Weird week
Man, I've been going through a weird roller coaster of moods lately. I'm not sure what to make of it. Maybe it's time for one of those life-shifts. You know what I'm talking about, I'm sure, even if you never identified it as an independent "event". Where you take a look at your life, the recent events, and do sort of a recalibration. Figure out if you want to keep going in the same direction, or maybe change things up. So today's blog will be one of introspection. In an extroverted fashion. It's the way of the future! Share your innermost revelations with the world! Or at least with the people who have the right web address.

So the past few days were some that rocked my foundation a bit. It was kung fu related. And pretty much all of you know how much of my life is connected to kung fu - it's a very big part. I've been doing it for five and a half years, and I've been teaching for four of those years. Right now there are two major instructors (Sihing and me), plus the other Eric helping with other classes, where he can. Well, I had a talk with Sifu about things, although I won't get into specifics. Apparently he wasn't happy with some of my questions, and he suspended me from being an instructor for at least two weeks. It rather upset me - I didn't know I had offended him so much.

That happened on Tuesday. Yesterday I went in and talked to him, after going through the first class I've been in in years, purely as a student. It was weird, not being able to help students. I got to review all my solo sets, which was good. And helped condition a few of the other students, which was good. Anyway, we talked afterwards, and I think I sorted things out. But Sifu told me I need to figure out what I really want to do, and I do think he's right. I'm always squeezing myself tight with my schedule. I need to figure out over the weekend how much I can really help. Right now I go straight from work to help out with the kids' class, and also help on Wednesday nights, plus come in on Saturdays, and occasionally teach on Fridays. I don't know if I should take a little more time off, get some time to do stuff on my own time. Like play games, or watch movies, or play guitar, or even write music. Or read, or draw, or program. Bleah. TOO MUCH stuff I could do. The reason I went ahead and do kung fu hard core is because I want to get to a certain point, and then I can let go a little bit, focus on other things in my life, such as music. One thing at a time. Eh, I still need to figure it out, though. I think I like stressing myself out by pushing my time constraints as tight as possible.

E3 is going on right now - I have some friends who are there, in LA, right now. I pulled a few of the videos of the conferences from the major companies, and I'll tell you now - the PS3 looks pretty freakin' cool. I'm still trying to figure out if the demos were actually created from a game engine, or purely pre-rendered. One that's a big IF is Killzone 2. Regardless, it looks pretty. Pretty AWESOME. So the PS3 will be uber-powerful, leaving the other new consoles in the dust. Plus wireless capability (you can use the PSP as a controller), 7 controllers with Bluetooth, and 1080P dual output, standard. Kind of insane. The XBox 360 seems like it'll be decent enough, just have to see what they'll have for it, aside from Halo 2.5. I reserved mine already. Hee hee! And Nintendo's Revolution is SMALL. Three DVD cases stacked on top of each other. That's about it. Wireless, also. Not too powerful, but one of the cool things they've said is that it will be able to play any game, from any previous Nintendo system. Which means Punch-Out, Super Metroid, Starfox - all of them playable on the new system. Nifty idea, if they do it well.

Oh, and yes, Star Wars III came out yesterday. And yes, I saw it. At the one o'clock showing. One AM. I saw way too many people I know. And I have to thank Courtney for hooking me up with a spare ticket she and her brother had. Thank you, Courtney! We all took our respective PSPs and played a bit of Lumines, which was cool. A few other people took cards, and some took either portable DVD players or laptops to play the previous movies while they waited. And yes, there were plenty of costumed people there. Even a bit of "re-enactment" in the front section, with lightsabers and everything. The benefits of going to the first showings. According to the news it already shattered records for sales. So how is it? Aside from the fact that EVERYONE DIES, it's okay. No, but seriously, I won't put spoilers here. I personally think it's better than the first two movies by far. It still is much in need of a Han Solo to bring it up to par with the last three in the series. I mean really, Harrison Ford gets credit for half of the greatness of the last three episodes. And from what I hear, a lot of his lines were ad-libbed. Maybe that's what the new movies needed. Since the written lines often SUCK. But that might just be my opinion.

And I'm going out of town a few times during the next few months. This month, to Kansas City for my friend Sean's (Seanicus!) wedding. I'll be driving up there next week, take a few days off, hang out with him. Should be a lot of fun. A bit of good vacation, too. Without worrying about schedules and stuff. And I'll be wearing a tux. Hmm. Then next month, I'm leaving the country again. To where? To Mexico! Yeah, I haven't seen the family in a very long time. Way too long. I'll probably have to take a few days off without pay, but I think it's probably worth it. And yes, for the few of you who DON'T know, I'm half Mexican. Which means I have quite a bit of family in Mexico. It'll be very good to see them again. Might be scary to see how much they've all changed, though. Guess I'll see.

And music - nobody's said anything about my songs! Did you guys listen? Were they atrocious? Were they luscious? Somewhere in between? Should I stop now, or keep trying? I get my inspiration from others, so anything you have to say would be good, even if it's constructive criticism. I'd prefer you keep any destructive criticism to yourself, but thanks, anyway.

Okay, it's time for me to take care of a few things now. I have an extra bonus random link LATER, but for now, I'll do a standard one. It fits with my talking of the new item I ended up getting, which I'll stop talking about because no one wants to hear, even though I think it's quite cool. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be educated about the technology behind it.

EXTRA BONUS RANDOM LINK: Here it is. I don't normally get into Christian music, but a co-worker turned me onto this guy, and he's actually quite good. If you have doubts, check this out, then have your doubts.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 4:13 PM | 2 comments