TwitterFon

Let’s me make a quick status update that’ll push to my blog, Facebook status, Myspace profile and AIM profile.

Twinkle

Local chatting. I used this to chat with people within x miles of me. This came in real handy when I was looking for the best theater to watch Dark Knight.

Shazam

When you’re listening to the radio and you wanna know what the song is, just run this program, let it listen for 12 seconds and it’ll tell you all the song info.

Myspace

Cuz I’m a Myspace whore like that.

Facebook

Cuz I’m a Facebook whore like that.

AIM Mobile

Occassionally used to chat when I’m on the move. Add my mobile screenname: mel so hungry.

Cube Runner

Super simple and fun flying game that uses the whole device as a steering wheel.

Yelp

Uses your GPS to find nearby restaurants and bars.

Pandora

Streaming radio while on the move, cuz sometimes your music library isn’t big enough.

Movies.app

Uses your GPS to find nearby movie theaters and movie times. Even tells you ratings from Flixster!

What about you guys?

(Graph is a little fucked up)

The best part is I wasn’t even tired afterwards!

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
– R.Niebuhr

// thanks meliss

Will Smith:

I feel very, very confident that the keys to life for me are reading and running. The idea that there are millions and billions of people who have lived before us, and they had problems and they solved them and they wrote it in a book somewhere - there is no new problem that we can have that we have to figure out by ourselves. There’s no relationship issue, there is no issue with your parents or your brother or your government, there is no issue we can have that somebody didn’t already write a thousand years ago in a book. So, for me, that concept of reading is bittersweet because you know it’s in a book somewhere but you’ve got to find the right one that is going to give you the proper information.

I said reading and running and the running aspect is how can you connect with your weakness. When you get on the treadmill you deprive yourself of oxygen. What kind of person you are will come out very, very quickly. You’re either the type of person who will say you’re going to run three miles or you stop the treadmill at 2.94 and you hit it and you call 2.94 3 miles, or you get off after a mile, or you’re the type of person that runs hard through the finish line and when you get to 3.0 you realize, ‘God, I could really do 5,’ and you go ahead and do two more. And that little person talks to you and says, ‘Man, do you feel our knee? We should stop. I feel we should stop ourselves right now. This is not healthy anymore.’

When you learn to get command over that person on that treadmill, you learn to get command over that person in your life. That’s the same person that tells you, ‘Man, that girl’s got some big breasts. Listen, we don’t have to do nothing, let’s just go the hotel room together.’ That’s the same person. Getting command of that person has been really important.”

I’ve definitely noticed that little person in my head when I run. He used to bitch about everything. “Oh, your calves hurt! Oh, your back hurts! Oh, it’s hard to breathe.”

For me, I’ve learned to drown him out with music. I’d set checkpoints on distances that I have to complete without slowing down, and over time I’d get to those checkpoints thinking, “Hey, I think I can go a little bit longer.”

It’s funny cuz since I’ve started running, I’ve noticed the word “marathon” thrown around a lot more. I mean, I’m only running 1.2 miles at a time and a marathon is a freakin’ 26+ mile run. But there’s a lot of people that do marathons…and they all must’ve started out at a modest number like that at some point, right?

Californians fed up with being charged for ending their cell phone service prematurely won a major victory in a Bay Area court decision that concluded such fees violate state law.

In a preliminary ruling Monday, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Bonnie Sabraw said Sprint Nextel must pay California mobile-phone consumers $18.2 million as part of a class-action lawsuit challenging early termination fees.

FUCK YES.

This court ruling is so ridiculously huge. Right now, carriers leverage exclusive cell phones to force you into shitty 2 year contracts. The only good thing about it is your expensive phone will largely be paid for by the carrier. On the other hand you’re stuck with a 2 commitment.

You ever notice how everywhere else in the world you can get any phone, throw in a SIM card and you’re good to go with any carrier? That’s the way it should be. Pressure needs to be put on carriers to make their service plans better. No more of this baiting people with sexy cell phones into a 2 year trap.

You want an iPhone? Go ahead and pop in your SIM card. Want a better plan? Just cancel your current and sign up with someone else.

It should be that easy.

Surely this ruling will be appealed, and it’s only in affect in California. But this is just a start…hopefully it foreshadows a time when we’ll see unlocked phones and real consumer choice in the US.

Ryan: so who were those zexy ladies you were giving the eye-fuck to today?

Mel: hahaa

Mel: you saw that?

Mel: when i was outside?

Mel: i dunno but they were hot

Ryan: im talking about the ones you were meeting with, dumb-dumb

Mel: ohh

Mel: for the spanish site we’re working on

Mel: ****** or something

Ryan: iiiiiiiiinteresting

Ryan: they didnt look mexican to me

Mel: the company is ruled by white people

Ryan: hhahaha

Ryan: niice

Ryan: first we take mexifornia from them.. now we’re gonna run their spanish websites

Mel: hahah

Ryan: but they are working to subvert us

Ryan: by taking jobs in fast food and burrito joints

Ryan: and at a critical point they strike and say “give us what we want, or NO BURRITO FOR YOU!”

Ryan: anarchy will ensue

Mel: hahahahahahaa

This year I decided to change things up and try the Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich:

WTF?? Raspberry filling???

So how was it? Well, the first bite I have to say was an explosion of…interesting… The combination of honey-cooked chicken with glazed donut and raspberry filling was definitely something new. The rest of the bites I was thinking “wtf am I eating? wtf. wtf. wtf.” And I have to say, I felt pretty gross afterwards.

So after the sandwich, I decided to wash it down with a side of Deep Fried Pop-Tart:

It amazes me how much stuff is on this thing. Think about it: crust, stuffed with strawberry filling, frosted and topped with rainbow sprinkles, battered, deep fried, topped with more jelly, sprinkles and powdered sugar.

Mmmmm look at all that greasy goodness…

This thing was much better than the chicken sandwich…but at the end of the day, I felt totally unhealthy and grossed out. It’s cool though, just another two things to cross off my list of things to eat before I die.

View All Photos (10)

In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience.– Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

1. Buy a bigger iPod or mp3 player
2. Hold out a few months for a larger iPhone
3. Manually drag and drop songs you like, one by one, onto your iPhone
4. Use iTunes’ Smart Playlists feature

I’ve used that latter option — Smart Playlists — for years, when I figured out a way to cram 24 gigs of music to a 4GB iPod mini.

The basic idea is this: you set conditions on what you want to hear and the Smart Playlists will automagically build itself. For example, I may want:

R&B, at least 3 stars, that have not been played in the past week.

To do this in iTunes, just click on File, then New Smart Playlist, and then fill it out accordingly:

Cool, huh? Now whenever you add music to your iTunes, as long as it matches these conditions, it will automagically get added to this Smart Playlist.

Here’s what I did for my 4GB iPod mini back in the day:

Up to 4GB's of the most recently added songs that are rated at least 2 stars, that haven't been skipped in the last month, and haven't been played in the last week.

If you notice, I have Last Skipped and Last Played in there. These are what make it powerful; as I listen to music on my mini (and skip the ones I don’t like), the Smart Playlist will essentially learn what I like/dislike and rotate in songs from my 24 GB library.

Easy as pie.

For more Smart Playlist ideas, check out SmartPlaylists.com

Thanks for your patience, everyone. It took me a few days longer than expected but 300 photos are up on my Flickr! (There’s actually a total of 853 photos and videos which I’ll make available for download soon)

What can I say? It was a very chill reunion, filled with a lot of nostalgia and laughter; it was a nice change of pace for once, compared to our past wild reunions. Once again we find ourselves as a group of people in the middle of no where, doing what we do best — chilling, drinking and finding ways to amuse ourselves.

The highlights of the reunion are all in the photos.

Randoms:

Loren: you’d think it was only us kids that were drinking and partying but really it’s just the adults were a lot better at dodging us than we were at them.

Mel: *petting the dogs*
Alan: hey Loren, do you have any peanut butter? (Reference to the movie Road Trip)

Mel: *quick, deep, hollow fart*
Samir: what?
Loren: dude, was that your ass??
Samir: oh shit! I thought he said “yo”

Re-Created Picture of the Moment:

In Closing…

In the movie Garden State, a wise Zach Braff one said:

Home is so much more than just a house to put your shit in.

The more I think about that quote, the more I realize how true it is. Home isn’t just a house. It’s not just a town. It’s a time. A moment. It’s the people around you in a certain phase of your life. It’s the world in the eyes of someone before all that real world stuff.

Home is an experience when you’re there, and a state of mind when you’re not.

Let’s face it, none of us will ever truly be able to “go back.” Even if we decide to go to that Ar@mco sponsored reunion in Saudi next year, it wouldn’t be the same. It’s not that same time and it’s not the same place.

But the people — us — we’ll always have. And that will never change.

Maybe that’s what ‘family’ really is: a group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

View Photos (289) | Downloads & Videos coming soon!