The Joys of Napping

With my schedule the way it is these days, I have been forced to take naps in the late afternoon-early evening every day in order to stay somewhat alert for the rest of the night. When I was at school, I was also known for my messed up napping habits. I would sleep at like 5 am, wake up for class at 9, go to class for a couple hours, come back, play Starcraft, and then nap for like 3 hours. Or, I'd pull an allnighter, try to make it through an entire day, then give in around dinnertime and "nap" for 16 hours (seriously, I did that). Anyways, you might consider me to be something of a nap expert, a nap connoiseur, if you will. So here are some of my thoughts on this wonderful art of life.

A lot of so-called "experts" say it is good to take short, 15-minute naps during the day as refreshers, rather than a long extended nap. To this, I say "pish-posh" and heartily disagree. So what if they have "medical degrees" and "years of research" and "scientific evidence"? Experts schmexperts... I really can't imagine getting anything out of a puny little 15 minute nap. It's comparable to eating 1 Pringle for a snack. It's like the Diet Coke of naps, "Just one calorie, not nappy enough."

Anyways, to me, a nap isn't a nap unless it's at least an hour and a half to two hours. Real men take long naps (real women, too). I personally feel very dissatisfied with a nap unless I wake up in a complete daze. You know what I mean, when you have no idea what time it is, your hair is all messed up, the wrinkles of your blankets and sheets are permanently engraved upon your face, arms, and legs, and drool is running continuously down your chin to your pillow. Ah, that's the stuff.

Whenever I get the chance to take a nice long nap, I make it a big deal and prepare for it in advance, kind of like when people invite a guest over and they prepare in advance. Well, when my favorite guest, the Nap Fairy, is coming to visit, I gotta make sure everything is in its right place (hey, that's a Radiohead song, "Everything in its Right Place"). That is, I gotta brush my teeth, wear my most comfortable clothes, shut down my computer (the sound of the fan gets annoying), and, for those naps when I treat myself to some extra sauce, I turn off my cell phone and lock my door. Ah, talking about it makes me want to take a nice long nap right this moment. But I guess I can wait for another 7 and a half hours. So as you can see, I don't take naps lightly, nor do I take light naps.

Oh man it's dark outside right now. I hope we don't get struck by a frickin tornado.

Ok, so naps are great and all, but even I will admit that they have their limitations. I'd take sleeping in any day over a 4 or 5 hour night's rest and 2 hour nap. And it's definitely inconvenient to depend on taking a long nap in the middle of the day. So that is why I value a good nap so much, because the opportunity to enjoy one is such a luxury that is not to be overlooked.

The moral of the story is, don't call me between the times of about 4:30 to 6 pm today.

Pop-up Ads Suck

I think for as long as I have used web browsers, Espn.com has been my "Home" page. I know it shows that I value sports maybe a little too much, but it's always been a solid site to open my browser with, providing a quick summary of the top sports stories as well as some interesting columns that go more in depth. So, I never thought twice about setting all my Home pages to espn.com.

That is, until now. Lately, the page has been opening up pop-up ads every time I load it, which was annoying me more and more by the day. At first, the windows were just a little nuisance which I got used to closing. But today, it seemed like they had switched to some sort of super-pop-up-ad that opens up but makes it hard for you to close by switching between the espn window and the ad window until both are fully loaded. I don't think this was by design, but I open up new browsers probably over a hundred times during the course of the day, and as you might expect, by mid afternoon (around now) I was soooooo pissed. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be on a slow internet connection and have to go through that.

So I wrote a nasty email to the folks at espn.com who brought such atrocity upon my life, but being quite confident that they don't give a schnitt about my ordeal, I will probably end up having to change my Home page to something else before the pop-up madness makes me flip. Here's the thing: I know that me writing a strongly-worded email isn't gonna change anything, and that's pretty much why I don't usually do that kind of stuff. But, if more people write emails, and more people switch from espn to some other site, then they will be forced to take notice. I'm hoping this will happen and that the idiots who decided to sic these dumb ads on me will be forced to endure punishment similar to what I faced with these stupid ads this morning.

Anyways, this leaves me somewhat open to what my new home page shall be. So far, the possible candidates include:

1. cbs.sportsline.com, cnnsi.com - Two other major sports sites that don't have pop-up ads (I think)
2. www.google.com - A simple page that loads fast with no ads. I like google.
3. my.yahoo.com - I customized a page a while back on yahoo and it's pretty good. A Search bar near the top, weather, my email, news, links to my yahoo fantasy teams, and movie showtimes. Convenient and organized.
4. dudo509.blogspot.com - An awesome page that I visit frequently anyways. This guy has some of the most brilliant thoughts ever and we all could learn a lot from him. Plus, he's pretty darn good looking.
5. www.cnn.com - I've found myself visiting CNN a lot lately, maybe it's because I'm bored from reading sports all day, or maybe I am becoming more mature and world-conscious. It's not boring at all, as many people think, many of these stories are relevant and worth reading.
6. www.salon.com - You may have noticed that I included this site, which is kind of like an online magazine, on the links at the left of this page (I'll change them when I get around to it). I used to visit it more, but not so much lately. Still, it has a good coverage of recent events and overall, its writers put out well written pieces (unlike my blog entries). I doubt it will end up being my Home though, among all the other choices I'm listing.
7. www.espn.com - Ah, in many ways, I am still a stubborn, stubborn man. It's hard to change the habits that have been formed over 4 or 5 years, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Hmmm.... I think I am gonna grow up to be one of those old grandpas that annoys the crap out of everybody by refusing to listen to anyone.

If anyone reading this has any thoughts or suggestings about what I'm writing, feel free to contact me. Also, if anyone knows where the espn.com offices are located, please tell me so I can go reward them with eggs and toilet paper. Just kidding, vandalism is never the answer. But whoever wants to harrass espn.com with emails like I did has my full blessing.

Yao Ming

The latest #1 draft pick in the NBA just happens to be a 7'6" Chinese guy who can shoot three pointers. While it would be great to see him do well in the NBA, the more I think about it, the more I think it's gonna be a disaster. I mean, the guy is tall and everything, and I'm sure he has good fundamentals, but I fear that the first time he tries to put a body on Shaq will also be his last. He's gonna get so crushed it's not even funny. Shaq is gonna knock him over and eat him.

We've already seen skinny 7'6" guys in the NBA, and they usually end up being freak shows instead of dominating players. Can we forget Manute Bol and Shawn Bradley so easily, they might block some shots but they don't do much else other than stand there and look goofy.

And today I read an article on how they are gonna make Yao a huge endorsement commodity like Tiger Woods. Sorry, but that is gonna be more hilarious than anything. There is no way people in this country are gonna think this thuggish Yao Ming character is cool. Unfortunately, Chinese guys are not meant to be cool, especially oversized awkard-looking ones. Ichiro is cool, but Yao Ming is not gonna be Ichiro. At most, they might get him to appeal to the Asian-American community by having him do commercials for rice or something. And they might sell a bunch of "Yao #11" jerseys to Asian kids trying to be hip. But McDonalds and Nike should probably stick to players like Jordan and Tiger if they are any wiser.

Hopefully I am wrong, because heaven knows I would love to see a Chinese athlete succeed in professional sports (I almost bought a Bruce Chen jersey a couple years ago when he came up with the Atlanta Braves, boy, would I have looked dumb). But in a year or two, we may be looking at Yao Ming as the biggest disappointment, the biggest bust ever. I predict he will foul out every other game now that he isn't playing in China where everyone is like 2 feet shorter than him.

New Cell Phone Number

As of Tuesday evening, my old cell phone number no longer works. I got a new number in the (630) area code. If you would like to know, please call my cell and I will tell you. haha just kidding, I'm pretty funny aren't I. Anyways, I will hopefully get an email sent out to everyone who calls me ever, but if you are dying to know, try calling my house or emailing me to ask.

Stop Unwanted Spam Emails

One of the few good things about my jychen@uiuc.edu email expiring soon is that I won't have to sort through all the dumb ad emails I get all the time. Seriously, there's at least 3 or 4 of these messages in my mailbox every day, and I swear I have been very careful about giving my email out. The annoying thing is that these clever folks title their emails "From: John" or something generic and subject as "I got it working" or "Quick question" so I have to open it up and make sure it's not someone I know. Unfortunatley, 99 to 100% of the time it is some ad for refinancing my home, signing up for traveler's clubs, or gay porn... leaving me feeling frustrated and somewhat bamboozled. One was from McAfee and titled "Stop unwanted spam emails," which I thought was ironic. SO STUPID!!! I know somewhere, some guy is having himself a hearty chuckle at my expense.

But once that address is deactivated, it will be I that is heartily chuckling. All that effort put into hoodwinking me will have been wasted... and what better revenge than for these punks to receive a good old dose of "Returned mail: address unknown"? muahahahahah... ugh. Anyways, if I ever find one of these people who have nothing better to do than annoy millions of people at once through email, then I am gonna have to pull out their eyes and shove them down their pants so they can watch me kick the crap out of them (courtesy of Moe in Simpsons, again. gotta love Simpsons).