Takumi's Blog

Okay, just to like summarize what’s happened this week:

• Disney bought Pixar, Steve Jobs is on the board of directors.
• New site up for Amarimono (website)
• My keitai (cell phone) got suspended *
• Tickets for my trip to Japan have been bought!

Yay, I’m going to Japan from the 1st through the 8th! The entrance exam is on the 7th, which gives me about 5 days to study. I’m pretty excited. But the way we have it set up is I come back on the eigth. The results from the test come back on like the 10th or 12th, and IF I pass the test, then I go BACK to Japan from like the 15th through the 19th, so I can choose which classes I’m going to take, and I guess maybe get a tour of the school.

*Okay, so yeah. I’m pissed off. My mom suspended my cell phone account with no warning. NONE AT ALL. I called my sister and she said the reason was because I would be leaving for Japan during spring break. I might not even leave during spring break! This is outrageous. I know I owe her money, but I’ve already shown her I can pay her back easily. If this is her way of making me pay her back money. Then she isn’t getting any back. (Even if this isn’t her way of making me pay her back money, she isn’t getting any back :P)

Okay, so this week I’m going to be studying for the finals, and next week IS the finals. And I’m leaving for Japan sometime right after the finals too!

So yeah, I won’t be posting until after finals. (Unless something big comes up)

I hope it’s nothing,
These mistakes I’ve made.

Everyone makes mistakes,
But not this important.

Learn from your mistakes,
One may say.

I have I say,
But obviosly haven’t.

I hope it’s nothing,
These mistakes I’ve made.

There’s been rumors going around all over the net about Disney buying out Pixar, and Steve Jobs getting part of Disney.

This, if it does happen, would definately, give Apple the upperhand in the entertainement market. Especially in making Mac’s part of everyone’s digital life. With a new wireless ipod (rumors), and an internet service for it, that would bring a whole new generation of music listening too. Think about it, you have your iPod, you’re at the airport, and you want new music.

I’ll ad more later, and when I do, this sentence will be gone.

So the ticket’s have been bought (or are supposed to be bought). I’m leaving for Japan on February 1st, and coming back to the US on February 18th!

So I went running a couple nights ago, and it felt great. I mean great. 30 min non stop, just running, and running, and running.

Mercury News reports on a subpoena to Google for their database information. Claiming it’s part of their investigation “Child Online Protection Act” and requires the information to make decisions.

Then there’s the Google Watch people who are “afraid” of it being a Big Brother. Personally, it sure doesn’t seem like they’re using the information they have wrongly, so I don’t mind them recording my info. Same with Apple… But Microsoft on the other hand….

Paul Thurrott’s been keeping up with the recent accusations of Apple’s iTunes having SpyWare features.

I like how he says:

Not to be a jerk about it, but Apple is usually pretty cavalier about this kind of thing, and of course the crazies are A-OK with anything the company does, even though they’d be in the front of the line to burn down Redmond if Microsoft did something identical.

Because I know I would definately be one of those guys. Apple Rocks!

So I woke up yesterday morning, and I had this awful dream. Like, a terrible nightmare. But it isn’t something most people would dream of, as a matter of fact, this is the FIRST time I’ve had this type of nightmare.

The dream takes place right after I “wake up”, and I turn on my computer to check on the Grantonian website, which Mr. Leeman (my Journalistic Writing teacher) had givin to me as a project to do. But instead of seeing the website I created, I saw one that the current High School IT guy did. And I was pissed. I mean, pissed. “This is the guy that did the www.granths.com website, and he took over the website I did? He didn’t even make the GHS website that good!” I thought to myself. “He even used the same CMS (Content Management System) I did! Is this guy like stupid or something? Why can’t he get his own ideas. He’s just like Microsoft.” were the thoughts that went through my head…

Then I woke up, sweating, and feeling rushed… then realizing the computer wasn’t even on, and that I had been dreaming. I calmed down, and brushed my teeth. Glad that didn’t actually happen.

PS: The IT guy at Grant is actually very cool, I just think I’m better

So many people are against spying if it’s being done to them, but if it is being done to someone else then all of the sudden it’s okay?

UCLAProfs.com is offering students who “… have a professor who just can’t stop talking about…” money to “spy” on them. Now, I have a couple problems with this, one, is that UCLAProfs.com isn’t part of the University, and two, it’s not University “sponsored’. Or, the University isn’t backing it. If it was the University asking students to spy on their own professors, that’s one thing… but another organization… isn’t that… illegal?

Oh well, we all have our own opinions on these things don’t we? What do you think?

I think I must have missed some big news, Jeff Harrell is talking about a Nikkei panic yesterday… Well, I do remember something of a mistake happening like a week ago, but I haven’t read anything about yesterday.

So… I went and checked out Newsvine… and look what I found. (Membership required, ask me for one if you are one of my regular readers)

Well, that just SUCKS for the Tokyo Stock Exchange huh? I’ve never even heard of this company called Livedoor… wait a sec, I did post a link about livedoor (this is the actual link to the Yomuiri Online article) in newsvine like 3 days ago. Maybe that article had something to do with it… It seems like they were being VERY suspicious…

Okay, so today, although I know I have two huge tests coming up, I decided to go blog strolling. If you take a look at my sidebar (which is to the right), you may notice some new additions to the Blogroll category…. Now I’m contemplating on wether or not to add another category for these new links, because they may not fall under “Blogs”…. idk, anyways, while reading, there was one that linked to the new york times.

Apple’s stock went to the point where it was worth more than dell. Which was when Steve Jobs sent out a memo to everyone reminding them of when Mr. Dell recommended Apple close shop and give money back to it’s shareholders…

“A List Apart” has some great articles. Especially this one, which is about redesigning/realigning your website, and reasons for doing so.

Well, I’ve been looking around different sites for content management systems.

• Joomla! (formally called Mambo)
• PHP-Nuke
• Drupal
• ModX
• e107
• Xaraya

Joomla and Modx have the BEST backend UI out of all of those. I’d say Drupal has the most capabilities….. Xaraya takes some getting used to, but it’s still in it’s early stages of development. PHP-Nuke, e107 have basically the same backend interface. I’d say Drupal and Joomla are the easiest to use overall… for the other’s, they may have a couple strong points (AJAX integration, structure of the backend), but overall they aren’t as good.

So for my clients, I think I’m going to offer customized Joomla, MODx, and Drupal installations (that’s just for CMS. I’d definately recommend WordPress for blogging).

I guess some of you may know how I am totally against most type of religion. (Except for Buddhism, although I’m not Buddhist). Stowe Boyd mentioned an article from The Times that talks about how countries with a strong religious belief also tend to have the most problems.

It bugs me so much how Christians are always like “God saved me”… This reminds me of another article a couple years back from Times. In it there was some research done that mentions some part of our DNA is responsible for how strong of a believer you are in a religion.