Quote of the Day
“You have B on report card?! You are not supposed to get B! You are A-sian, not B-sian!!”
Just a funny little quote that one of my friends shared with me.
The Daily Shoot Assignment of the Day
Find a scene that’s dominated by one color and make a photograph of it. Use light and shadow to accentuate detail.
What I’m Reading
A little while ago, I finished reading a book titled
Deception Point by Dan Brown.
After finishing four of Dan Brown’s other books, I knew that this book was going to be a good read. Dan Brown has built an excellent reputation in my mind, and
Deception Point only solidified his standpoint. Like his other books, Dan Brown wrote
Deception Point as a thriller mystery, with multiple different conflicts occurring at the same time. The chapters switch back and forth from different scenes of the plot, putting equal emphasis on the importance of each of these events. This style of writing also helps the reader understand how the events occur chronologically.
The main character in this book is Rachel Sexton, the daughter of a senator running to become the next president of the United States. As the novel begins, Sexton finds herself in the Artic Circle observing the extraction of a massive rock, supposedly identified as a meteorite from outer space. As NASA investigates the meteorite, they find that there are fossils embedded in the meteorite, proving that extraterrestrial life exists.
Before the world has an opportunity to celebrate, Rachel Sexton and a few other civilian scientists discover some flaws with the meteorite, and begin to question its authenticity. As NASA’s discovery takes a sharp turn in the other direction, Sexton and her friends find their own lives in danger when they find out three mysterious individuals are out hunting for their lives.
In addition to being a good read, this book comes with lots of factual information interlaced in a fictional storyline, making it educational as well as entertaining. All of the technologies described in the book are real and could be used today for the same purposes as they are used in the book.
Also, this is an excellent book for the readers who don’t like finishing a book because they want the story to continue longer. When it seemed like the story was about to come to a conclusion, I checked how far I had gotten and noticed that I was only about half way through the book. With plenty of unexpected twists and turns creating new problems and magnifying old ones, this is a book that will definitely keep you alert and thinking.
Question of the Day
Today is a combination of various different questions I’m asked about my choice of drink: “What is your favorite thing to drink?”
As a direct answer to the question, I would have to say my favorite thing to drink is either lemonade or Mountain Dew. No, it does not matter if the lemonade is yellow or pink.
Some variations of the question are “this or that” questions: Coke or Pepsi? 7-Up or Sprite? Gatorade or Powerade? Honestly, although I will pick one or the other if I’m asked, I don’t really care what my two options are. I am one of those people that are able to taste distinct differences between similar products with different brand names (such as the comparisons mentioned above), but any drink is good, as long as it’s not bitter or alcoholic. Which leads me to the next two questions…
… the first one being, “What is your favorite type of coffee?” If you’re expecting a normal Parkzer answer with sugar measured down to the last milligram and cream measured down to the last quarter ounce, you’re wrong. I hate coffee. Unless I’m stranded and dying on a desert with nothing else to drink, I always pass when offered coffee.
The second is, “What’s your favorite alcoholic beverage?” First of all, I have to mention that in order to have a favorite of a particular item, one has to try various different types of the item in question and identify which type he or she favors most. Seeing as the legal drinking age in the United States of America is 21, and I have lived in the United States all my life, stating my favorite type of alcohol would essentially be a public announcement that I have broken the law. I have no desire to announce myself as a criminal on my own public blog, so the question remains unanswered.
Either way, my theory is that drinking alcohol is the equivalent of committing suicide, just that it’s a lot slower than methods such as shooting yourself in the head or
shoving a folded frisbee down your throat. I have no intention to kill myself in the near future, thus, I have no intention to use alcohol anytime soon, even after I turn 21. Oh, also, I’m one of those losers that thinks they can have fun without using drugs or alcohol. Yes, I know, time to start pointing and laughing at me for being stoopid.
My classic Cheetos and lemonade midnight snack.
The lemonade isn’t in the picture, though. -__-
What I’m Reading
A few days ago, I finished reading a book titled City of Bones, the first book in the Mortal Instruments series, which consists of four books written by Cassandra Clare.
I chose to read this book because it was rated as the #1 book in my high school this past school year, and I thought it was worth reading if so many of my peers enjoyed it.
The main character in the story is a teenage girl named Clarissa Fray more commonly referred to as Clary. On a seemingly normal day, Clary discovers, while at a party, that she has special powers that no normal humans have. After investigating these abiities, Clary soon finds herself involved in a world of Shadowhunters, demons, werewolves, vampires, and fairies. Secrets of her past quickly unravel as she tries to learn the true identities of her parents.
In my opinion, the book was pretty good, even though it didn’t really catch my attention. Basically, it wasn’t a edge-of-your-seat page-turner, but it was still worth the time to read. I would recommend it mostly to high schoolers that have an interest in generic fantasy-themed books.
What I’m Watching
I haven’t been keeping up with my reading, so instead of “What I’m Reading,” I decided to do a quick review of a movie I watched yesterday and do a “What I’m Watching” section. The movie is called 
At the beginning of the movie, there was a note that said that the movie was based off a game called Street Fighter. I vaguely remember hearing of it somewhere, but I never played it before, so I knew from the beginning that I was probably not going to understand it as well as I could.
Although the whole movie itself was somewhat action-packed, I felt the movie had difficulty leaning toward an attempt at reality or purely science fictional. At times, it seemed like the producers tried to make the movie emulate something that could actually happen in real life, but then in some segments, it completely ignored that and added something farfetched and odd. Basically, it was slightly inconsistent.
As for the plotline, there seemed to be multiple conflicts arising and falling that sometimes had little relation to one another. For example, one of the introductory conflicts was when the main character’s father gets kidnapped by a group of criminals. Another conflict arises randomly toward the end when the leader of the criminal group, Bison, receives his daughter as a shipment, and the international police force comes to stop Bison from maintaining posession of the daughter. I don’t know if there was something in the game that involved the shipment of a human being as a package, but either way, it seemed confusing.
The Internet Movie Database’s user rating for this movie as of today is a 3.8 out of 10. Although I would probably rate it a bit higher than that because of the random bursts of action and because it incorporates martial arts, one of the only sports that I like, I still wouldn’t recommend it as a “good” movie. I suggest watching this movie only if you’re interested in random bits of entertainment from action scenes, and a little bit of tension here and there from the plot progression.
If you have both played the Street Fighter game and have watched this movie, and your opinion differs from mine, feel free to contribute to the Discussion section at the bottom of this blog post.
Question of the Day
A lot of my blog posts lately have involved my presence at my family’s business. A handful of people have asked me what my family’s business is. So today’s question of the day is, “What exactly is your family business?”
Although it may have been a little obvious from the pictures I took, my family’s business is a self-service coin laundry. Essentially, our business is a massive one-story building with tons of washing machines and dryers ranging in size from machines that take a single load of laundry to machines that can wash a few comforters at once.
Our customers use our business by bringing in dirty clothing from home and using our machines to wash and dry them. All the machines are coin-operated, so our customers either bring their own quarters, or bring paper money and use our coin changers to exchange them for quarters. Each machine has a different cost to operate, depending on how big it is.
The target of our business is generally people that either cannot afford a washing machine and dryer, do not have enough space in their house or apartment for a washing machine and dryer, or choose not to purchase a washing machine and dryer. Of course, people that have blankets and comforters that are too large for their washer and dryer also come to use our laundromat. Occasionally, we have people that come because their washer and dryer at home are broken.
I have some 
This is the weirdest watermelon I’ve ever eaten in my life. Not only does it look like it’s bleeding, it was also impossible to actually eat. The fact that I was trying to scoop chunks of it up with a coffee stirring spoon didn’t help either.
And here’s my friend intensely gaming. Sort of. His name is Edward Lam, he one day aspires to be famous and wishes to be known across the world, even in Antarctica.
We then tried registering me for a PlayStation Network account. It asked for my address, so I put something random in, and it kept rejecting it. Apparently, 608 Djhk Dr in Washington, DC is not a valid address.
After I finally managed to put a fake address in, it took me another six or so tries to pick out a valid password.
After what seemed like 15 minutes, I finally finished registering for an account. Unfortunately, when I went to sign in, it rejected my log-in info.
After somehow getting signed in, I played a little Call of Duty for the first time, and stopped when I got dizzy from the rapidly rotating screen. Then we switched over to a fighting game, and I managed to get my first victory over a Level 4 player. The second round, however, I wasn’t that fortunate.
Yes, the second player that I faced was Level 140. I lost miserably.
If you haven’t realized already, I’m not much of a gamer.
That was my short adventure at Edward Lam’s house.
I visited the website on that truck, and that company generally does mass document shredding for businesses that want to save money by giving their documents to a third party instead of wasting money on employee income while the employees spend their time at work shredding documents.
So if a tiny residential house calls one of these massive shredder trucks to their house, they must have top-secret documents that must be obliterated. They could have originally outlined a destructive plot that apparently failed.
Such as sending a herd of cows dressed as pirates stampeding through the White House.
What I’m Reading
Note: I have stopped placing copyright notices on pictures I take of the books that I’m reading. Apparently, some people thought the copyright notice on the bottom right-hand corner of the image was me claiming copyright of the actual book, not only the picture. To avoid all confusion, I will no longer place my copyright information on photographs of specific products created or manufactured by other people.
Not long ago, I finished this book, Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. I originally decided to read this book because my three favorite books are Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lost Symbol, all of which are written by Dan Brown. I went to the fiction section of my local public library and found Dan Brown’s area, and grabbed the two books he wrote that I had not read yet: Digital Fortress and Deception Point.
Digital Fortress‘ main conflict occurs within a secret area of the government dedicated to cracking codes and keeping an eye on the American people by intercepting their electronic communications and making sure no terrorist activity is found.
Obviously, in modern times, a majority of us are concerned about our privacy. We’re worried that people are spying on us and finding out pesonal information that we would rather keep to ourselves. Many people become furious when told that the government can track an individual’s location by their cell phone, and tap in to an individual’s phone and electronic mail conversations. This issue of privacy intricately weaves itself into the main plotline, affecting both the heroes and the villians.
I managed to finish this book in one day, and I thought it was a good read. I particularly liked this book because of its close connection with modern-day technologies and issues of the modern-day electronic world. Anyone with an interest in and general background knowledge of computers should love this book, as they will have an insight as to what is going on.