budgeting for Engineering Managers, taught by Frank Rose. Professor Rose does a very good job of keeping the lecture interesting with his colorful metaphors. I am pretty good at listening even though the subject matter doesn't excite me. Tomorrow I have Phase-Locked Loops I. I looked at the text book today and it seems as though I am really going to struggle with the class. I may even have to drop it. I just hope I can still finish my degree by June if I do withdraw from the course. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

NCAA Football - Week 3

Well, my USC Trojan Football team improved their record to 2-0 this week, beating the Arkansas Razorbacks 70-17 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. I was very impressed with the offense, which in the first quarter had 8 plays totaling over 250 yards. Matt Leinart and his receivers looked really in synch and Reggie Bush had a really great run. I'm most concerned for Lendale White. I think he is more important to the USC running game than Reggie Bush. Yes, Bush is faster and pulls a lot of attention from the other players on the team, but Lendale White is the most effective running back up the middle of the field. His power running style forces the linebackers to focus on the middle of the field, leaving the receivers more room to work on play action plays. I also wish that the offense would throw more to Dominic Byrd, a very athletic tight end. However, I can also understand how the team might want to save him for games where the receivers get shut down, as in the Oregon State game last season. Well, this week will be a challenging one for the Trojans as they head to Eugene to play the Oregon Ducks. Fight on, Trojans.

Fatigue

Poor LiverLvr. He's been prescribed this medical treatment by his doctor. He has been taking injections of interferon three times a week. I guess on the internet some people have blogged about their experiences with the shots and described a wide range of side effects, but mostly flu-like symptoms. LiverLvr has actually been very lucky and the only side effect he is feeling is fatigue. I just get concerned sometimes cause I know he has a long drive home, and I don't want him to fall asleep behind the wheel.

His Physical Condition Yesterday: 8 out of 10
His Fatigue Level: 10 out of 10

Restaurant Review: Crustaceans

My sister and her family are in town visiting this week, so on Saturday we met up for dinner at a restaurant in San Francisco called Crustaceans. It is on the corner of Polk St. and California St. If you enjoy seafood and your wallet can handle the prices, I highly recommend it. We all got one of their specialty dishes: Roasted Crab (in butter and garlic). It is amazing how full and rich the flavor in the crab was. To complement our main dish we also split a couple of plates of their garlic noodles. I will definitely have garlic in my system for the next couple of days. The crab was so good that even though everything on the menu sounds delicious, I will probably continue to get the crab whenever I go to this restaurant. For desserts, their baked Alaska and friend bananas are also excellent.

If you decide to go, it is a little fancy, so men must be wearing a collared shirt (don't worry they give you bibs to protect your nice clothes).

Summer Vacation 2006

So one of my buddies mentioned that since he finished high school he has gone to at least one foreign country a year. Some of this happened to be for school, and maybe for work, I don't remember, but I really like travelling so I thought I would join him for a summer trip in 2006. So far we're thinking of a Mediteranean Trip, where we visit Spain and Greece for a couple of weeks. So I have a couple of questions for you blog readers out there.
1) What are your top three places you would like to go on vacation next summer?
2) For anyone who has visited or lives in Spain or Greece, what do you recommend doing?

Labor Day

Welcome to the StarSpangledTrader blog, which will detail most of my big trades on the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Well this weekend Transporter 2 was a big hit for me. With the price I bought the stock at, I needed it to make at least $10 million this weekend, and it ended up making $20 million. So overall on the stock I make a profit of H$1 million, with H$600,000 of it coming today.

Also, my USC Trojan Football team didn't let me down on Saturday and they ended up beating the UH Warriors 63-17. Next game is in two weeks, with the Arkansas Razorbacks coming to play USC at the LA Coliseum.

It's Game Day!!!!

Hooray!!! College Football is finally here. Just a little more than an hour until kickoff. I'm just so sad that I'm stuck here in Northern Cal while my team, USC, is playing in my home state of Hawaii. My parents are loyal UH fans, so they are going to the game, and my mom called me to let me know that USC fans are taking over the area around Aloha Stadium. She said that there are so many USC tents and tailgaters having a great time, and the USC Trojan Marching Band is even marching around playing the rock charts for everyone. I'm getting all excited just thinking about it. I had so many good memories of Game Day at USC, and our team wasn't even winning then. I just wish I lived in LA right now so that I could still go to every home game... what a shame. The positive aspect I can think of for myself is that I'm saving money on the cost of the tickets to the game, but that is of little consolation to me. Well, it's time for me to get in front of the TV for the next four hours. I hope you enjoy your Saturday as much as me.