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?"

Shining Properties of Apple Products

So you may think this entry concerns the positive features of Apple devices and how they outshine the competition, right? Right! I'm just kidding. This blog post talks about things that all Apple devices seem to have in common: Here we go!

Before you critics begin to criticize, let me list the products of which I'm talking about:
iPad, iPhone, iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPod classic, iPod touch, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini, iMac, Mac Pro, Apple TV

10.) Apple Logo
Let's start with the basic. Yeah, I know it's obvious, but it's not a stretch! Okay, fine. I include within this point that they all contain or display on the outside some variety of metal (that was going to be a separate point)

9.) Shape
All Apple products have a rectangular shape. Remember that a square is classified as a rectangle, but not vice versa. Some have rounded rectangular shapes when viewed from the front, but devices such as the iPod nano have sharp corners when viewed from the front.

8.) Desirability Regardless of Necessity
Whether or not you need an Apple device, if you were offered it for free (including monthly fees). I know very few people who would deny such an offer. The way Apple markets their product appeals to people, who will buy whatever they produce. (The first two sentences and the third sentence of #6 complement each other quite nicely, don't they? I would say it leaves me neutral!)

7.) Price (see #4)
All Apple products have a high price for the device's functions and capability, but I am not presenting this as a good or bad thing. Apple has integrity in their products enough to believe they merit such pricing, and I have nothing to say about that!

6.) Content Control
All Apple products have quite restrictive control over what software and content can be synced or transferred to and from devices. iTunes regulates audio and video content, while Microsoft Office programs and games have exclusive mac versions

5.) Easily Damaged Headphones
One time, my headphone cord got caught in a jagged corner of some variety, and a small rip formed. Another time, I accidentally dipped a portion of the headphone in some kimchi liquid, and found it irrevocably stained a reddish hue. (I mispelled "portion" as "potion" when I first typed this sentence. Just thought you'd want to know) Yet another time, after sleeping with the iPhone headphones in my ears some nights, the remote control piece magically ceased to function! I'm making an assumption here when I think all Apple products come with headphones, but if they don't, you need to buy them, probably, which would make this common feature a valid point.

4.) Feeling Incited in Gift Giving (see #7)
Since Apple products are not cheap, when one receives an Apple device as a gift, usually the gift giver is seen to possess a lot of money, or that they went through a lot of trouble in buying the device.


3.) Cheerleader Support
No Apple product is attributed with a less than excellent adjective, and this can especially be seen in the iPad, which has been even described as "magical". Adjectives like "intuitive", "simple", "easy", "funnest" and adverbs like "very" and "extremely" ("simply", "easily", "schmesily", "squeezily"...yes, you get the point) all hype up the product and fails to remind the consumer that a device is just a device. Nothing more, strictly speaking from a technical standpoint.

2.) Color Option
All Apple devices have that gray/grey/metal/white hue color as an option. I think that's just their signature color that they'll copyright someday...like Wimbleton Blue or Target Red!

1.) LED Backlight
We can thank Apple for making products which have an LED backlight bright enough to substitute a flashlight in the dark, cause eye pain after long use, and quickly use up that annoying small remnant of charge left on the device.

Thus, Apple is quite the unified company who makes it relatively easy for me to handpick ten features that all their devices share in common! Either that, or I'm picky enough to notice 10 similarities. Now you can save the world with this knowledge, so go ahead. You have my permission.

Shenanigan(s) and Hooligans...Wow, Where did that Come From?

So today the word "shenanigans" crossed my mind, and I began to naturally wonder: why is it plural?
I did a bit of research, and the Oxford English Dictionary says the origin of the word is obscure, but the word is usually used in the plural.
So, is it plural or singular?
Consider these words: jeans, scissors, binoculars. They are plural, yet represent a singular entity because they have two parts to them. This is different than shenanigans, because its meaning is singular while the word is plural without the meaning having any two-part implications.
The Oxford English Dictionary Online defines "shenanigans" as

"Trickery, skulduggery, machination, intrigue; teasing, ‘kidding’, nonsense; (usu. pl.) a plot, a trick, a prank, an exhibition of high spirits, a carry-on."

Mostly due to me being tired, in addition to nobody contesting my previous blog posts, I will conclude that the word "shenanigans" is plural because "hooligans" is required to pull off shenanigans. BAM! That's plural and rhyming!

So friends, always use the word "shenanigans" with the "s", because if you don't, one hooligan will be empowered to pull a shenanigan, and then each hooligan causing a shenanigan can build up to the most ridiculous shenanigans possible! Save the planet by using this powerful word...correctly.

Running a Little Late

Hello people to whom I always seem to address at the beginning of a blog post the issue of small size when I could start with a different introduction!

Today whilst casually strolling to the Apple store (not to buy apples, 'cause this isn't 1900, for crying out loud!) I thought to myself as I looked at my 160 GB iPod Classic: Wow. Look how shiny, glimmering, and beautiful is this marvelously extragent piece of technology!...yeah, I'm kidding. I thought I'm running a bit late. Then, it struck me quite odd that we use that phrase. Think about it: I'm running a bit late? The italicized words are essential to communicating that we are not going to make it somewhere on time (in other words, "I'm late") You could exclude the "a bit" part, and you still have the word "running" which causes confusion to erupt in my brain. Is this phrase perhaps a shortened version of "I'm running [because I'm] late" where the bracketed words disappeared? Or perhaps "[Time is] running; [I'm] late" dropped and rearranged itself into the three-word phrase "I'm running late"?

I then posed this conclusion: The phrase "I'm running late" might have meant "I'm 'running' late". Do you see what I mean? When I say "I'm running late", perhaps I intend to communicate with specificity the "degree of lateness" accompanying my arrival. I think someone grew bored of saying "I'm late" and decided "I'm very late" or any other adjective synonymous to "very" would not do, and so they decided to let people know that they were so late that they needed to run into "I'm running late".

I'm no linguist, but this explanation satisfactorily solves the puzzle for me. So the next time you are late, use a colorful descriptor related to the mode by which you will arrive.
"Sorry man, but I'm teleporting late for the meeting we planned..."

On Cupcakes and Muffins

My beloved 3 people or fewer (that's love! You don't get it? "less than three" is “< 3” which makes a heart…oh never mind.) who read this blog, I profusely apologize for not updating for a lengthy period of time.

I wish to inform you, the reader, of a milestone in my life. From this day forth, I refuse to acknowledge the existence of: cupcakes.

My heart desired very much so to accomplish this important update. Alas, school, amongst many other activities, beckoned me to devote my affection and attention to them.

So why the strange topic? You may ask aloud or to yourself. Well, it all started sometime last week when I was enjoying a cupcake while observing its shape, (something I frequently do, naturally), when I realized it looked like a muffin in shape. At this moment, the confusion receptors in my cranial crevices went haywire, as I sought release from this intensely stressful perplexity that was suffocating me. Okay, so I wasn't writing on the floor in a seizurely state, but I did begin to ask: Aren't cupcakes just muffins with icing? What defines a cupcake...or a muffin?

I knew my iPhone was definitely the first place to go for answers, so I opened up the Wordbook Dictionary application and typed in "cupcake" and it showed me:

cup•cake /’kΛpkeIk/
noun
1. small cake baked in a muffin tin
ORIGIN: From cup + cake

I next searched "muffin", and on the screen was:

muf•fin /’mΛfIn/
noun
1. a sweet quick bread baked in a cup-shaped pan
syn: gem
ORIGIN: 1703, possibility from Low German muffen, pl. of muffe “small cake”

At this point, I formulated this axiom, which will prove my points henceforth: "A [WHATEVER] tin is an object in which [WHATEVER(S)] are baked in" i.e. A muffin tin is an object in which muffins are baked in.

From this axiom, I then can say that a "cupcake" is a muffin (due to its baking location) that is a cake, and that a "muffin" as defined above is not a cupcake, despite the words "cup-shaped pan" which appear in the definition.

Here is why "cup-shaped pan" does not imply "cupcake". Would it help to define a muffin as "a sweet quick bread baked in a muffin tin"? Not really, because it never helps to see "muffin" in the definition of itself. In other words, one ought not to use a word when defining that word. Therefore, the phrase "cup-shaped pan" only serves to describe the shape of a muffin tin without using the phrase "muffin tin".

Okay, enough with pedantic semantics. What should you call this delectable treat, then? Well, since what most people call "cupcakes" are really just muffins that are cakes, you should call it a "muffin cake", which describes what kind of cake it is (not your normal cake), or an "iced muffin", which is a muffin with icing...like a cake! Or if "iced" reminds you of tea, "muffin with icing", "frosted muffin", or "icing adorned muffin" works too.

With this newly learned knowledge, you can inform your friends and help them to be an undumb, rational, informed human being like you have become through this revelation. Together, we can make a difference in this misinformed nation about the way people wrongly think of "cupcakes". We can be the change and revolution: for the advancement of the human race, to prevent oven temperature flucuations and home gas range explosions (although we chemists enjoy explosions, they're generally not good in your oven) from the misuse of this word, and finally, to bring about world peace and to dispel the myth that babies are brought to parents by the stork. (Note: A representative from the Storks Association of the World [SAW] has given me a hefty sum of money to mention them in this post)

In sharing this treasured information to simply every moving thing or person you see, you can help achieve all of the aforementioned goals in the paragraph preceding this conclusory sentence.

Thank you for your attention and endurance of my coined language and discussion of a seemingly trivial topic that is actually monumentally life-changing.

Lent

Dear reader(s) (do these "readers" even exist?) of this blog,
Whether there are zero or 2 of you, I will give up using the internet (except for e-mail and University-related things) from February 17-April 4, 2010

-YJ Choi

Note: Searching "Ash Wednesday" and "Easter" on the internet should clue one into my motive behind this act.

I Do Not Suspect This Post to Be a Lengthy One

I wanted to post an entry in my blog for the month of February!
I think that I should make a YouTube video about something...it's just that I do not have time, since I am doing things such as updating my blog with a succinct, yet many "I"-filled post.
I am a wonderer, and so I thought in the near future, I would post my wonderous (different than "wonderful") thoughts on this blog.

Cheerio!
(I'm in America, for your information)
-YJ Choi

Oh My Bajugalah!

I just checked: A Google search of "bajugalah" results in this page

http://yjch0i.blogspot.com/2009/12/whimsical-test-of-some-sorts.html

as the second entry!

This brings great joy and elation to my heart, because it did not take as long as I had expected for this blog's contents to be searchable.

Have a wonderful day!

You CAN Look at the Sun*!

You've all been warned: "Never stare at the sun" for obvious reasons. Well...I looked at it this morning, and my eyes are fine!

Do not worry, for I have indeed seen (in this context, meaning "beheld") the sun before, yet the sight that my retinas beheld (see? I mean...comprehend?) this morning (without burning into a crisp) was reminescent of a "Before, After" photo sequence of an overweight individual.


This first picture of the sun (during its setting stage) was taken with a low resolution camera on the LG Shine a while ago. Note the non-distinct area surrounding the presumed circle of the sun.

BEFORE













AFTER

The second high(er) resolution picture was taken by an iPhone 3GS with a "Camera Zoom" application. I will admit, that the iPhone 3GS' camera has a higher photographical quality than the aforementioned cellular telephone. However, the change is quite clear between the two photographs. The sun, when not obscured in the sky, does not appear to have a perfectly circular shape, but has "stuff" (light) surrounding it. When those stray rays of light are filtered by the cloud cover, a perfectly circular sun (I would venture as far as to say it appeared moon-like!) is revealed. For the sake of technicalists out there who are furious as to the unfitting description of "circular" in modification of "sun", I will clarify and state that the sun appears circular, yet is in actuality, a spherical entity.


For those who question if it was the moon I mistook for the sun, I wish to reassure and comfort by informing them that a couple moments later, we were driving through cloudless skies, and the sphere I saw in the same part of the sky now had lost its circular border.

To those who ask "Why should I care?" I answer "Nobody told you to read my blog, silly!"

*Warning: I do not know why I am saying this, but please oh please do not look at the sun directly when it's a clear blue sky with nothing to block your eyes, because it is a very idiotic action to take. I guess that's why some warning labels/warning people say "do not look directly at the sun". "Duhummm...buuut what if I use a mirrur?" asked the technicalist. "That's indirectly looking at the sun!"

When will people learn?