Why I'm Waiting for the iPhone 5S

I'm not buying the iPhone 5.

Sure, it has cool new features such as thinness, lightness, speed, and more screen real estateness, but my iPhone 4 works.

Yes. You read that correctly. I have a fully functional iPhone 4 that works. I know people who still have an iPhone 3GS. Why, there is one friend I saw last year summer carrying around the ORIGINAL iPhone from 2007!

I am not saying, of course, that those who are upgrading to the iPhone 5 from their iPhone 4 or from never having owned one are making a mistake. I would say they have waited long enough for a new phone. The problem I have with buying an iPhone 5, is the short-lived nature of its wow factor.

I received an iPhone 3G as a graduation gift from my parents, but a few days later, the iPhone 3GS was announced. I begged my parents to allow me to return the 3G for the 3GS and graciously, they allowed me to do just that, and when I picked up my phone from the store for the first time, it was amazing! I had so much fun swiping the icons on the home screen and watching as apps filled up the screen and shrunk back into the center while the home screen rows of icons would come sliding in from their places off screen. With no knowledge of something (or someone?) like Siri, I was fascinated by Voice Control. I was amazed by the idea that I was holding the internet in the palm of my hand. Despite the sub-retina display screen resolution, lack of front camera, and slower speeds compared to the iPhone 4, I can honestly say that at the time, this phone was the best phone in the entire world.

However, this sense of amazement and wonder lasted for the first 6 months of ownership. After then, I got used to the cool features and began yearning for the next model the following year, and Apple delivered (metaphorically and literally, as the phone arrived at my house and I was able to activate it over the computer)! The iPhone 4 was faster and had a more beautiful design than the 3G(S) [they have the same design] and was thinner and lighter with a front camera and LED flash. All these incredible new features dazzled for a while, but once I got used to them, I realized that it didn't really matter whether I received the iPhone 4 the first day it was released or a month delayed from then. Over time, its appeal would wane slowly and then take a nose dive to just a smidgen above zero once the next "latest and greatest" would come out.

Sure, my iPhone 4 could break and crack easily. It has some permanent scuffs and scrapes from over 2 years of use. Yes, I've missed some photo moments or opportunities to tweet @YJCH0I (Do you think they noticed me promoting my twitter account here? No? Okay, good. [Note: Delete before posting]) because notification center would freeze up, but will that stop me from waiting? No! This phone has served me well for the past 2 years and I am not yet ready to part with it. It has survived many pocket falls on floors of linoleum and concrete, while never failing to function after picking it up and dusting it off. I shall continue to use this phone until its battery can no longer hold a charge for a useful amount of time (I predict the battery will die before next fall) and it is ready to say goodbye.

If you were looking for a solid list of reasons why you do not need the iPhone 5, I've got 6 for you (as this is the 6th generation iPhone)

1.) iOS 6 Maps
If you require explanation on this one, please consult Google search
2.) Incompatibility (for a while)
Users need to buy adapters to convert the new lightning connector to the old 30-pin connector, and by the time the iPhone 5S comes out (around a year) there will be more compatibility amongst devices.
3.) No NFC Chip
Even if the iPhone 5 boasted a Near Field Communication (NFC) chip, it is a technology that is nascent at best in America (this cannot be more false for other countries like South Korea, where they have had this technology implemented for the past year or two) which is why you do not need it.
4.) Front FaceTime camera could've been 1080p HD
I admit that 720p HD is a vast improvement from VGA quality, but Apple seems to be holding out on 1080p  so they can upgrade for the iPhone 5S
5.) 4G LTE and battery longevity have not been thoroughly user-tested yet
Yes, the claims are true now that the phone has 8 hours of battery life. Will this still be true a month from now? How about one year?
6.) Siri is still in beta mode?
From my experience with Siri (in Apple Stores or occasionally on a friend's phone), she is Siriously (c'mon, you couldn't have not seen that coming) limited outside of the simple tasks she can perform. I believe her catchphrase is "Would you like me to search the web for"

If you've made it this far, congratulations! You win an iPhone! That is...the iPhone that you either have, or if you don't, the "i" stands for "imaginary" in your case. If you choose to ignore my advice and purchase an iPhone 5, go ahead! If you decide to follow my advice, however, be warned that Apple may fail to surprise or dazzle as it has in the past. If this disappointment does happen, be certain not to blame me, as I merely brought to light the suggestion of waiting, as you were the one to implement such an idea.

-YJ Choi

Fall on Your Knees

Welcome to the year 2012...10 days ago!

This post serves to announce that because the last David Crowder*Band album "Give Us Rest or (a requiem mass in C [the happiest of all keys])" released today, I desired to upload a cover of one of the songs from that album on YouTube. I was able to fulfill this desire yesterday because they (i.e. the band) released their album at the Passion 2012 conference on January 3rd! Thus, I would like to share my version of the chord chart I used in performing the piece:

Fall on Your Knees

Music and Lyrics by: David Crowder

Intro: G Em

Verse I

G Em

He spoke and stars came out

G Em

He spoke and lightning flashed

and thunder broke the quiet

C

He spoke and my heart,

G

it burst to life

Prechorus

C D C

All this mystery divine

Chorus

G

Fall on your knees

Em

Forgiven and clean

Forgiven and free

C

Oh, my God, oh, my God

[C]

[2nd Time: Here we are]

It's too wonderful

G

It's too wonderful

Verse II

C Em G/B

A voice then all of this

C Em

A voice that called me friend

G/B

in darkest of night

C G

A voice and my heart, it burst to life

Chorus II

G

To feel this grace rescuing

Em

Lifting us up, washing our feet

C

Oh, my God, oh, my God

It's too wonderful

G

It's too wonderful

It's too wonderful

Bridge

C D Em

Oh, reverent love burn us up

G/B C

Until what I was is gone

D Em

Holy love burn us up

G/B C

Until what I was is gone

D Em

Reverent love burn us up

G/B C

Until what I was is gone

D C

Like clouds dissolve in sunlight

D/F#

Oh, wonder

[Chorus & Chorus II]

G

Oh, wonder

Fall on your knees

In wonder

Em

Fall on your knees

In wonder

C

Fall on your knees

In wonder

G

Fall on your knees

In wonder

These lyrics and chords were able to fit on one page of a Word document using 1" margins and 2 columns of text. I hope this helps out those who seek to perform this piece also!

Life Time Legacy!

Hello blogosphere!
I just wanted to make a brief posting so that people know I am alive. Not that this has been an issue in the past with people thinking I'm not alive, but anyhow.
I have some great wonderful news for those of you who may happen to stumble upon this.

I looked through my few blog posts of the past and have determined that I have not yet announced this huge monumental announcement that needs announcing badly!

However, preceding this epic announcement, a story is required (Of course! Have you not received or read your copy of "How to Announce Something Epic on One's Blog"? I suggest you get it where all other made-up and nonexistent books are sold!)

I took a class called "Prophets of the Bible" In Spring 2010. In the course of this class, I needed to memorize some dates and events for a quiz I had coming up.

So I decided to make it easier for me to remember those events by creating a song!

So as a result, I have contributed something to the iTunes and Amazon mp3 communities.

Here is the link for downloading this musical wonder: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/life-time-legacy/id390021815

Here are the lyrics to this song:

From 783 (BC) for forty years, King Jeroboam II ruled the north without fears.
Then in 742 King Uzziah died, in the kingdom of the south-many people cried
Then 20 years later, Samaria, tragically fell into the hand of Assyria
In 705 Hezekiah reformed. And Jerusalem in 4 years was Assyriously torn

As time is passing, the graves are all amassing
the lives of all who lived and breathed upon this earth,
and so your actions and your choices all add up to what it’s worth

By 687, Dark Ages began, but the little King Josiah had a great big plan
In the year 640 he began to rule, and by 622 he made reforms that were cool
Unlucky 613’s when Nineveh fell, and then 4 years later King Josiah as well.
597’s when Judeans were told, to go to Babylon, which, in 539 Cyrus owned.

The remnant of Jerusalem packed up their tent, then in 586 to Babylonia they went.
Early returnees all went back to their home land in 5.3 ×102.
Ten years later, in the sand and silt, the foundation of the temple had been all rebuilt.
They dedicated it in 516, and then from 445 to 425 they walled the scene.

While they were building the temple wall, they taught the Torah to all
The legacy of what they taught back then, lives on ‘till the end

I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

A Golden Day of Birth!

Dear world,
Tomorrow (35 minutes as of when I've begun to write this blog post) I will complete 19 years of existence on this humble planet. Since tomorrow is August 19, 2010 this means that tomorrow will be my golden birthday.

Now I write about this topic so that people would know how old I am (not because I want to brag about my golden birthday!) because it is something important for you to know before accepting the wisdom and advice I channel into my blog posts here.

I wish to notify those who haven't heard of such a wonderful occasion as a golden birthday. Here's how it works: your golden birthday is the birthday when you turn the age your day of birth falls on. Or in geek terms: Let x be a number from 1-31. x=the day of the month when you were born. Let y=birthday that you turn x years old. y=your golden birthday.

See how easy it is? Well, I recommend that you make your golden birthday a special day, but try to make it unlike any other birthday you've had before. Perhaps do something you've never done before (keep it legal, kids) or something you've done before...but with a twist!

I now wish to address those who are not able to plan for or celebrate their golden birthday because they were too young to remember or they didn't have the means to plan for it sufficiently: I'm sorry for you. Okay, I'm done addressing that group!

Well here are some updates on some things I've said before:
YouTube video posted? Check!...it out here
Song? (Wait...I can't remember if I told you guys...) Trying to fix laptop sound card slowness, so it'lll be awhile. Probably around winter break...eek!
I have guitar picks that I will be selling(?) in the future. Check back for details.

I think that's pretty much it for tonight. I've got a great day (hopefully) tomorrow.

Thank you and good night!

Note: I believe the clock on when I post my posts (haha...post my posts-that seems odd, yet correct) is two hours behind my clock in my undiscosed top secret location! Haha. So please do not think I'm bad at math and couldn't figure out that 12:00 AM is not 35 minutes away from 9:25 PM.

Punniness!

Okay, so I was living my life today (duh) and I thought of an interesting one-liner.

"When you halve two, you don't want two!"

Do you get it?

Yes?

Oh! That's GREAT! I ju-Oh...you were kidding?

Well, lemme explain:

If you sound it out, "When you have to, you don't want to" is what it sounds like, right?

It's essentially saying that if you have to do the laundry, for example, you don't want to do it (hence why it's phrased "I have to do [whatever]")

Now, when you halve two (divide 2 in half), you are doing so because you don't want the number two for some reason, so when you halve two, you don't want two!

I choose to use this blog post (that I'm not sure how many people read) so there is no question as to who is the first person to coin this phrase. Yay!

Moving onwardly, there is another topic with which I would like to enrich you all: My YouTube channel!!!

So I have a YouTube channel ($3.00 in monopoly money for you if you guessed I was going to say that! No, seriously. Go to your basement or wherever you keep that board game and take out $3.00. Now transfer the money to your other hand. Shake your own hand. There! You just awarded yourself! Now sit back down and read the rest! Oh, and if you don't have a Monopoly board game, close your eyes and imagine how you would've done this if you did have one)

and I haven't been able to upload videos to it lately. However, since I got the brand new technological product from Apple that everyone's been talking about, I can now record HD video!!! (720p to be exact). Now with this fantastical device, I will record myself in all manners of whimsical whereabouts and upload this meticulously captured and edited footage for all to see on the YouTube!!

so look forward to that in the near future. :D

www.youtube.com/YJ2009

Next order of business: Blue cheese dressing floats in water. You may have read about this crucial life-saving fact if you followed me on Twitter! The funny (to you, but not so much to me) thing about my Twitter account, is that there are so many more people in this world whose lives could be touched in fantabulous ways by the petty insignificant things I tweet about on a daily basis than the number of people who actually follow me on Twitter. In other words, my followers count has hovered around the neighborhood of 20. And I phrase it that way because one day I had 18 followers, then the next day, 22 followers, and then it fell to 19 followers, etc. It just won't grow past 20 and stay!!! I'm sure people who have 1,238,294 followers worry if that number shrinks by 1. And if they do, then I highly respect them, but I probably think they don't.

My account: www.twitter.com/YJCH0I (That's a zero, folks. Not an "O" as in "oblong")

So thus I conclude this scattered array of thoughts by saying this:

1.) Follow me on Twitter, pretty please with floating blue cheese dressing on top?

2.) Subscribe or just watch me on YouTube (more blue cheese dressing)

3.) Why is blue cheese dressing called so? It's not blue!

4.) Why do they call it "Tostitos salsa" if it leaves your mouth toasty and not your toes? Also, isn't it weird how cold salsa is still hot?

Try to follow me on this blog too, because I don't see anyone who's doing that. Maybe if I had even one follower, I would endearingly refer to them by name in my next blog post, and maybe I would be inclined to create more frequent blog posts.

Okay well good bye then now because I have been way too begging in my words I have typed here this evening. Fare thee well!

No. 3 Pencils

I often enjoy spending Saturday mornings trapped in an unknown classroom of some unknown school for hours upon end, staring into nowhere while waiting for my standardized testing experience (read: torture) to begin. I have chewed my pencil’s eraser end in the shape of the proctor’s head so that I can gnaw on it whenever his voice (or his words) gets boring or repetitive.

He read from the 500-page “Proctor Instruction Manual” “Today, you will be taking a test administered by…” gnaw slowly…it’s gotta last… “…in an effort to continuously improve the testing experience, today’s test has a different format than previously known” What?!#$%?!! No! The test was hard enough already! After the proctor finished reading the instructions, (I chewed down to the chin of the eraser head model) I received an answer sheet that was in the shape of…a circle? I thought this was a mistake, but the proctor reassured us “The testing administration hopes to improve scores with these new sheets, since they are easier to store and transport. In my opinion, circles represent wholeness and completeness Yeah. It’s also the shape of a ZERO!!! The name, address, etc. blanks spiral inwards, which eliminated jumping from box to box.

What surprised me next, was when the proctor handed out stickers!!! “These stickers are for your name, address, and other information, so use them carefully. I’ve been told there’s 15 of each letter, number, or symbol that you could possibly use, so I don’t think you’ll run out” This test is actually a whole lot cooler! I thought as I pasted the stickers on the sheet. Afterwards, the proctor plunked the question booklet on our desks. When he instructed us, I opened the book to the first question. It was a SUDOKU PUZZLE!!! I solved the five missing blanks, and filled in the bubbles on the answer sheet. Whoa! Each question had one circle next to the question number, and the instructions said to modify circle with one of the five designs:

a=☺, b=®, c=Ø, d=Ө, and e=Θ. The rest of the test contained questions like “What gender are you?” “1+1 ISN’T equal to:” “How many teeth should you have?” “Should you drink mercury?” “Is it safe to microwave aluminum?” and my favorite: “How are you feeling today?”

After I finished my test, the proctor called time. Then I heard my cell phone ring. I opened the phone, but it still kept on ringing. I could not get the phone to stop ringing…“YJ!...YJ!!...YJ!!!!!!” Huh? I awoke. “Breakfast is ready. We can’t be late to the testing center!” said my mom a bit too cheerfully. DARN! I’m toast. If I don’t grid my answers correctly today, it is NOT my fault.

Originally Published in Tower Times, Whitefish Bay High School

The Power of Rain

Rain is powerful. No, I'm not talking about some flavor of gum or electrolyte-enhanced sport beverage or men's body spray. I'm talking about clean, pure, slightly acidified rain that falls from above. On everything. Outside.

"Rain is influential" might have been a better way to put it. Rain made some guy (or gal, I dunno) write a cheerful tune with lyrics you may recognize:
"Rain, rain, go away/come again another day/[insert name here]'s friends all want to play/rain rain go away"

I'm kinda making up the third and fourth line in the sense that I'm not sure if those are indeed the right lyrics, but I know the first two lines are correct. Correct? Yes. Logical? Not yes.

I have always been curious ("always" meaning "since some point in time a while ago that I fail to remember") as to why the words "come again another day" are in the song.

Singing this cheerful tune implies this: The singer does not want it to be raining. Why? I think "rain, rain go away" makes it pretty clear why. So is the singer bipolar? Why does he or she want the rain to go away and yet wants it to come back again another day (besides today)?

Some may answer me in saying "The plants needs rain. Duh!" and to them I say "Touché...BUT! Let me ask you this: "

When the rain comes again "another day", what will one do? Sing the "Rain Go Away" song, right? (I realize the person may not mind it raining that particular "another day" on which the rain "[came] again", but even so, how often does that realistically happen? It's seen as a "very necessary evil" in the sense that we obviously would die without rain, but we don't want it "raining on our parade". Ya heard of that saying?) In this second singing of the song, the singer would express their desire for the rain which "[came] again another day" to "come again another day". This rain obviously won't relent and come again on "another day", because when the rain comes on that "another day", the singer will just selfishly want it to come on a different day!

This madness confuses logicians (a word I made up meaning "people who study logic") worldwide, in addition to filling children's minds with evil vile lies about what we really want when it is raining.

Therefore, I propose this new version of the popular song:
"Rain, rain, go away/come when I don't want to play/the plants can drink some other day/that's when you should fall, okay?"