the sensiway weblog

Happy Halloween everyone!

i thought it was about time that i add a few more TV links:

Surfthechannel - this is one of those sites that searches all the other video hosting sites for your material, basically a Google search engine for TV series. just type the name of the series you are looking for into the search box and follow the steps from there. sometimes the sites may take a few xtra seconds (sites such as Tudou, and youku; megavideo is decent except they only let you watch about 65 min of video a day now) i enjoy watching Mythbusters and this site is one of the few, if not only site i was able to find a vast majority of the episodes and seasons. actually, as im searching for the links i just found a new episode that was just uploaded. so it would appear that they update as often as possible. the quality is decent, it does vary from site to site (remember this site just searches other sites, it does not host any video) the only issue i have is when the audio and video are off…you know, a few seconds apart, its not terrible but a little bit of an annoyance.

hessmo – i am not sure if i have mentioned hessmo before or not, but in either case it deserves another mention. this site is the mecca for Top Gear lovers. you will find every season and i believe every episode. on top of that you will find Top Gear Australia (which i do not care for much) as well as James May’s new show, which is rather awesome. it is his quirkiness that keeps everything interesting, and that english humor, hillarious in my honest opinion. just to mention, they have a new player, which is great. and i can also say that every single episode works, how do i know you may ask. i’ve watched them all. season 1-11 and all of James May’s episodes (1-3 thus far) one last thing, the 12th season starts this Sunday, November 2nd, expect it to be up on hessmo within a few days of airing. (the site is down at the moment 10/31/08 @ 10:20 AM EST)

pornhub - porn, ah yes, porn, better yet free porn! i thought it prudent to mention a site for free porn. why is it prudent? because we are humna and we loooovee to see other humans (usually the opposite sex, not always) naked. this site has every-and-anything you could POSSIBLY be searching for. its actually amazingly well organized with categories and then you have the ability to search within a category. they just recently switched to a new video player as well and it does a fine job; i don’t watch for hours so the video player doesn’t bother me much. i will also say that they offer a mobile site as well, not sure why, but they do. so, if you so choose you could access the site from your iPhone or iPod Touch; i have visited, its terrible being so curious, haha. and their mobile site is just about as good as the full site. video quality is good as is loading time (i was using an iPod Touch 2G over my personal 802.11b or g wireless home network)

i think that will do it for now. i’ve already mentioned the prime time stations (CBS, NBC, FOX, ect..) and Hulu is another one i like lately, except they do not update ASAP; new episodes are on the Parent site for days prior to it being on Hulu. (for example lets say House airs on Monday, by Tuesday its up on the FOX site – ive accessed Hulu roughly 5 days after the episode aired and it still did not show; not to mention that they still do not have one of my fav shows Numb3rs)

i plan on making a Digital HD TV Antenna today after work out of parts that should cost me less then 10$; this way i can watch the episodes the day it airs and in HD quality!! ill post up pix of the antenna once its completed!

certainly, i’m sure we all think that we know how to listen. we do it each and every moment of the day. even while we are asleep, we are listening. but what are we hearing?

throughout the past 2 years (and counting) i have been evaluating myself; who i am, why i am and how i became the way i am. during that time period one of the things that i have come to realize is that there is a major difference between Hearing and Listening.

i was forever hearing any-and-every-thing anyone had to say; in that respect i had a very open mind. i now realize that i wasn’t so open. i would just hear what the other person(s) had to say and simply dismiss it without a second thought; more-so without listening what that person had to say.

i do not have one simple thing for you to do to stop hearing people and to start listening to them; what i can say is that it takes a lot of practice. in my day to day life, i have to tell myself to quiet down my thoughts, quiet my mind and not only listen to what the other person has to say, but also to hear them in an attempt to understand what was said and more importantly how it was conveyed to me; body posture, hand signals, eye contact, tone of voice and frequency of responses are all visual clues that can help.

another huge part of listening is understanding what is said, it seems rudimentary but its far too often that the most simple of things are overlooked. it is not easy to understand what everyone says; in order to do so you must be a jack of all trades of sorts and have an incredibly open mind; for example during Debate Issues, without an open mind and a certain skill level (jack of all) one will NOT be able to respond properly, simply because he cannot listen to what is being said, only able to hear it. you may even find that you have to hold yourself back from responding in order to fully hear what the other person is saying. be respectful of one another, try not to cut someone off mid-sentence, even if you are 100% sure of what they are going to say, do not do it. i have this problem and to a rather large scale. i am not sure what it is, im no psychic, may be is just deductive reasoning, but i can usually tell what is on someones mind and what it is they are going to say. as i said, i am not claiming any special powers or anything, but what i am trying to relay is that i have had to tell myself, numerous times during conversation to stop with my thoughts and responses and to let the other person finish with their thought, it is what i would expect. if i have to, if the conversation in one where i cannot afford to forget any of the information, ill grab a pad and pencil and will just start jotting down what is said so i have a reference. something else that i have found beneficial is, once the other person has finished speaking, repeat to them what it was that they said, this assists in a few different areas: it helps them to realize that you were, in fact, paying attention to them (listening and hearing what they had to say) it allows you to clarify what the other person said, but in your own words, as to understand it better for yourself; re-word things if you must, do what has to be done to understand what is being said. and, lastly it allows everyone to be on the same page, making sure that what one person thinks is the topic of discussion is the actual topic of discussion.

To Hear: To perceive (sound) by the ear. – Rather ‘to be within ear shot’

To Listen: To apply the mind, or pay attention, with a view to perceive, understand, or comply; to pay regard; to heed. – Rather ‘the act of comprehending what is heard’

the differences are very easily noticed when put in black and white. but during conversation, or an argument, tempers and emotions flair out of control and we forget to listen to what the other person is saying because we are so busy defending our OWN beliefs that we forget that it takes work to communicate effectively with each other, even to communicate effectively with ourselves, we have to Listen to ourselves.

My Dog always hears me, never fails. BUT, he certainly does not always Listen to what i said (otherwise, he’d know how to curse! haha)

hearing is something comes natural, listening is not.

the Ace of Spades..also know as the Ace of Death...

today i am going to attempt to focus on a little relationship phenomenon that i like to refer to as the ‘ace in the pocket’. the ace in the pocket occurs when one person in a relationship attempts to persuade the other into making a decision for them, no matter how small, in an effort to forgo guilt if a situation happens to present itself. keep reading, it gets easier to understand…i promise.

what in the world could an ace in your pocket possibly have to do with your relationship? well, nothing at all depending on the amount of trust you have in each other. i will not discuss the subject of trust now, but i would like to quickly state that trust is well too often overlooked and taken for granted; this comes from me, a person who no one trusted for a very long time, not even my own mother, trust is earned however it also requires a great leap of faith and that is where ‘love’ comes in. ok, so much for not talking about trust! back to the Ace!

it is most easily described if i explain a typical ‘relationship’ situation – i will use a specific example from my life but hopefully you will be able to get the jist of it.

the two of us are relaxing on the couch when my girl friend asks me to make the decision if she can go out tonight to see her friends (some of whom are male) yet there is a certain male will also be there; said male is known to be a hound (if you know wad’da mean) and to have attempted advances in the past

now the question i ask in response to her question is simple; why does anyone need to ask Me for permission to do anything? the relationship i share with my g/f is very open. we can talk about any and everything. yet, at times she gets frustrated with me because i have to analyze the situation and take into account everything that will possibly occur as well as everything that has occurred in the past (sorry Hunny). there is no ownership in our relationship. i do not forbid her to see anyone and neither does she, or so i thought.

back to the ace, so my question was that, “why ask for permission?” followed immediately by “..or are you looking for the ace in your pocket?”. obviously she had no idea what the hell i was talking about. indeed, a discussion ensued and after going back and forth for roughly an hour, i would assume i did not time anything, we came to the conclusion that Yes, she was looking for that ace. now heres the How we came to that conclusion, Why and What it means.

• How: i probed her thoughts. sounds…creepy huh? well, its really not.
  • what i mean is that i asked the right questions in an attempt to figure out why in the world she would ever ask Me for permission; i was attempting to get to the ROOT of the issue. remember that if you want the RIGHT answer you have to ask the RIGHT question.
• Why: i believe the answer to this question is that too often our own insecurities get projected onto our significant other in the form of jealousy.
  • insecurity is a totally different topic for a different post, but i will say that when 2 people are in a relationship they must accept their partner for who they are and above all, your partner must be secure in his/her self, insecurity will kill a relationship, albeit slowly.
• What: the what, i think has already been answered, if only indirectly.
  • what this all means is that she still has some insecurities within herself that she still needs to address; meaning our relationship isn’t as strongas i thought. which is not a bad thing as all relationships require work, some just more than others.

so, as it turns out she wanted the “Ace in the Pocket”. in effect, she wanted me to take control of her life and tell her how it should be lead so that if and when the time ever came in my life she wanted to be able to effectively tell me that i could not see a person for whatever reason without feeling guilty. i compare it to the Get Out of Jail free card in Monopoly, a card that you can keep and hold onto ‘in case stuff happens’ .

finally i have come to a conclusion. there should never be a need, ever for either person in a relationship to have an ‘ace in the pocket’. this is simply because of the fact that even though 2 people may be in a relationships, we cannot own one another and similarly we cannot tell anyone what to do with their life; however that won’t stop us from trying. what we should do is to COMMUNICATE our opinion to our significant other and let them chose, just be prepared for the answer.

we should NEVER make our partner chose between us and someone else. now, that being said that does not mean that there is not ALWAYS a choice. no matter how long a couple have been together, how strong their feelings may be towards one another, there is always a choice and a possibility that today could be the last day of your relationship; so enjoy it now and worry about the future in the future.