I was hoping that the Pistons win yesterday's game to extend the playoffs to a game 7. The Eastern conference finals are actually very entertaining, especially with the Piston's introductions. I wish Lakers had flashy intros like that but I'm afraid the team doesn't always "come to play" and over-hyping it will just create a larger downer for the Laker fans in an event of a loss. Well, Celtics didn't think going into game 7 would be a good idea so they took care of business in the 4th quarter and pulled away a small win of their own. Much like the Lakers have, they let Detroit back into the game and gave them ample opportunities to tie it up but nobody was able to help them capitalize on missed free throws or turnovers. The finals will be a tough series for the Lakers. Until game 1, I'm not even too sure what to expect. The west only sees the east twice a year and we've lost both games during the regular season. The Lakers should not be discredited, however, as they have risen to the playoff atmosphere and somehow, even in moments of struggle, have been able to pull off marginal victories. If they get sloppy though and ease up on D, I can't do anything else but be an angry fan. Guard the 3s, man up, and play some good 2-3 zone.

Damn skippy! The Lakers with another home win bringing them to the Playoff Finals! It wasn't looking good for the Lakers in the first half, when the Spurs went on a run late in the 1st quarter but they came back with better defense and aggression. Now that they have the silver trophy its time to go for the gold. It's not over yet, but at least we can celebrate the conference championship today. Kobe, represent!

It isn't official, but I think the Lakers are on their road to victory for the Western Conference finals. They took care of business away from home today. As the song goes "Together we made it. We made it even though we had our backs up against the wall. Forever we waited. And they told us we were never going to get it but we took it on the road. On the road. On the road." Nonetheless, a 2 point win with things starting to look in favor of the Spurs, the Lakers were lucky at the end of the fourth. The foul call could have been made on Fisher but it wasn't. Tough luck for the Spurs, but it should be accepted and understood that not every call goes the way you'd expect. These two points are a difference maker for the series and I'm glad Lakers came out on top.
Good song by Busta Rhymes and Linkin Park by the way. Can't wait till game 5 to catch the drama.

Argh! I knew Spurs would come out today with no intention to lose. I figured if they'd win a game, it'd be game 3. So no, I'm not surprised the Lakers lost. I'm not surprised that Ginobili was hitting all his shots either. But it's the Lakers' composure that I was not happy with. It seemed as though Lamar was not aggressive going to the basket, yet he still ended up shooting the most free throws. Knowing Spurs, this isn't a coincidence. Who else was better to send to the line today? Odom either hit 1 of 2 or 0 of 2 from the line. Fisher, Vujacic....were they even playing? I was scared when Kobe came out in the first quarter and hit a couple shots. For him to have a good start offensively is usually a sign of the rest of team lacking synchronization. Game 4 better be a bounce back.

On another note, during the playoff game breaks they've been advertising Coldplay's "Viva la Vida." This song is good.

Unlike game 1 where Kobe stayed low key in the first half, in game 2 he turned up the heat, leading the Lakers to a large margin victory. They played well enough that even in a playoff game the fourth quarter became garbage time. I'm glad to see Ariza on the court yesterday. Maybe he'll be useful on the defensive end when playing against Ginobili or Pierce. Anyone see the "Inside the NBA" after the game where they showed Kobe's viral video? He jumped over the freakin' pool of snakes! Actually scratch that, he flew over the pool.

Lightening, thunder, hail, and...tornadoes? After posting about how I need a backup battery to keep my PC from shutting down, it did it again an hour later. The power just came back on about 10 minutes ago; so around 12:30-40. Candlelight saved my vision but it did not save my missions in GTA4, which was what I was doing when the power pooped. The rain and hail will probably continue on today, leading to the possibility of another power out. So I've booted up and powered down my PC the proper way. My laptop will be left charging, but without power to the router and Uverse box, internet won't be available. Wacky times, eh? Too bad I didn't get photos of the tornadoes.

Last year I had considered getting a battery backup but never got around to it. Deals never popped up at the right time and they've always been on the pricey side. I noticed on Spoofee there was a great deal on one at the end of last year (cheap enough to get 2 of them), but there haven't been any since March. Tonight Riverside encountered another blackout. Having complete darkness in an instant is an amazing experience. Dangerous if you're in the kitchen cooking and bad for your electronics, such as a desktop PC, but cool if you're just sitting in front of the TV and all power goes out. A blackout in the apartment complex makes the view no different than solitary confinement in a black painted room. With all the street lights off, the apartment and garage lighting off, and the moon blocked out from the clouds, peeking through the window or walking outside feels like you've got a blindfold on. And speaking of cloudy nights, what a drastic change in weather here. It's been damn hot these past few days then all of a sudden it rains. Not only does it rain, it hails!

Can you breathe in with your nose and mouth (or exhale) at the same time? Try it. Apparently I can't. In Yahoo! Answers some say it's possible, some say it can't be done, some say it's hard, some say it's easy. What do you say?

These past 2 nights I've been bothered by AT&T's up-n'-down, in-n'-out type service for Uverse. The television service goes out in the middle of watching CSI recordings and to make it worse the internet is either slow or just plain down. Late at night it isn't a big big deal, but I need reassurance that it'll work prior to the Laker game if I were to sleep happily. I don't want to be put on hold the day of the Laker game knowing that it's probably in the 1st or 2nd quarter and finally be told they can't do anything. Good thing the phone service isn't with AT&T also, otherwise I might be screwed!

Anyway, Lakers win game 1 of the Western conference finals! Hell yes! What is up with NBA on TNT though? If this game were on ESPN, it may have been a blow out but because it's on TNT the Lakers had to go down by 20 and come back at the very end. WooO! On to game 2. Friday at 6pm. Don't miss it.

Got back early to Riverside today. Had to take my sister to get her hair done for prom this morning and left her with friends to do the other stuff, leaving me off the hook to come back. It's ridiculously hot today so I decided to help cut the cats' hairs. Both Cereal and Widget got a hair cut. Cereal, as usual, is more calm and collected (not to mention he's had 4+ haircuts already). But Widget, having been this is his first time...virgin to the buzzer as you may call it, freaked out after being 90% done. As I was finishing up with him shaving closer up his neck he panicked and did a 360 spin in a frantic motion. The result..his ear got cut by the buzzer. Blood started splattering everywhere; my hands, my arms, my foot, Widget's face, his neck, the floor. It didn't stop for a good 5-7 minutes with pressure on his ear with tissues so he now has a bandaged head. Stressful indeed, and a bit scary. The lesson learned here is that when the hair buzzer is moving, stay still or else low velocity splatter will get all over the place. A bloody mess and a messy haircut makes for a bad session at the salon.

Everyday we're hustlin', hustlin'...The Lakers with a win at Utah to close them out in a game 6. Although the close out is more like a struggle to hang on to a lead. They have hustled their fans once again by letting the Jazz come back to life. Entertaining, yes, but not a recipe for success in crucial playoff games. The fans aren't the only ones getting played though. The Jazz must feel like they've been hustled as well. Their team trailed the Lakers the entire game ever since the tip-off and in the last stretch the Lakers let them have their way.

No games tomorrow. A day off from NBA basketball. I know the WNBA is actually part of the association, but I haven't really followed it before and with GTA4 readily available at my fingertips it isn't a great time to start. The last GTA I have played was Vice City. Because of the semi-poor graphics of it, I never got into the game that much. This one is different though. I'm liking GTA more and more with the advancement of the story line. I got myself an STD to drive around as well. If anyone wants to add me, my user name is bluA32.

Yesterday the internet and cable at the apartment were both down . It seems so convenient to have both services on the same bill and integrated together, but it's really frustrating when the service goes down because you lose both. In order to catch the Laker game, we had to go to a sports bar across the street. The food was ok and the wait time was really long (which works in your favor when you're trying to watch a 3 hour game). Today we found out we've been sabotaged! Sabotaged I tell you! After complaining with the bad customer service rep yesterday (for AT&T UVerse, by the way) their "guy" was able to come out today to take a look at why our service was out. Upon looking at their optical cable box, he found that the box has been tampered with, broken open, and all the cables were pulled from their lines. To worsen his problem, the tags labeling which wires belong to which apartment were missing, so each needed to be tested separately. Anyway, I'm back so now I can check emails and the such and catch the Spurs/Hornets game tonight. Unfortunately I couldn't record yesterday's Laker game nor the new CSI episode.

Jazz have enough juice to take game 4 over the Lakers at Energy Solutions. When it seemed like the Lakers were down and out, they came back to tie the game and send it into overtime. That's what playoff basketball is about. It's an unfortunate loss, but I have high hopes for the next one back at home. Anyways, game 5 tomorrow. Don't miss it! David West played well today huh? I liked the reverse layup he had in the fourth quarter.

I've been meaning to do a blog entry on portable gadgets but I've been taking more figure photos and still have to edit them. Hopefully I'll get to that soon, stay tuned for another interesting entry... And more photos .

I watched Iron Man yesterday with Patricia and we both agree that this movie is the creme de la creme of superhero movies. This movie, and by movie I mean Tony Stark, had it all. The cars, the girls, the house, and the gadgets. What more can one ask for? And for the audience, what better eye candy can there be during those 2 hours or so? Gadget porn indeed. Although Spiderman ranks among the top of my list of favorite childhood superheros, this movie has swayed me to follow a new fav. I only knew of Iron Man from the Avengers when he was with Vision, Captain America, and Hawkeye and from the animated version of his "origins" story, but nothing compares to how insanely kick ass this version is. I enjoyed this movie very much and  look forward to watching Iron Man 2. How much does Samuel L. Jackson get paid for his few second appearance anyways? Don't know what I'm talking about? Stay till the credits finish rolling.

After watching Iron Man, I figured everything else watched for the next week would be dry. On the contrary, my favorite director pulls through again. Yep, I watched James Wan's Death Sentence. Filmed so beautifully; framing in his shots the protagonists and antagonists through high and low angles. The parking lot chase is a interesting sequence to see as well. I also enjoy the music choices used for certain scenes. A lot of his shots, just like in Dead Silence, can be freeze framed to be used as posters. Take for instance, in Dead Silence there's one where the guy is on the boat holding the lantern. In this movie, the funeral scene where the son and mother bump heads. Hope to see more movies from him in the future.

Add: Appleseed Ex Machina to this list of good movies. It's on my list of movies worth mentioning if you want to see additional comments.

Lakers went to Utah yesterday ready to play. They played a decent game as well minus a couple crucial possessions that lead to turnovers. Don't look down on the Utah Jazz team just yet. At home they're a great team. I wouldn't say that Carlos Boozer went on fire in the fourth quarter, but he definitely got into a shooting groove hitting three for three just when momentum "may" have changed in Lakers favor. The game could have been won but Luke would have what AT&T claims they don't...dropped calls. If Luke didn't make that fluke Lakers would have a 1 possession game with the ball. Too bad though, Jazz had full battery and full bars, no drops on their end. In my opinion, this isn't a horrible loss. I don't like having long winning streaks anyhow. It gives PJ a job before the next game and prevents the team from the demise the Rockets felt after losing to the Jazz in the first round. The higher you jump the harder you fall. A couple baby steps won't hurt.

After tossing out the Ikea knives about a month ago and replacing them with a pair of Calphalon knives, life in the kitchen has been much easier. Cutting tofu, onions, fruits, etc. that used to be time consuming can be done with ease. The food looks better too when finely diced. Two days ago a set of Ginsu knives got shipped to the front door. Not sure how they cut yet, but the set looks pretty good. I have photos of the set which will be posted in the next photo update.

Anyway, CP3 played another great game today. They lost at Spurs during the 4-5 min scoreless stretch in the 3rd quarter. Well, back to CSI. Watched enough episodes to actually see "old" ones.

A quarter ago when I was taking Strategic Management, BUS109, my group and I worked on a strategic plan regarding Yahoo!'s future. One of those was for Yahoo's Flickr to integrate a photo-editor into their service to provide a better offering. Low and behold. Photoshop Express now allows you to edit photos and have them displayed on Flickr. What a brilliant idea! For Yahoo!, where do negotiations stop and focus on improvements of their own services begin? If Microsoft can look for other ways to increase their presence on the internet, shouldn't Yahoo! be able to do so as well? The company clearly has some serious issues with their search algorithms. Google does not just have better exposure, it has a better service. Is it time yet to start looking into a Yahoo!Wikia?

Lakers win Game 2 against the Jazz by 10pts. Kobe is the MVP! Good game and good aggression, but the Lakers should not let Jazz or any other opponent pull up for threes at the end of games. Even with a lead, slacking off in the last 24 seconds can easily turn a ball game around. I'm glad Kobe got the MVP award. It's well deserved. Too bad there can't be 2 MVPs otherwise Chris Paul's performance lately in the playoffs is quite spectacular to watch as well. Onwards to the Energy Solutions arena!

I've never talked about my mouse pad before, or at least I don't think I have. I'm using a black IceMat glass mouse"pad". It's very responsive and perfect for graphic design. It's also very accurate for gaming. I haven't heard from the company regarding new products since I got the IceMat and their white earphones. The reason for that is because they changed their company to SteelSeries. The new stuff looks good and their logo looks a bit like a moogle. Check out their goodies at steelseries.com

added: Gizmodo just recently did a comparison on gaming hardware comparing SteelSeries, Razor, and the normal stuff. Read about it here. I haven't had any experience with the mouse and keyboard but the mouse sure looks nice to hold. The packaging that they have for their products is beautiful as well.

Full clarity is an option for your screen as I have found out today. Yesterday I had to go to the Grad Fair on campus, so to fully utilize the pay-by-space, I went to visit CompUCR. I picked up a bottle of Klear Screen cleaner and a pack of Klear Screen Kloths. The screen cleaner is a large 8oz. bottle, while the kloths come in a pack of 12 (reusable) and 1 travel size micro chamois. The total came out to around $24. When I went to Glendale Galleria this past weekend I saw them at the Apple store sold in a combined package for I think $18 or $19. The smaller package at the Apple store consisted of a 2oz. bottle of spray solution and a few micro chamois cloths. Meh, not as good of a deal as what I was able to pick up. I've only used the two together (cleaner and kloth) but from what I can tell, my screen is indeed clearer than before. Prior to using Klear Screen, I've been spraying my laptop screen, my desktop monitor, tv, ipod, cell phone screen, picture frames, and glasses with the Sunglass Hut optics cleaner and cleaning cloth. It cleans perfectly fine, but the results aren't as clear as Klear Screen. I'll probably save the SGH cleaner for sunglasses and glasses, but for my monitors I've found a new cleaner of choice. This is in no way to knock on the SGH stuff. It works great and the solution is refillable at their stores if you have the screw-off spray cap model of cleaner. Every two days, a spray and wipe down on my glasses makes me see the world without the fuzzies, water spots, and fingerprints.