Month: May 2013

  • Xanga is Shutting Down?

    I thought this would happen sooner or later. I’ve been on Xanga for over a decade. There were a few years in which I didn’t blog at all. I’ve experimented with other blogging sites, but I always came back to Xanga because I felt like it was a good old friend who knew my history. Maybe not the greatest quality friend, but an old friend nonetheless and I could care less about the other sites out there that promised so many innovative techniques to blogging. Xanga did the job, plain and simple.

    As a site, I felt that it struggled too hard for too many years to stay afloat. During that time, we had to deal with them putting ads on our blogs and then provoking us to pay for membership to remove the ads. I am not really excited about Xanga’s proposed transfer to WordPress. I’d rather that they merge with Google and work with them to get a site that is clean, functional, and attracts more users and possibly more traffic for advertised content. We should be allowed to keep our blog sites.

    In any case, we can always see this as a new beginning. What do you think?

  • Kierkegaard

    A few of my foodventure friends and I went to eat at Masa (probably one of my favorite restaurants at the moment) yesterday. Before going to the restaurant, I stopped by a place called Stories where I picked up a translation of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and Repetition. I remember encountering Kierkegaard’s work a long time ago, but I can’t remember for what paper I might have referenced him, or whether I even chose to reference his work in the end. He’s a pretty interesting guy (that’s all I can really say about most theorists. I know a lot of people can go on and on about the varying theories of Derrida or Lacan, or how post-modern or deconstructionist theories can clash or co-exist, but I’m just a simple minded fool who likes to read high minded theorist literature). I appreciate it, but I don’t like to discuss it. Unless it’s something I want to discuss, then I might do so. 
    Anyway, besides the printed material, which is already really interesting in itself, I found a slip of paper smushed between pages 116 and 117. I’ve been feeling really depressed recently and sometimes when I’m depressed, I look for signs in the world around me that validate my feelings. This piece of paper spoke to me with its poignant and painful message. In Holland, I had a cup with a cow on it that was nicknamed “Moo Moo.” Sometimes when you really like an object that you own and cherish, you begin to identify with it. Of course, I couldn’t bring it back with me to LA, but I suddenly remembered it when I saw this note. In this really abstract way, I felt that it was unintentionally personalized to me. 
    I feel like this person really loved and lost. That feeling is so painful and bittersweet – you can almost enjoy it sometimes, but it makes you so weary and angry and exhausted at the end. Why bother with it at all? I think the note had some point being stuck between 116 and 117; in fact, on page 116 it says (I omit context for the reason that I’m lazy and am going to be overtly obnoxious in assuming you’ll understand everything from where it comes from. Don’t worry – I don’t):
    “If the meaning of his life is an external act, then he has nothing to say, then everything he says is essentially chatter, by which he only diminishes his impact, whereas the tragic conventions enjoin him to complete his task in silence, whether it consists in action or suffering.”

  • San Diego

    We went to SD for Memorial weekend and ate at a mexican place called Lolita’s, which had the best carne asada fries ever~ Just thinking about it now is making my tummy grumble. Their adobada tacos are also really good. Everything else was ok.

    Here is their address and Yelp page in case you want to check it out yourself:
    Lolita’s Taco Shop
    7305 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, Ste A
    Kearny Mesa
    San Diego, CA 92111
    http://yelp.com/biz/8gtSugNXvM90hZgqjIWiw

  • Trance Favorites This Month

    Just making a note of some tunes I really liked while listening to my podcasts:

    Armin van Buuren ft. Cindy Alma – Beautiful Life

    Skip to 2:20.

     

    Orjan Nilsen – Violetta

    Skip to 3:20.

    Ronski Speed with Syntrobic feat. Elisabeth Egan – One With You [Euphonic] 

    Click the title for the song, but wait a few minutes for the song to start (there’s no single on Youtube, so this link takes you to the whole mix. It’s right after the Oceanlab song). I know it sounds really old school, but I think that’s why I like it so much.

     

  • Tornados and Riots

    I went through my Flipboard on the iPhone today and was particularly moved by the stories about the survivors of the Oklahoma tornado. I was also stunned by the story on the riots in Sweden (http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/05/22/186042744/riots-in-sweden-thats-right-sweden). My bf’s sister and bf believe that Europeans are incredibly racist. I think it’s a thinly veiled racism that pervades throughout their society. At least while I was living in Holland (I can’t say much about other EU countries because I’ve never lived there), I noticed that they’ll say they’re open to all races, but at the same time make overtly racist comments about immigrants, particularly Middle-Eastern or, even more specifically, Moroccan people. 

  • I’ve been thinking about The Great Gatsby ever since I watched it on Sunday. I think about how painful it is not only to yearn for wealth or possessions, but also for someone you can’t have. It is better to let go than to allow your desires destroy you, like what ultimately happens to Gatsby.

  • Thinking about the past makes me very upset, but sometimes I can’t stop myself from reminiscing or thinking about it. Sometimes I think about it over and over, like a kind of addiction.

  • I’ve been in a terrible funk for the past week or two. I think it has to do with the feeling that no one I really loved or cared about ever seemed to love me back. I visited my mom’s grave on Sunday, and I couldn’t help but remember how I always felt that she felt obliged to love me, but that it was a burden to do so. So many people I loved or cared about either passed away or left me. I often feel that my current relationships could be just as ephemeral and that in the future, I might be around totally different people again. The thought of this pushes me into a deep depression – sometimes I feel like it is just pointless to keep trying when everything falls apart anyway.

     

  • Food adventures

    And other stuff. Abricot (vanilla ice cream with waffle), and Jitlada (mango salad, and mussel soup). There’s also a picture of Clover taken by Steven’s sister at their family’s Mother’s Day lunch.

    Also, I found a song by the M Machine called Trafalgar:
    http://youtu.be/_I2H1AXjAyA

  • I’ve been getting really bad dreams lately that involve monsters.

    It was Mother’s Day last Sunday, and I went to Rose Hills with my cousins to picnic with our deceased moms. I miss my mom a lot. You stop hurting about 1-2 years after they pass away, but you never stop missing them. I guess the same could be said of old relationships.