Joseph Natividad

Unsuccessful Roommate Search through Facebook

My dorm room assignments were sent to me via email this morning. In a world where you could search for almost anyone connected to a social network (or utility, as Facebook likes itself to be called), how come my two roommates happened to be virtually nonexistent aside from the information that the school had given me?

I was definitely counting on looking both of them up on Facebook too. One of them comes all the way from Maryland while the other is from a town near Sacramento called Citrus Heights. I have no clue what their interests are but I hope that we?ll all end up getting along in our triple bunk-bed arrangement. It?s going to be pretty cramped in there?I could already see it.

I was never part of the MySpace crowd or even a member of any social networking site until Facebook had taken over part of my social life this summer.

Most of my dorm mates that had a Facebook profile seem like pretty interesting people so far. No one can really tell until we interact with each other in person.

Tags: citrus-heights, dorm, facebook, myspace, natividad, roommate, School, sixth-college, ucsd

Cajun Dance Party — “Amylase” and “The Next Untouchable”

I was going crazy last night when I finally got to see Cajun Dance Party?s first ever music video for their song ?Amylase.? The five-piece set hailing from North London has been quickly gaining attention from British Press for their music.

I first heard about them in June when I was listening to someone?s playlist online and was immediately taken by tracks like ?The Next Untouchable,? ?Buttercup? and ?Colourful Life.? I couldn?t find a lot decent video footage of their gigs that didn?t have fans screaming the lyrics out in the background so that made my anticipation for the release of Amylase even more tense.

This is a dubbed but well done capture of the atmosphere that the band plays to during ?The Next Untouchable.?

I find demos in some spots on the web from time to time and most of the tracks are mind-blowing. I simply can?t wait till they tell the world when they?re releasing their debut CD this year or in early 2008. I already missed out on the hand-stitched package that includes both the seven-inch and CD formats of the single ?Amylase? and a new b-side called ?Fill the Cups.? If and when they do end up going on tour in the US months from now, you can bet that I?ll be there to see them.

CAJUN DANCE PARTY

Danny Blumberg: Lead Vocals
Robbie Stern: Guitars
Max Bloom: Bass Guitar
Vicky Freund: Keyboards, Synth
Will Vignoles: Drums

Tags: amylase, buttercup, cajun-dance-party, colourful-life, danny-blumberg, fill-the-cups, indie, myspace, rock, the-kooks, the-next-untouchable, UK

Why Dirty Jobs Is Such an Amazing Show

“My name is Mike Rowe, and this is my job: I explore the country looking for people who aren’t afraid to get dirty?hard-working men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us. Now…get ready to get dirty.”

Who wouldn?t be enticed by opening lines like this that tell the viewer exactly what they?re in for?

Dirty Jobs, one of the best science shows out there, gives viewers an entertaining glimpse into the kind of work that usually goes unnoticed but is actually vital to keeping our quality of life as it is.

Mike Rowe is the charismatic and witty host who travels around the country to take on the grimiest, smelliest, most disgusting jobs that I never even knew existed or would even think that anybody would be willing to make a living out of.

For a day, Rowe works alongside people who have jobs that range from chick-sexers to septic tank technicians to alligator egg collectors. There?s even an episode that was considered too gross for Discovery. Fortunately, it has been posted on YouTube for everyone?s viewing pleasure. Watch Part 1 and Part 2 here.

My personal favorite was the time he caught snakes at a beach to examine their digestive habits. I couldn?t stop laughing everytime he got bitten all over his hands or got pooped or peed on.

Dirty Jobs premiered with three pilot episodes in November 2003 then returned as a series on the Discovery Channel on July 26, 2005. Now in its third full season, Dirty Jobs has already aired over 150 episodes every Tuesday at 9 PM.

The men and women being profiled on Dirty Jobs don?t earn a cent for appearing on the show. Their national exposure is satisfactory enough by itself. This relationship between the show, the actual dirty jobs and the amount of viewers tuning in means that the Discovery Channel has pretty much hit a gold mine in television genius.

No matter how good of an idea this show has been to Discovery, however, Mike Rowe?s presence makes all the difference in the world. He?s so naturally funny and good-natured that he endears himself to the audience. I really don?t think anyone could host Dirty Jobs as well as Mike Rowe does, and I?m glad for his success. After bouncing around the entertainment industry for the past twenty years and doing all the in-flight entertainment for American Airlines in between that time, he has found a gig that should keep him busy for the next decade or more.

Tags: american-airlines, dirty-jobs, discovery-channel, gross, joseph-natividad, mike-rowe, wired-magazine, youtube

An Inspirational Teacher

There are those select few who are capable of making an impact in a given person?s life. My piano teacher was that positive influence for me.

I?ve studied piano since i was 8 years old. It?s almost like a rite of passage for kids to try out some kind of instrument and most parents are thrilled if they actually keep at it without being nagged to do so. I continued on with my piano lessons until the early part of my high school years. Progressing to more difficult levels was a challenge that motivated me to keep on practicing. Staying determined and putting in the necessary effort to master the music were qualities that will stay with me through my professional career.

It was nice to have lunch with my piano teacher today. She turned 70 this month and I wanted to see her before I moved down to San Diego. She still continues to teach the next generation of musical virtuosos don weekday afternoons. In between her classes, she has recently begun constructing an outdoor train-set in her backyard. Heavy duty train cars ?choo-choo? and steam their way across brass railroad tracks. It was really quite something to look at.

I still sit down at the piano from time to time and replay some of my old pieces. Even though I?m so rusty, touching on the keys and reading the notes bring back memories of my childhood. It?s a soothing, irreplaceable feeling.

My First Garage Sale

I sold a few things at my neighbor’s garage sale today (mostly old toys and school supplies I was willing to part with). It wasn’t much of a profit but the experience turned out to be worthwhile.

Muffin, one of the many interesting characters I encountered this morning. The Yorkie-Apso mix came with quite a life story — she had a heart murmur, was blind in one eye and was about to be put to sleep before an elderly couple came to her rescue.

A prospective buyer testing out my neighbor’s weed trimmer.

A collection of cowboy boots that I thought were amazing. If you look closely enough you’ll see the intricate stiching and detail in most of them. The boots were quite a bargain at $15 each but they didn’t seem like the steal of the century through the eyes of the morning’s shoppers.

Ali G on Economics and the Stock Market

Alistair Leslie Graham, better known as Ali G, is best know for being?well?like Ali G. Shades of Borat and Bruno the gay news correspondent are seen in him, but that?s probably because all three characters are one and the same person: comic genius Sasha Baron Cohen.

It is worth noting that Cohen is a graduate of Cambridgesohe?s not as stupid or ignorant as any of his characters at all.

In this video clip, Ali G interviews Dr. George Schultz, the former chief economic advisor to both Presidents Jimmy Carter and Lyndon B. Johnson. Their conversation takes a dive for insanity even from the very beginning of the segment. It makes me wonder if these people that come on his show have any idea what they were getting themselves into.

The two of them exchange jabs and suggestions for the way America should print its money so that you wouldn?t have to carry any change in your pocket. Shultz tries to explain what PIN numbers are used for and the process of buying and selling stocks. In what I thought was the funniest moment of the interview, Shultz gives Ali G advice on what not to do when dabbling in the stock market: ?That?s a real rule. Don?t be high when you?re buying and selling stock.?

I was about to share a video of ?economic principles, translated? but I thought this was a hundred times more entertaining.

Tags: ali-g, borat, bruno, chief-economic-advisor, economic-principles-translated, Economics, george-shultz, hbo, jimmy-carter, joseph-natividad, lyndon-johnson, sasha-baron-cohen, stock-market, ucsd, youtube

Not Worried About the Freshman 15

Believe it or not, when someone first asked me what the freshman fifteen was, I thought it was a list of the fifteen kids at school likely to get beaten the crap out of by a bunch of upperclassmen. The image of a tiny shrimp of a kid shoved headfirst into a trash can came to mind as well.

Fortunately, someone told me soon thereafter what it actually was.

The freshman fifteen is a term used to describe the weight gain that many freshman college students fall victim to during their first year away from home and living in the dorms. Relying on unhealthy cafeteria food and drinking excessive amounts of alcohol are two common culprits most people blame on the addition of those fifteen or so additional pounds. On the flip side, an increased amount of stress and skipped meals would lead to something I would call the freshman ?negative? fifteen.

Likened to the coinage of the term senioritis, the freshman fifteen has not been backed by too many scientific studies. There?s no knowing if it really exists or is just a sequence of one bad choice leading to another.

What I know for sure is that I need to pack on those extra pounds a bit more than most people my age. I?ve never been too fond of junk food ? french fries and Halloween candies don?t entice me as much as it does for others. I?m also pretty sure that the school cafeteria at UCSD has its share of healthy and filling options that will keep me from resorting to cheeseburgers and pizza every week.

Class Registration Blows!

What a headache my afternoon was. Trying to build a class schedule that works perfectly has to count as some kind of art-form. Conflicting class times and my ineligibility to take my planned mathematics course for this school year?s fall quarter deflated my optimistic outlook on a breezy registration.

UCSD conducts its course registrations online along with its weekly email updates and printouts for school related forms. To an incoming freshman like me, the electronic process of doing things can be confusing at times even though I?m used to searching for what I want on the web. The website has so many options, sidebars and information on it that I get lost for minutes before I find what I?m looking for.

My experience today was definitely tension-filled. My appointment was set at 4:20PM and I didn?t want to be wait-listed for the courses I was aiming to take. That didn?t end up happening, but the calculus course I intended to sign up for wouldn?t let me do so. I was sweating and starting to panic. I haven?t taken the school?s math placement exam yet so I didn?t have a prerequisite to show up for the kind of calculus I wanted to take. I?ll have to take care of that when I set foot on campus a month from now.

Registering for Econ 1 and a breadth requirement for Sixth College was a little more straightforward. Advised by my counselor to take 16 units this fall, I decided to check out a musicology course that discussed the significance of the Beatles (worth 4 units on its own). Yes, it?s focused solely on the Beatles ? as in Ringo, Paul, John and George. I?m looking forward to what it?ll be like. I have a feeling that my fall courses are going to be manageable enough if I work hard and do all the work. The best parts about my schedule: none of my classes start before 9:30AM and the load of only three classes per day.

The Death of VHS and Plain Old DVDs

I miss watching movies on VHS. Since July of last year, most major film studios have stopped releasing new film titles in that format and opted for DVD-only releases instead. Nowadays, my family?s VHS player is used to record the World News on ABC so that my mom could watch it when she gets home from work. The collection of VHS cassettes that my dad built up during the nineties has suffered imprisonment in a giant Tupperware chest.

I remember spending a lot of my early childhood with Betamax. I actually liked it more than the VHS format. It was compact and Sony branded (which, as a kid, I used to think of as the best in everything electronics related). My parents eventually switched sides and thought that we would get more bang for the buck with the VHS, along with the majority of the American population.

The parallels between the VHS/Betamax war and the Blu-Ray/HD DVD war are pretty obvious. Sony, which backed and failed with Betamax in the eighties is trying to corner the high definition DVD market with the Blu-Ray format. I?ve witnessed Blu-Ray in action and I was heavily impressed. In fact, my jaw dropped when I watched the clarity of the famous car chasing scene in “Bullitt” and the even sharper images of “Happy Feet.”

Unfortunately I haven?t tried out the HD-DVD format yet, so I can?t formulate an opinion as to which one is better than the other. When regular DVDs started getting popular a few years back, I was blown away at how sharp the picture quality was of whatever film I was watching. June 15, 2003 marked the time when DVD format became more popular than VHS in the US.

Less than a decade later, the next generation of home-viewing entertainment is getting underway. Who knows who?ll win the video format war of this decade? I?m putting my bet on this chip being developed that allows both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats to coexist in one system.

Economics Professors Not Teaching the Right Way

I?m planning to take up Economics as my area of focus when I head of to school in the fall. I?m pretty inexperienced in terms of analyzing graphs and solving complex mathematical equations but I know enough Econ101 to follow along with the basics.

Robert H. Frank, an economist at the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University, wrote an article for the New York Times recently, saying that college professors aren?t successfully teaching their students the basic principles of economic theory. Instead, they force hundreds of concepts dealing with graphs and equations. And when they are tested on their mastery of those very principles, they fair just as badly as students who haven?t taken the course.

Could Economics professors be teaching their students way too much without fully explaining the foundations of the lesson at hand? If this is so, I?m dead meat at UCSD, where Economics is one of the most popular majors not related to the medical field.

Prof. Frank?s solution to this is what he calls the ?economic naturalist? assignment. In his classes, he asks his students to reason out an economic problem — in 500 words or less — that they have observed or witnessed in the world around them. The professor believes that drawing examples in a familiar context over and over again will make it easier to master the lesson in a single semester. (I definitely hope so.)