Christmas was good; New Years was blah

Its been nice to be back in Cali for a few weeks, what with all the nieces and nephews now. Its hard to keep track. I ended out spending 200 bucks at friggin Toys'R'Us. Overall, I even made out pretty good on the presents angle. Heres my haul of gifts:
1. Poker Chip Set
2. Taschen's 1000 Favorite Websites book
3. Mr. T in your pocket --------->
4. White church shirt
5. Wienerschnitzel skateboard
The web book is pretty good, its all photos of tight websites. The best though, is the Mr. T in your Pocket. Its a keychain thing that plays all of Mr. T's best saying. You know, I pity the fool, and Don't gimme no jibbajabba. Its classic. My sister saw it on Leno's worst christmas gifts, and knew I had to have it. New Years we all sat around and played cheesy board games, pretty uneventful. I'm gearin up to go back home to Hawaii, but first I got the General Council Meeting with my Indian Tribe on wednesday. That always adds color to my month.

Infamous Pali Lookout

Infamous Pali Lookout
Originally uploaded by russdogg.
I finally made it to California. My homie Travis turned out to be on my same flight, but the punk sitting next to me didnt want to move to Travis' spot. As soon as I got home I found out my parents' new house is going to be finished in 5 weeks instead of 3 months like originally quoted. That means I've been hauling stuff back and forth to their storage unit for the last couple days, and trying to convince my dad to throw away old junk he's been hangin onto for years. Its been nice to be home again, but also more of a confirmation that when I do finish school I'm not gonna be living at home!

Hell week status: finally over

finally graduated... heres the proof!
Originally uploaded by me, Me, fool!.

Well, all week I've been trying to get all my finals done, and I finished my last math homework assignment at 8 on Friday night. Talk about cutting it close! My parents made it to the ceremony which was pretty cool. I still have 2 classes to take next semester, so I'm not officially done, but atleast the hard classes are done with!

My "final" finals

More fun than math, 10 sec. exposure
Taken by me, fool. Russdogg. Believe dat.

Been studying for finals and bored as hell. My new camera's given me new ways to cure that boredom. My parents came in today, and they're staying at Laie Inn. It soo ghetto, the blankets even have huge holes in em. I graduate in 4 days... hard to believe, huh? I don't feel any different, but I don't think that's the point. Someday I'll figure out just what the point was. Tommorrow is my class' art show, but true-to-form I didn't make the posters till yesterday, so we'll see if anyone even comes! Did I mention Steelers won again on Sunday? Barely beat Jacksonville with a kick in the last minute. Haha. eleven and "Oh", baby. Peace.

Pain can be for a good cause, right?

with finals this week and next week, my graduation ceremony, and my parents flying in soon for it, I've been super busy trying to finish all of my late assignments and homework I was to lazy to do months ago. In the midst of my hectic schedule, my roomates convinced me to join 24 Hour Fitness, a gym/health club. The way I figured, I'd be more likely to do stick to exercising if I'm paying for it. Its really really nice. Highly recommend it. I'm super sore though. I can barely lift my arms. but its all for a good cause, right? the best part by far is the fact that nobody bothers you, and you can dress however you want. (unlike my school's gym, where the dresscode is strictly enforced by some nazi employees) Oh yeah, the hot tub and sauna are nice touches. And I can go to any one in Hawaii, (and the rest of the US too) where they have olympic swimming pools and basketball courts and stuff. Who knows, maybe I'll actually get in shape for once in my life.

Vans Triple Crown 2004

pink shirt guy
Originally uploaded by russdogg.

Had to take my new camera, the Canon 20D, for a spin at the surf contest this weekend. Finally the waves are back. It's been flat ocean for a while then, boom, waves. It seems like the girls come out when there are waves, too. I borrowed the 300 mm lens from my work and took action shots of the surfers from the beach. the good thing about an 8 megapixel camera, is even if it looks tiny, you can crop it and it will still be great quality.

Basket-brawl in Detroit

Artest beats down a Detroit fan
found by russdogg.

So I'm at work, watching basketball. I know, I know, I wasn't really working in a literal sense, but I digress. Pacers were playing the Piston in Detroit. Now I happen to be anti-Detroit, since they won the championship last year, so I was cheering for Indiana's Pacers the whole time. In the last 45 seconds of the game, all hell breaks loose. I'm talkin players fighting players, players fighting fans, kids crying, fans rioting, objects thrown at players including beer bottles, ice, popcorn, and even a freakin chair! This went on for like five minutes. The game was called, - whens the last time that happened? - and people were left in a daze having witnessed the craziest scene ever in NBA history, I'd bet. Basically, it went down like this: Artest fouls Ben Wallace hard, intentionally, but not too hard. Wallace gets crazy and slams both hands in Artest's face, throwing him backwards hard. Artest, who is always somehow in the thick of this stuff, realizes its a no win, and backs off. To prove he's doin nothing, he lays down and chills on the scorer's table. Everyone else is holding back ben wallace who is still goin crazy. Then, a fan nails Artest in the face with a cup full of beer. Artest jumps up, runs 5 rows up to this lil punk, and starts beating him down. Then it went crazy. Detroit fans are insane. Crazier than Fresno State fans, even.The coolest was Jermaine O'Neil, who punched this one crazy dude so hard in the face that the guy went sailing. Did I mention some fan threw a chair??? This is up there with, if not the, all time craziest NBA scenes ever. If i had my DVR set up I would have clips, but for now go to ESPN.com.

Steelers beat Browns like a red-headed step child

Steelers stomp
found by russdogg.

Dang. Pittsburgh wins again! Getting sick of hearing that? Because I'm not. They're now 8 and 1. This game was a great win because of the huge rivalry between the two teams. There was even a fight before the game even started! And once again, our defense kept the others from scoring, while rookie QB Ben Roethlisberger cleaned house, all while lookin like he barely broke a sweat. Even with lead rusher Duce Staley out on injury ( I'd be hurting too if I rushed over 100 yards 4 games in a row) Last year, the Steelers weren't even considered as contenders for the playoffs. This year, one could easily argue they have the best record of the season. I'm predicting a superbowl win at this point. Mark my words. It'll be interesting to see who jumps on the fan bandwagon when they get to the playoffs.

ODB, R.I.P.

ODB, R.I.P.
Originally uploaded by russdogg.

ODB, The Wu-Tang Rapper (Ol Dirty Bastard for those not into berevity) died a few hours ago. What a trip. He was in the studio had chest pains and died. This dude had been in trouble with the law and in and out of jail for some time now. I remember when he tried to change his name to Big Baby Jesus. That one didn't last. RIP, homie. I'll be sure to pour one out on the curb for ya. P.S. can I have those gold teeth with the diamonds in em?

New camera. It's sooooo sweet.

BYUH dominated Tahiti
by russdogg.

Well, I got my new digital SLR. Its a Canon 20D. I've been savin cash forever for this badboy. Took it for a test run at my school basketball game. One disappointment about BYU-H; There isn't much student body support for the teams. I had a good time takin pictures all night. Our team played the Tahiti national team, and stomped them by 70 points! Tommorrow they play Fiji's team for the final game of this kinda weak tournament. Saw my ex girlfriend AND my stalker. Yay! I didnt talk to either of them. Wasn't in the mood. Lovin my 8 megapixel camera. Now I gotta do some work to make ll that money back.

my new pc, baby.

my new pc
Originally uploaded by russdogg.

I've been building this mini pc (using this case) to serve as a dvd burner. Its turned into a project to build the ultimate media center pc. I'm using it to host all my iTunes music and burn dvds, when I get a little more cash I'm gonna put in a video card that can pause and rewind live tv, TiVo style, and record it to burn to dvd. Its pretty pimp... for a computer that is.

Bush is an idiot but I'm voting for him anyway...

Man, Bush looks pathetic on T.V. He stammers, gives people the runaround when they ask him sensitive questions, and sometimes has that gulity kid look like he just got busted for eating cookies before dinnertime. All that aside, I'm still voting for him tommorrow. Kerry's even worse though. He's got that smug I'm-guilty-but-you're-too-dumb-to-notice look. Like that OJ Simpson guilty look. I don't know if OJ did it or not, but damn, he looked guilty! That whole mean stare down look Kerry gets sometimes is enough to swing my Democratic butt towards Dubya. MTV is making me sick. It's so partisan, and so pointedly democratic, but they try n act like they are giving a balanced view of the election. They interviewed Kerry but couldnt get Bush to come on so they kept repeating that after every point Kerry made. Gideon Yago's like "Kerry thinks this should be so-and so. But when we tried to ask BUSH how he felt on this, we couldn't get an appointment with him! So, we'll play some audio clip of what he said 4 years ago as his rebuttal." SO lame. And they always hype up Moore's "Farenheit" movie, which was so boring and seriously stretching to make any semblance of a point. Gideon Yago looked like a dog about to pee with excitement when he interviewed Kerry. If he was a dog he'd be sniffing Kerry's butt right now, or humping his leg. Oh, and Kerry keeps sayin how if he's elected he'll save our job economy, but our economy is finally on the upswing before him and if Kerry's elected he'll totally take credit. Both Kerry ans Bush just need to step aside let Schwartzanegger run for office. He'll crush those girliemen.