Category: Slice of Life

Upcoming SCANDAL Show

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This past year I’ve become a pretty big fan of the Japanese rock band SCANDAL. My good friend Mikey introduced me to them a few years back, but I never got into them until last year. But I started listening to them more early in 2014 and now they are one of my favorite bands!

I knew they play a lot of concerts in Japan but when they announced their world tour for 2015, I was looking forward to seeing them here in the States.

Just recently SCANDAL announced their US dates and although they are not coming to Texas, they will be playing at least one show in Los Angeles. It is at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip.

I had already decided a while back (during Idol Nite at Mikey’s house) that I would be seeing them wherever they played, and Los Angeles is a great opportunity! Somewhere in Texas would have been ideal of course, but Los Angeles is second-best since I can visit with my folks.

When tickets went on sale I immediately bought one. I was happy and excited! But then the day after, VIP tickets were made available. A VIP ticket differs from a regular ticket in a few ways (as far as I know). First, you are able to get into the venue early to get a good spot (standing room only). Second, you receive a signed poster of the band. And last but definitely not least, the VIP ticket will get you a “meet-the-band/photo” opportunity. The VIP tickets were a little pricey and my initial thought was that they were too much money.

I mentioned to my friend Scott my hesitation to buy a VIP ticket because of the price and he said to me, “Do you want to tell your grand-kids that you got to meet SCANDAL, or do you want to tell them that you saved 50 bucks?” What the heck was I thinking! So, I canceled my regular ticket and bought a VIP ticket. And now I just have to find a flight to Los Angeles!

On a side note, there was a second show announced, but the listing was later removed. It was at House of Blues, Anaheim. If that date is officially announced, I might try to go to that as well. But… I think one VIP experience would be good enough.

Factory Reset

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I’ve had my current phone – a Samsung Galaxy S3 – for 2.5 years now and it developed a glitch that has become unbearable annoying.

Basically, every few seconds the phone would freeze for a moment, then continue. In Instagram, the phone would pause while scrolling, and the Instagram title bar would appear. After a couple seconds I could scroll again, only to have it repeat that pause in five seconds.

The final straw was when I was trying to watch a video last night, and every few seconds the phone would stop the video and show the menu system. Arrrgh! I was swearing like a sailor!

So I decided to do a factory reset of the phone, and start fresh. Before that, I did a backup of my Nova Launcher settings. Other than that, I just wiped everything on the internal memory.

Surprisingly, I didn’t have any problems logging into existing accounts. Once I logged into my Google account, almost all my apps started downloading to the phone. It was all done within about half an hour.

Now I have a fast phone once again, and the annoying glitch is gone! I’m crossing my fingers that it doesn’t return, but in the meantime I am happy again! 🙂

Skateboarding on Vacation

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On the Strand
On the Strand

After getting our new skateboards last summer, Bay and I decided that we should take our boards when we travel and go skateboarding on vacation. So for our Christmas trip to visit my family in Los Angeles, we packed up the boards and brought them. Actually, I only brought over my trucks and wheels since I had an old deck at my parents’ house, while Bay brought over his whole skateboard.

The first day we were there, we rode to the park and skated around there. My old deck is a real ’90s style, with a squared off tail (and tail guard!) and front of the board goes a bit wider. It is such a comfortable cruiser shape! I loved riding it again!

On Christmas Eve day, we all went to the Strand. Most of the group was on bikes, but my oldest brother, myself, and Bay rode our skateboards. I also borrowed some rope from my dad because I was anticipating being towed by one of the bike riders. And as you can see from the photo above, we made good use of the ropes! Riding on the Strand brought back so many memories. It was なつかしい！(nostalgic)

The only thing I would change is that instead of bringing my Bones wheels, I’d bring the OJ’s instead. The softer and quieter OJ’s would have been more comfortable and easier on the ears than the hard Bones.

When the vacation came to a close, I was going to bring my old deck back to Texas but decided to just bring the trucks/wheels home. I’ll leave the deck in California for the next visit!