cute kids, cool cars, close call, and a cleaaaaan cookie

i think my blog makes you guys read too much. here, a change of pace. (also no new music. sorry.)

these two kids are isaac and enoch, respectively.

i know them from church, and i went to their house and taught them piano for a while up until i had to go to college.

enoch is the older brother, but i don't remember exactly how old they are. they're ridiculously cute and cool at the same time, and i love hanging out with them.

fun fact!: enoch and isaac have beaten me in checkers every time that we've played. in my defense, i've only played checkers a handful of times as a kid, and haven't touched the game since.

isaac has two swirls!

i have this thing where i point out every nissan 350z that i see. and if i can, i take a picture of it. (which isn't creepy, 'cause they're just cars, not like people or something.)

i saw this sweet black one as i was biking on my way to mr. kevin yuey's house, and stopped to take these two pics, but not for too long, for fear of neighbors being suspicious.

i saw this tricked-out 350z as i was leaving rockaway mall.

i'm particularly proud of these shots that i got here, waiting for the traffic light at 46/beverwyck.

at rutgers. DIG the blue.


rutgers again. orange is pretty legit, too.

check it ouuuuut.

before i came to college, i mowed four lawns regularly, and carried the lawn mower to their houses in our mazda suv, pictured on the left. for these next pictures, even though i had full intention for this to happen, i'm not sure whether to describe it as something that i did or something that happened to me. i'll let you decide.

and last but not least.

SHO NUFF

[those 3 fax]
-when i was younger, i used to think i was clever by pointing my middle finger down at the ground. i don't recall doing it much, though.
-for as long as i can remember, i've slept on my tummy. on the rare occasion, i would sleep on my side. however, it wasn't until college that i actually deliberately slept on my back. still rare, though. it feels so weird.
-my favorite soda is mountain dew: code red. it doesn't have to do with the color red, that's for sure, because that's one of my least favorite colors. but i dunno. i'm a big mountain dew fan in general. all the mountain dews i've had: regular, code red, live wire, pitch black, pitch black ii, voltage, supernova, revolution, baja blast, and halo3 game fuel edition. i have yet to try the two world of warcraft ones. i still have an unopened can of the halo3 game fuel edition on the shelf in my room. :D

pour me a heavy dose of atmosphere

i SAW OWL CITY IN CONCERT, the same venue as the one i saw amber pacific at. IT WAS AWESOME. adam sang and played some electric guitar (two different ones!). there was also a celloist, violinist, drummer, and a female vocalist who also played keyboard and synth. it was AWESOME. oh wait i said that already, lols. they didn't stick around afterwards, unfortunately. i didn't get any merch this time, because the wristband was $10, t-shirts were expensive ($20), and the poster wasn't interesting enough on its own (meaning without autographs).

i'm planning to go see ANBERLIN in concert sunday, october 25th. allentown, pa. 1hr20min drive, daaang. BUT IT WILL BE AWESOME. ANBERLIN = AWESOME.

---

what IS integrity?
what does it mean?
what is it comprised of?

some questions..

is it okay to do something illegal if no one sees?
what if everyone else is doing it, too?
are some laws not as important as other ones?

these days, i think it's tremendously hard to have good integrity.

it's hard in the sense that a lot of things push us to cheat or cut corners or bend the rules, perhaps to get ahead, to make things easier, or because it's an easy source of enjoyment.
it's also hard in the sense that even if we put a ton of effort into trying to maintain our integrity, there are so many little subjective things that an outsider could pick at if trying to pinpoint cracks and faults.

some thoughts..

one thing that comes to mind for me is music piracy. yeah, it's illegal, but it's also widely prevalent. you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who adheres strictly to not downloading music.

now this isn't some self-righteous post about how i purchase [almost] all my music and everyone else downloads everything illegally and i'm so right and i hate piracy and blalhbalhhlab, it's just meant to get your mind crankin'.

even though i like to purchase music and support the artists, i'm conflicted a lot of the time, too.

as one (okay, probably more) of my friends said, "BUY music? that's such a waste of money, since it's so easy to get it from anywhere!" and it's true! why buy music?

i think one of the reasons that people don't feel bad, or as bad, about breaking the law, is when it relates to something that isn't monitored. you know, download a few songs, or a few thousand, no one's gonna know or catch you.

or, they feel like it's okay because it's not something physical. "it's not like i'm stealing the CD from the store!"

or, better yet, it's okay because everyone else is doing it, too, or they're more illegal! "i'm only downloading a few songs that i like since the rest of the songs on the CD are crappy, and other people download so much more than me! i'm GOOD compared to them."

or, some people say, if it's a big corporation, or someone wealthy, it's not as bad to steal from them. "it's okay, kanye's mad ballin', he doesn't need my money and it won't affect him at all if i don't buy his music."

or, that the law is unfair and a rip-off. "CDs are way too expensive, they overcharge for them! $10 for a movie ticket? get real!"

here's a thought: who ever even officially said that music should be cheap, let alone free? is it easy or cheap to write and produce and publish amazing music?

owning music that we can listen to whenever we want is not some right that we have, and i think we've grown to feel like it is.

just because a flatscreen plasma HDTV is expensive and is awesome and you want it, is it okay to steal it?

but this makes the situation most real for me.. even though i've never worked on a movie, or wrote any kind of great music, i know i can't even imagine how much work it takes to put it all together.

put yourself in their shoes.
if you wrote an original song.. if you designed a beautiful piece of art..

would you want someone to steal that from you?

[randoms]
-i will never use 0.7mm lead. i don't know why. i just grew up with 0.5mm and stuck with it. but that's only for lead pencils. as for pens, i will practically never use blue ink. i dunno why i just don't like it. my preferred is black, and i don't have any other colors.
-now that i live in a suite with five other doods, i re-discovered one of my shower hobbies. re-directing water from the showerhead to wash away random strands of hair stuck on the wall, the shower curtain, or anywhere on the bathtub. it's so addicting! and fun! maybe that's my slightly-OCD side of me talking.
-ever since i was younger, one of my dreams was to be trapped in shoprite. with a few friends, of course. i would wanna see how long we would be able to survive, only living off of what we could find in the store. we could last for months! more! YEARS?! hooohoo awesome, i'm laughing just thinking about it. if you steal that idea for a reality show after reading the post above, you have no heart.