the life of james

my apologies for the lack of photo updates lately. i’ve been meaning to upload a few pictures, but i’ve been too lazy/busy, and in truth, i haven’t had many occasions to whip out the ol’ casio exilim as of late.

the biggest news is that tomorrow is graduation. i am now officially an honor graduate of air defense artillery obc, and furthermore, i am receiving the Communications Award for outstanding written and oral communications skills, after being selected as having the most outstanding 45 minute battle analysis briefing. as a result, i’m receiving a gift certificate and the commanding general’s coin.

so that’s all tomorrow. yesterday, we went over to the german club with SGM Hein and had a few beers. actually, a LOT of beers. like twenty pitchers worth or thereabouts, for ten people. that’s a lot of beer. we gave him a few small token of our appreciation for having allowed us to earn the german armed forces proficiency badge. out of our entire class, about twenty attempted the gafpb, and roughly half quit. all-in-all, about ten of us stuck it out and got the gold.

after hitting up the german club, i took reshane out, and we ended up seeing that vampire movie that all the girls were talking about. ‘twilight.’ it was very much a teenage movie, full of teenage angst. after that, i took reshane up into the mountains, and as i sat back with her in my arms, i was totally falling for her. i am totally falling for her.

damn it.

today i went to see wall-e. it was really cute. i liked it a lot. but i hated it.

i missed farizah so much. i was totally wall-e, and farizah was totally eve. it was like a total mirror of her and me. i’m this goofy but sentimental guy who isn’t quite the most technologically advanced (i can’t text-message or type for shit), who gets into trouble because i don’t know any better, but who has a really good heart and always means well. meanwhile farizah is this really smart, really pretty girl who’s from a totally different world, and i’m in awe of her, just like wall-e is in awe of eve. but even though we’re really different, together we’re something so special and beautiful, like wall-e and eve speeding and dancing through the sky.

i’m so lonely without farizah. once i’ve had her next to me, i feel so incomplete without her. nothing in the world can make me stop missing her. all i want to do is run to her arms, but i can’t. i miss her so much.

not the greatest movie ever, not as good as it could have been, but worth a watch… skadoosh!

uhhh… something seems wrong about this last picture…

who would’ve known that xibit & the guys at west coast custom could make a landspeeder into this?!

oh the joys of a few hours of boredom and microsoft paint…! =)

jon koppenhaver is an exciting fighter! the dude is an animal in the cage. he lit up tommy speer in tuf 6 prelims and nearly submitted him. (i think tommy tapped out, personally, and that the ref just didn’t see it). in any case, tommy’s face looked absolutely brutal after the fight!

even though war machine lost that fight, he won my respect. between being an incredibly sympathetic figure breaking down at the thought of his father’s death to being a total nutcase taking a shit in the top of team hughes’ toilet, war machine was easily my favorite fighter throughout the show.

and then last night on the finale, war machine and jared rollins turned in one of the bloodiest, most exciting ufc fights in memory:

the main card, roger huerta vs clay guida, also delivered, but jared vs war machine was the fight of the night. still, huerta vs guida was incredible! just when i think guida is in command, he catches a knee, and that is that. ouch.

so yeah, a disappointing result for a huge guida fan like myself, but at least this one didn’t end in controversy like guida vs. griffin (another great fight):

there’s something to be said about clay guida. win or lose, the energizer bunny, turns in one hell of a fight!

working the sidelines for espn:

game photos (reuters & ap):

what could be better than free food, free admission, the best seats in the house for the biggest game of the year, and getting paid to be there in the midst of the action?!

illini.

i must preface this by saying i am not a ‘tranformers’ fan. in fact, up until watching the movie, i had never seen ‘transformers’ in my life. so how did i come to be in a packed movie theatre on opening day? jenn. being the huge geek she is (but nowhere in the same league as ziggy), she IMs me and tells me let’s go watch ‘transformers.’ for some reason, i consent. we get there early and avoid the lines. and then, it’s movie time!

i must admit that at first the movie was hard for me to stomach. it was all very exciting and visually awesome, but it’s hard for me to watch american soldiers getting mass slaughtered—no matter what the context. looking past that, other than blatantly/shamelessly plugging GM throughout the movie (it was practically one giant GM commercial) and the extreme cheesiness (like long-winded speeches by optimus that made me hope megatron would kill him), the movie was fantastic in all the right ways. it had everything: giant robot melees, explosions, fast cars (the camaro was to die for), pretty girls, and a good dose of humor to lighten the mood.

all-in-all, it was a fun movie. i only wish megan fox, who plays mikaela, had more screen time. jenn and i spent a good deal of the movie arguing over which girl is hotter; she said rachael taylor, and i said megan fox. but neither were quite as sexy as that new camaro. =)

i didn’t learn much on my trip to california, but if there’s one thing i’ve learned, it’s that crashing into a sea lion while surfing really hurts!

so it turns out that i was on tv. we were visiting the kodak theatre in LA, and as it happened, the emmys were there that day. thus i got to see all the tv stars rolling up to the red carpet. it was quite disappointing. they looked just like any other person–not the glamorous, larger than life superhumans people make them out to be.

also we went to a casino by san diego. the food was amazing! my aunt won a lot of money. good times.

but the highlight of the trip: petting dolphins and sting rays! yes, i mean the same animals that killed the crocodile hunter. they were so squishy and slimy! the dolphins, meanwhile, felt quite rubbery. it was awesome!

by the way, the shamoo show is absolutely the worst animal show i have ever seen in my entire life. seriously, after all the hype regarding sea world, i was sorely disappointed. the otters and sea lions, however, more than made up for shamoo’s crappy show.

finally, i pulled off a couple successful heists, but i can’t elaborate. of course, the heists were nowhere near the level of the infamous d.i.z. heist of a couple years ago. now that was massive!

back to chicago tomorrow!

1. they killed the fine asian chicks! wtf?! those dutch bastards!
2. keira knightley is very fine, but she is also extremely flat-chested
3. sucks to be will turner. seems like he’s going to have a tough time with his sex life…
4. in general, it was good mayhem
5. they killed the fine asian chicks! wtf?! those dutch bastards!

dutchmen must be gay.

*okay, it has been pointed out to me that the bad guys were the british east india co and not the dutch east india co. nevertheless, that does not change the fact that there are only two kinds of people i hate in this world: people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures and the dutch!

i have come to the conclusion that jean wang is one of the prettiest women ever. i just watched ‘iron monkey‘ again, and i couldn’t help but think that miss orchid is pretty much the perfect woman–beautiful, respectful, dutiful, caring, deadly… asian…

i am so ending up with an asian girl!

speaking of which, miss japan won miss universe.