Bergenline

My mom has an iPod

My mom has always claimed to want an iPod. I never really believed she
really wanted one, because it was just something she would mention
every time she's feeling old LOL.

ANYWAY

So my mom has always sang while doing dishes or cooking. She sings
madd loud and sings prettily. My mom has always had a good voice.

BUT NOW

She finally has an iPod.
And it has headphones.
So she sings headphone-style. Like, she doesn't hear herself.
And it sounds bad.

Help me.

Madd gadgets

My iPod
Jesse's iPod
Mom's iPod
Dad's Walkman Phone
My iPhone
Jesse's iPhone
AppleTV w/ Boxee
PS3
XBox 360
My iMac
Dad's MacBook
Jesse's Mac Mini
The 42" LCD 1080p HDTV
The 32" CRT 1080i HDTV
The Sony home theater system

all of these devices somehow work seamlessly with each other.
I think it's amazing.

Conquest with No Limits

So this coming year's youth retreat is titled "Conquest with No Limits". I actually came up with the title myself, and it was voted on. Yay I win, lol. ANYWAY so I have to live up to this. God has to do WHATEVER possible with me and with others to do whatever it is He has to do. There are no limits to what He can do, there is no stopping His plan. 

The first song that came up as a suggested element to our setlists for retreat is the obvious "No Limits" by Israel & New Breed. I've heard it a few times, and has always sounded simple to me. I was mistaken. There is no correct chord transcription of the song ANYWHERE online. BUT there is a book. A book that was published by the group itself. I cannot afford this book, and it's not a common book found in any old library. My school in Boston, Berklee College of Music, has these kinds of books for all kinds of music, but not this particular album, Alive in South Africa. So I did some researched and discovered that this side of the country has all 5 big players in the library-world: the Library of Congress, Boston Public, Yale's Library, Harvard Univ. Library, and finally, the New York Public Library. I looked around in their library search, and found the songbook! It's in the New York Library for the Performing Arts, used by the Lincoln Center / Julliard people.

I'm heading over tomorrow and getting this chart, (among other charts ;-), because there are NO LIMITS to what can God can do.

Drinking is stupid

So alcohol is retarded. I am not against drinking at all, I don't go
condemning people who drink, and I don't think it's a sin to drink.
Jesus drank wine, it's all good. I'm pretty sure he never got drunk,
but even still, I think drinking is retarded. First of all, it tastes
bad. Those who disagree, have "acquired" the taste. It is impossible
to think that alcohol, a flammable and bitter chemical, will ever
taste good to he or she who tries it for the first time. The only
reason people force themselves to acquire the taste is so that they
can drink socially and be able to blend in as a person who is "able"
to drink. It is stupid that one has to be "able" to drink alcohol. I
don't have to "try" to drink apple juice. It just works.
Another thing, is drinking for fun; for its effect. Even if you are
only drinking just enough to "loosen your joints", it just means you
have a problem. If you believe the only way you can reach a point of
being stress-free and emotionally able to mingle in a crowd, it just
means your dependent on a chemical's effect to change you enough to be
able to do so. It's sad, really. I am able to enter a group of people
and dissolve my own insecurities without the help of a harmful chemical.

I know some people that do drink, but won't eat ketchup or drink coke
because it cleans pennies. Stupid.
Now there's those who think that getting drunk every once in a while
is ok. It's not ok to even do it once, in as many viewpoints as you
want. As a Christian, I consider it a sin. Rom 14:20-21. Duh.
It also kills brain cells. Faster than you can ever grow back. This
means it makes you virtually dumber forever. I like my brain cells. I
want to keep them all and not throw them away in exchange for the joys
of a hangover.
Also, getting drunk usually leads to other stupid activity.
And then there's people who refuse to smoke weed or cigarettes but
will get drunk. Hey, idiots, it's all bad for you, and it's still a
drug, even if it's legal.
Cigarettes give you lung disease and make you stink. Drinking gives
you liver disease and also makes you stink.

Drinking is dumb. I don't care what you say.

I'm scared of Obama

People who like Obama LOVE Obama. That's a good thing, but can also be a VERY VERY bad thing in the future. Hitler had many fans. They were called Nazis.
Not sayin Obama is Hitler, but when I saw this, it just scared me.
Especially the rainbow one.

Got a mohawk and Mass Effect today

Not exactly a true mohawk, it's a bit more subtle and socially acceptable:

In this picture, the hair wont come up on the top of the back. Gotta get it wet i guess:

.

Also... I got Resistance (a PS3 game) for a free a few weeks ago. Today, I posted it for sale on craigslist for $20. The same day I was getting calls and emails. I sold it to some guy, and took the same $20 to buy Mass Effect (an XBox 360 game) off some guy who put it up also on craigslist.
Craigslist is the BOMB.

Suicidal

i seem to get a lot of stories during my commutes.

I was waiting for the subway. I had my headphones in, BLASTING Norah Jones like it's heavy metal. It wasn't even that loud, her music is just that rich in its EQ spectrum that I heard nothing but that piano, the guitars, and her voice. This short old man walked up to me and mumbled something. I wasn't too sure about whether he was trying to tell me something, or if he was just talking to himself.

I noticed he was walking away from something, not to something. I looked over and there was a guy sitting between the train tracks. The place where was sitting was clearly forbidden, for safety reasons, and lots of ppl were hanging around the station like it was all good.

I removed my headphones and right then I heard the old man continue to explain what he was originally trying to tell me. This dude tried jumping in front of the previous train. He seemed really upset about something, and moved on to sit in the hole in the wall between the train tracks. He was sitting on a bar, and ran the risk of falling back into a moving train, or forward. The place he was sitting in was inside the wall, so a speeding train conductor would not see him emerge in his attempt to kill himself.

The dude was sitting with his face in his hands, eyes closed. He was ready to do something stupid. I felt that I needed to do something. I ran the risk of disturbing a drunk angry man, and provoking a violent act. I weighed the consequences, and I figured that getting rocked in the face was a lot better than watching a suicide. Finally I opened my mouth and said something.

"Dude you shouldn't sit there. It's dangerous. You can get seriously hurt."

He looked up, opened his eyes, and silently ignored me. The station, having a few dozen ppl standing around, suddenly got really quiet.

"Dude please come down from there. You can slip and fall and die if a train comes outta nowhere. You will get rocked and die."

He continued to ignore me. This is where I started to think that I would probably start a fight with a crazy pissed white guy.

"Dude come down right now. I am not gonna watch somebody die. Get down or I'll pull you down."

Somehow this got him to come down off the bar and moved across the tracks. I felt this was a right time to put my iPod on pause.

He came close to me, walked right by, and sat on a trash can.

The old white dude who approached me earlier told me that I probably saved a life today.

I really hope I did.

He knows what He's doing.

There is always another layer of faith one has to penetrate. There's
always something we are faced to accept with faith. Blindly. I thought
it was considered faith to believe in God at all. It is, indeed,
difficult, to accept the existence of an invisible all-powerful being
who you might think who's presence you've "never" felt. I would
understand why penetrating that layer of faith would be difficult.
Then there's accepting other concepts. Pre-destined personal purpose,
for example. Why does God have a plan for us, yet claim to give us
free will? The "why" of the "why". These are issues I can roll around
in my head forever. It can make me go mad, and I could just dwell on
it and forget about the real reason I have a brain at all.
The last and final point of faith, although I'm sure the mysteries of
God lie richer and deeper, is accepting why bad things happen to good
people. Why is pain assigned so seemingly randomly? Is it all part of
a larger plan? Why do so many people get cancer? Is it always intended
to bring his/her family members closer to God?
Why does anyone deserve any kind of grief and pain? I'm referring to
the grand amounts of pain that can break a person, a family, a
generation.
Our nation's economy, the current epidemic often overlooked, that
which there has been a "war" against for a few decades. The "war" on
illegal drugs.
It seems like being able to accept God's plan as perfect and
justifiable by his intentions is the hardest layer to penetrate in my
thick skull.
God has seeped through and has, either by osmosis or absorption,
changed my life, changed the way I think, and changed the way I see
everything. I am not saying that His plan is not perfect, I'm just
saying that it's on of the few aspects in life that I have to verbally
remind myself with. He knows what he's doing. He knows what He's
doing. He knows what He's doing.

In with the new

So my family is finally "out with the old" when it comes to furniture. The "in-with-the-new" part has yet to happen, but my parents have been shopping around. They saw these pieces of furniture and have it all on layaway. They want to decide if it will be the right choice. I'd like to hear what you think. Personally, I love all of it. (Keep in mind; we have a brown floor, there will be a red oriental rug on it that looks kinda like this)

Here's the sofa. (There's also a love seat and chair that look just like it. Oh, and it's leather.)

And the coffee table: (again, there'll be end tables that look just like the coffee table)

and my parents' bedroom set: (that's a night table there, not sure if they're also getting a tall dresser, but it's possible.)

Give me your opinions! (you don't have to go through a long process to put comments on my blog here, just go right ahead and you'll see it's easier than emailing me your answer.)

8 guitars

My brother started taking guitar lessons in highschool. They bought
him a $99 nylon-string guitar.
The guitar lasted about 18 months.
Apparently I was more interested in learning guitar than he was, and I
played that junk til it fell apart.
A lot of the first things I learned, I got from my uncle amd his son
when I visited them one summer in Florida.

A year later, my dad bought me my first electric guitar. It came with
a complete set. A mini-amp, strap, case, etc. Only the guitar and the
amp has lasted til today. I played that guitar so much. I used it for
playing at church, my band Pihsrow, All-City Jazz Band rehearsals,
talent shows, that one gig I had with Anthony that only lasted 15
minutes but we charged $10/minute.
Good times.

Eventually I was in college and it was time for an upgrade. I
purposely got a job at a guitar shop to get the employee discount. I
picked this one beautiful guitar. It costed a lot, but it had a tiny
minor defect in the paint job (which to this day, I still can't find),
so they cut the price a lot. Also, the employee discount was really
really good. I bought that guitar, changed the stock pickups, and I
love it.

This past summer my grandmother felt the need to have an acoustic
guitar in the family and she bought one.
I played at the family's reunion, the wake, the funeral, the second
wake, and the second funeral.
It's been a tough year for that side of the family.
I took that guitar to Boston and have it here. Everytime I see that
guitar I think of my aunts.

My roomate dave has an old hollowbody electric his uncle gave him and
he has his electric that he bought around the same time I bought my
last one.

My roomate mike has his main electric guitar, and a Fender Strat he
got from somebody. Forgot the story behind it. He also has a nylon
string acoustic.

8 guitars in the house.

Prodigal Cymbal

I have a very crazy story to tell.
But..
Let's first discuss the importance of cymbals.

Good cymbals are made by hand. Not by machines. Craftsmen who make cymbals are skilled artists. It's like ppl who carve stuff out of wood. You can't make that in a factory.
Zildjian is the oldest family-owned company in the world and in history. They've been keeping the family name and making cymbals longer than any other product by any other company in the world. It's like 400 yrs or something like that.
The alloy of the mix of metals used to make the cymbals is one of the
oldest secrets in the world.
Also, cymbals are all unique. Two Zildjian A-Custom 16inch crash cymbals will sound different even if they're the exact same model.

I have a cymbal that is very dear to me; cost/value of about $288.
It's not only expensive, but it also has an all-inclusive warranty
attached to it that will last about 3 more years.

I had the cymbal in a round cymbal case. I took a subway and I was
about to take the bus home when I realized the bag wasn't on my
shoulder.
My heart dropped.
My face turned green.
My stomach churned.
My life almost ended.
I ran back down to the subway station and told the security guard to call the subway car driver to check to see if I left it on the train.
I waited for the reply over the walkie-talkie.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
It was the longest 3 minutes of my life.

"that's a negative on the pocket book"

They thought my bag was a purse.
I was suddenly calm.
I might've left it on the bench I was sitting on when waiting for the subway train, just one stop back. I got back on the train, paced back and forth while riding. I ran to where I was sitting and didn't see the bag. I almost cried.

But there. In the corner.
There it was.
I felt like I was in heaven.
The bag was opened. Someone was probing to check for any valuables.

They probably said, "It's nothing."

"Just a piece of metal."

Missing Adult

I saw this poster and, although i might feel a lil guilty about it, I laughed.

I know you can't read what it says, so I will transcribe it here for you:

Born 1-5-81

Eyes: blue

Hair: Blonde Height 5'3"

Weight 180-210

Sandy is a 27 yr old female from Bayonne. She was last seen on Thursday Aug28th at 7pm on 49th and Kennedy. She was wearing a black jacket with black pants. She was also carrying a black book bag. Sandy is Bipolar and mentally unstable. She last stated that she was heading to Hudson County Park but never returned. If you have seen her or know any information about her, please call the Bayonne Police Dept. at blah blah blah or the family at blah blah

Please any help would be greatly appreciated. We just want to bring Sandy home safe and soon.

OK. First of all, SHE IS 27 YEARS OLD. She is an adult. If she's missing, it's probably because she is choosing to be missing.

It's also funny that they mention her bipolar-ness. Does it really make a difference how angry she is, wherever she may be?

Stayes

So my little brother comes up to me and he's like
"what does the word 'stayes' mean?".
I knew he didn't mean "stays", because he spelled it out for me. I
asked him if he meant "stays", but he insisted that he meant to ask
about "stayes", and even added the little extra syllable. I just
googled the word, and only saw ppl mispelling "stays" and "states".
I asked him where he saw the word written, and he said,
"no, i just want to write the word".
This puzzled me. I asked him again.
"Did you see the word on TV? Written somewhere?"
He replies, "no, I just want to see the word. I want to write it."
He literally wanted to invent a word and, i guess, be the first to
write it and give it a meaning.
"A strange future, i see, for this child." says Yoda.

One great day

It's been a while since I've had a really good day. Today, all of the
following happened:

- At around 4am, I saw my brother make a score accomplishment in
Stardust that he's been trying to reach forever (its a super addictive
PS3 arcade game)

- I woke up with no allergy symptoms. I've been having sneezy-stuffy
mornings for 90 days straight. It's been tough.

- I had a huge fight with my mom regarding my laziness around the
house. We've been going through major home improvements lately
(painting the walls, redecorating, throwing out all kinds of
furniture, buying new stuff... Including the TV!!! Yayyy!!! 1080p 42"
LCD HDTV).
This was good cuz the fight ended up nicely. I ended up being right
(hahahaha) because I work 9 hours a day and no one else in the house
does. I don't spend any money at all, because the money I make is for
the "greater good" of the general household fund.

Here's the TV by the way:

- On the way to work, I helped an injured old lady walk about a quarter mile. (she had forgotten her walking stick on the bus :-/

- Today I sealed the deal on getting Rock Band for PS3 for only $18; brand spankin new.

- Last, but definitely not least, I got my scores from the teaching licensure test I took a month ago. I passed!!! Berklee policy ensures that I can skip SiX classes due to this test!!! The reason for this is because these classes are supposed to prepare u for different areas of the test (music history, traditional harmony, counterpoint, etc) and passing the test shows I already have the knowledge necessary hahahhahaha!!!!

WhAt a great day.

Nomad

It's weird to have no real permanent home. I've been living between NJ
and MA since 2004 and will continue until may2009 when I'm done with
school.
I'm really tired of this whole lifestyle and I can't wait to just
chill at home and make money working. I'm tired of being broke and
going to class everyday. I'll probably not find a job quickly enough
to get on my loan paymnts next year, so I'll just grab some job I hate
and do that while I go to grad school. Being an adult sucks. I miss
high school when my biggest worry in life was finding a place to play
drums. I remember setting up our whole lil bad in Sergio's boiler
room. That was so heavy-metal-crazy-teenagers hahahaha.

More bum news

The bum on the bus approached me again and asked me what he thought
about the whole Olympic tailwind issue. (a tailwind is a wind that
pushes u from behind, speeds u up. Often use in airplane flight
contexts. I know this cuz the bum asked me about it so I wikisearched
it on my iPhone.)

The story is that some olympic runner guy broke a record. The judges
are questioning whether he should be accredited with this because a
wind happened to be helping him while he was running.
I honestly don't know what to think of this.
Should he get it?
Does it matter since all previous record-breaking runners also ran
outdoors?
Should I care?
Now here's another question for you.
If there was a headwind (or whatever the opposite of a tailwind is),
would he get extra credit if he still broke the record?
That would be amazing. But the fact is that running outdoors has its
random naturally-induced drawbacks. It's not his fault thad God
decided to help him like "Angels in the Outfield". (remember that
movie?)
He's a winner in MY almanac.

Anyway so this bum got more specific about the origins of his bummyness.
He's convinced that he is gifted with a heightened ESP (extra-sensory
perception).

Ta' loco.

This ESP thingy is basically a hardcore collection of brain-type-sixth-
sense nonsense. He quoted Einstein, who said that we only use but a
small fraction of our brains. Mr. Bum thinks he can expand his ESP
abilities and use it for the following:

- Telepathy
- Telekinetics
- Spidey-sense-type stuff
- Mind-reading

This dude thinks he's the little kid with the spoon in The Matrix.

Ta' LOCO.

Why blog? Tony's fault

Tony called one of my random long emails a "blog", and that inspired me to then start blogging.
So here goes.

Stealing WiFi

I'm sure stealing Internet is wrong ad maybe even immoral, and
sometimes I feel like a hippocrate robin hood.
Me and my family haven't been able to afford Internet this summer so
it was cut.
Recently my brother was with his iPhone in the backyard and discovered
some free unprotected wifi. iTunes does a library sharing thing and we
saw what the dude named his iTunes library. His name k course. We
looked him up in the yellow pages and there he was. Our neighbor who's
backyard faces ours was feeding us wifi.
The problem is that the wifi doesn't reach indoors so we had to put
Jesse's mac mini outside with a long cable. This lasted for a while
until it got really annoying so I went to J&R music world by WTC and
bought a wifi/Ethernet bridge. I wrapped it with some plastic to
weather-proof it and voilà; free Internet for the whole house.

Suckers.

I hate that I have to go to J&R in NYC cuz there's no circuit city or
best buy at the mall. I HATE that. You would think that Downtown
Jersey City with all these rich white ppl would have an electronics
store besides tiny-limited-garbageous-prices Radioshack.
I'm gonna stop complaining cuz I live right by the PATH and WTC is
literally two stops away. I walk a total of 5 blocks to get to J&R.

Anyway so that's that. Stealing Internet is a crime but I am having
trouble feeling bad about it.

Lemme know wuchu think.

Bum philosophy

> I was riding the bus to work and there was a very bummy-looking
> individual sitting accross from me who seemed to have been talking
> to himself a bit.
> Although Ive seen him work at UPS, he was dressed like a jobless
> hobo; with very disgustingly old apparel.
>
> He was doing some of the typical dumb bum stuff; hitting on girls,
> talking to himself, drinking from a paper bag, etc. He was laughing
> loudly and turned to ask me if I have a cigarette. I said, "no, I
> don't smoke", which in turn led to him asking me, "how about acid?".
> Before I could answer, he was laughing again, loudly and obnoxiously.
>
> Suddenly his voice calmed and very genuinely and articulately asked
> me where I'm attending college. He somehow correctly assumed I was a
> student, and I told him "Berklee".
> As is the usual case, he mistakenly thought I meant "Berkley", the 2-
> yr college in NJ, which somehow lead to a conversation about goals,
> life, morals, philosophies, etc.
> Typical bum stuff.
>
> He was one of those bums who was too smart for his own good,
> especially considering his young age; 23. He knew this and made it
> clear to me that we should both know the reason for his bummyness:
> he is simply too enlightenend for this world to accept him.
>
> This, I thought, was funny. You see, this guy is a neo-agnostic-
> aethistic-pragmatic-typical-American-retard-that-thinks-they-know-
> everything kinda guy. Everybody knows one of these ppl. They roam
> the earth looking for nothing, thinking that this is the true way to
> be happy. The funny part lies in the false fact that these ppl think
> that they are part of a rare breed. They don't know that there's a
> buzillion confused ppl that think the same way. It's a result of the
> retarded "religious" censoring in schools, the entertainmen
> industry, and in media. Can't say "God" or "Jesus" but we can talk
> all day about Islam and Hinduism cuz it's "foreign" and "exotic".
> These are ppl that call Christians like me "blind and religious"
> because they think I didn't figure out what I want on my own.
>
> They are mistaken.
>
> The bum was trying to tell me that we are designed to search for
> answers and live to stay positive and be happy. The problem with
> this philosophy is that if I really applied this way of life, I
> would please no one but myself. I told him that I disagreed. Living
> purely to be happy is so simple and stupid that it's why ANIMALS do
> it.
>
> I am no animal.
>
> This bum was trying his best to be smart, wise, and open-minded as
> much as he possibly could, with a minor side effect of trying to
> make me look like a bible-in-my-armpit-idiot-Christian. I told him
> that I searched for the "answer" just like everyone else. I looked
> thru every school of thought this planet has to offer, but I saw God
> in everything. You can argue that it has to do with my upbringing,
> which today I can say I am proud of, but feeling God's presence or
> seeing His mercy are too things I can never confuse with
> "upbringing" or "habits".
> I told this bum that I am ready to drop God and tell myself He
> doesn't exist on the day I don't feel Him around me.
>
> Fortunately I have yet to see that happen.