Search Results for '"thinking'

Fixing Broken Archive Links After MT4 Upgrade

Tonight I realized that the upgrade I did from MovableType 3 to MovableType 4 broke any and all links to my old articles once I had rebuilt my blog. The problem lies in the configuration option named “Basename Length” under Preferences->Blog Settings->Entries in MT4. The default value in MT4 is 30, whereas the default setting in MT3 was 15. Now I thought I could easily fix this by changing the value to 15 in MT4 and republishing my site, but that didn’t work. So instead I wrote this little PHP script to make copies of all my old archives articles and truncate the filenames to 15 characters. Now thinking about it, what I should have done – instead of making copies of the files, is create files with truncated filenames but that contain a PHP Header() directive that points at the current article with the 30 character filename. Anyway, here’s the script I wrote. Maybe it will help someone else. Be sure to CHMOD -R a+w archives/* before you run the script so that the script has permissions to create the new files. Then make sure you put the permissions back to what they should be when you’re done.

<?php


function changeext($directory, $verbose = false) {
$num = 0;
if($curdir = opendir($directory)) {
while($file = readdir($curdir)) {
if($file != '.' && $file != '..') {

$srcfile = $directory . '/' . $file;
$string  = "$file";
$str     = strlen($ext1);
$str++;
$newfile = substr($string, 0, 15);
$newfile = $newfile.'.php';
$dstfile = $directory . '/' . $newfile;

if (eregi("\.php",$file)&&(strlen($file)>19)) {
($srcfile, $dstfile);
//echo "copy $srcfile, $dstfile";
}

if(is_dir($srcfile)) {
$num += changeext($srcfile, $verbose);
}
}
}
closedir($curdir);
}
return $num;
}

changeext('archives',  'false');

?>

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I drank the kool-aid and joined the cult of Mac.

I’ve spent the last 16 years working and playing with PCs. I have so much time and knowledge invested in PC’s that I thought I’d never switch to a Mac. But 3 months ago I decided to buy a MacBook Pro and now I’m never going back.

Why? Because it just works.

When I bought my MacBook Pro I also bought Parallels Desktop and Windows Vista Ultimate. Vista was my safety net (don’t laugh). I knew that if I got frustrated with OS/X I could dual-boot into Vista or run Vista in Parallels as a virtual machine (which works awesome, other than the fact that Vista sucks). But the first thing I noticed was just how well everything was designed. Even the packaging for the MacBook Pro is well designed and thought out. Everything is well designed. Even the power adapter converts from a long or short code, has little pullouts to wrap the cord, has a magnetic coupling to the MacBook, and has a charge indicator light on the adapter that plugs into the laptop. The MacBook itself is slim and sleek and has added features such as a back lit keyboard that adjusts to outside light, and a built-in webcam at the top of the screen. OS/X is beautiful and works really well. I thought I’d have trouble adjusting, but I didn’t at all. Vista on the other hand is ugly and a huge pain in the ass to use.

Don’t you hate it when you watch a movie and realize that the only good things about the movie was the trailer you saw for it on tv? Well, that’s Vista. That fancy 3-D window animation they’re always showing – if your computer is powerful enough to show it – that’s the only “good” thing about Vista. Believe me, I know. I use Vista daily and hate every second of it. The Mac – just works. I don’t need to download a bunch of programs and tweak the hell out of it to get it to run the way I want it to. Vista is just an OS/X wannabe anyways.

So like I said. I drank the kool-aid and it tastes good. Hell, I’m even thinking of ditching my Windows Mobile cellphone/device and getting an iPhone.

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It’s been 10 days since my last blog entry

For the last 2 days I’ve been sick with the flu. I was running a 102° fever for a few hours and my whole body ached. I was dissappointed ’cause it’s been a long, long time since I’ve been sick. My beautiful wife nursed me back to health within 24 hours by making me drink lots of fluids and taking vitamins and matcha green tea. I’m not back to 100% as of yet, but I’m thinking about hitting the gym tomorrow. I’m still trying to hit my goal of 180lbs/12% bodyfat.

A few days ago I realized that I haven’t paid my union dues for AFTRA or SAG. I also realized that it was going to cost me around $700 to pay both unions. Part of this is because I never paid the complete initiation fees for AFTRA. My General Hospital check didn’t quite cover all the AFTRA fees. It also doesn’t help that the unions charge late fees. What sucks is that I’m not even working enough as an actor to even keep up with the union dues. It’s sad I know, but it’s the reality of a lot of actors out here. I really don’t think the union should charge late fees to actors who don’t make over $20k a year in acting. I just don’t think it’s fair.

Last weekend I auditioned for a short film titled EXPENDABLE. The script was decent and it could have been a lot of fun. But I could tell that the director wasn’t really feeling my performance. Oh well.

I gotta be honest though. It’s tough not to “player hate” when you receive emails from other actors who announce all the upcoming shows they are going to be on. Personally I’m thinking “Damn. I didn’t even freakin audition for any of those damn shows! Was I even submitted???”. It’s frustrating.

But I am still in the process of shooting a short film with a good friend of mine. We filmed a short office scene in his office last weekend which was fun. I was a little dissappointed in my performance though when we watched the dailies because my performace was kinda flat. It’s a good wake-up call though.

So I’m trying to get back on track with my goals and also trying to get more organized. I downloaded a trial copy of My Life Organized and I really like it so far. It helps me organize all the myriad of tasks and projects I always have going on.

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The Grace Lee Project / Who is David Chiu???

H sent me a link today about this film – The Grace Lee Project. It opens in LA today and I’m going to make an effort to go see it. What immediately caught my attention is how similar the themes are of this film with my life. The filmmaker Grace Lee grew up in Missouri and was the only Grace Lee she knew. Then she left the midwest an discovered that there were many other Grace Lees out there. So she created a film to explore the stereotypes surrounding her identity. I grew up between Delaware and Pennsylvania and I was the only David Chiu that I knew of. Heck, other than my family and one of my parents friends, we were the only Asian people I knew of. Growing up I was unique. I was different. I was Asian. And I set out to change the way people perceived me and my asian-ness. Well, actually I just tried to shrug of my asian-ness and assimilate both the white and black culture. Well, more of the white culture but with a strong affinity to r&b/new jack swing music and style. Eventually I grew up and moved to LA to become an actor and immediately had culture shock. I never knew so many asians lived in one place (other than in Asia). What was even more shocking was my first audition walking into a room with a bunch of guys who walked, talked and looked very similar to me. I was no longer all that unique. A few more years pass and I receive another shock when I type in MY Name into Google and find out that MY Name had been moonlighting as the Mayor of San Marcos, a well-known poker player, an executive, a couple grad students, and several others. My name lives on around the world. It was like looking at parallel universes and possibilities of who I could be if I made different choices in life. It was wierd. But then I realized that the website belonging to me appeared at the top of the list – and everything seemed ok again. :)

I’m glad I found out about The Grace Lee Project. It was good inspiration to get my creative thinking going again.

After writing this I decided to make a self correction. Actually, there were other Asians other than me. There were a few Asian kids at my school (5 including my brother that I can remember). And there was that short stint at “Chinese school” that my dad tried to force upon us one summer. I guess by saying that I was alone in my asian-ness was actually a mirror into my insecurities as a kid growing up and always feeling a little different and inferior…

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Get the Edge: Day 5 and 6

I listened to both Day 5 and Day 6 of Anthony Robbins Get the Edge series today. Day 5 deals with negative emotions and learning how to use your emotions to take positive action instead of letting your emotions block you. The first step involves becoming more aware of your emotions and identifying what your emotion is. Then changing your perception of the situation or change your procedure of obtaining your objective. The last step is taking a positive step in obtaining your objective.

This 3 step process applies to acting as well. When a character interacts with you, you determine how you feel about the character and what they just said, then you determine the action you will take to accomplish your characters objective. Finally you take that step towards your objective.

On Day 6 Anthony Robbins talks about wealth building. The first step in building wealth is changing your psychology and motivating yourself to take action and build wealth. The rest of his advice can be summed up in one sentence: always invest in yourself first. That is actually the underlying theme of the entire series. In building wealth he suggests first determining what being “wealthy” would mean to you. His example of defining wealth is determinng how much it would cost per year to have all your bills paid. Then imagine that you automatically received this amount of money every year, plus a little extra more. Would you consider yourself wealthy? Also he urges you to think about this: even if you made 20 million a year but never had time to enjoy yourself or spend time with your family, would you truly be wealthy?

What I really like about this series is that Anthony Robbins also emphasizes giving. This is no get-rich quick scheme. It’s about being smart with your money and disciplining yourself to invest in yourself first by saving money in a diverse portfolio of slow growth and medium/high risk investments. And, like always, it’s about thinking different and thinking positive. Once you’ve made wealth building and being wealthy a “must” instead of a “should”, then you will do everything possible to achieve that goal. And you will.

today’s nutrition
breakfast: 1 cup of raw colostrum berry kefir, “Triple Threat” Power Bar

lunch: 1 packet of wild pink salmon

snack: 1 packet of wild pink salmon, apple

dinner: hamburger, organic mac and cheese

dessert: 1 cup of Breyers neopolitan ice cream

today’s workout
none

Current weight: 177lbs/19.5% bodyfat

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It’s Working

I think it’s working. I’ve been following some of Anthony Robbins suggestions and have been spending time every morning being thankful for everything I have going for me right now, plus I’ve also done the mirror exercises, reassuring myself of who I am, all the positive attributes I do have and what I have to offer to the world. It reminded me of a scene in “Cool Runnings” where one of the stronger characters forces his teammate to look at himself in the mirror and say “I see strength, I see power, I see a bad mother f*cker who won’t take no for an answer”. I also tried anchoring feelings of confidence by remembering those times and events in my life where I was full of confidence – even cocky. I then anchored it to a physical stimulus. But later I realized that just thinking about triggering the anchored feelings triggered the feelings without having to use the physical trigger. I also started reading up on the Sedona Method which teaches people to release negative emotions. I think this is a very important component in gaining self confidence and if I’m able to release the negative thoughts and emotions related to self-doubt, I will definitely have confidence.

On a different note, I decided to try eating a handful of raisins with some gatorade before my workout tonight. It definitely did the trick! I had great energy and motivation to push myself pretty hard.

today’s nutrition
breakfast: 1 cup of raw colostrum berry kefir, apple pie Lara bar

lunch: balance bar

snack: cherry pie Lara bar
pre-workout: raisins, gator aid
dinner: wheat penne with pasta sauce, bread, matcha green tea, Alive! multi-vitamins, wild salmon oil


today’s workout
approx 4 hours of NEAT
hammer incline: 2×25lbs/12, 2×35lbs/10, 2×45lbs/8, 2×55lbs/6, 2×55lbs/4 (explosive moves)
bench: 2×25lbs/10, 2×35lbs/8, 2×50lbs/6, 2×50lbs/4
incline bench: 2×25lbs/10, 2×35lbs/8, 2×35lbs/6
dips: 10reps
pec deck: 60lbs/12, 80lbs/12, 100lbs/10, 120lbs/8, 140lbs/6

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Get the Edge – Day 4: Yet another diet

As part of the Get the Edge series Anthony Robbins gives you the tools to completely transform your life and way of thinking. On Day 4 he concentrates on diet and nutrition. He spends a lot of time describing the alkaline diet – a diet based on the theory that the more acidic your bloodstream is, the more prone you are to be overweight and have other health problems. Personally I have never heard about the alkaline diet so I decided to do som google research on the subject. I was able to find some references and a book on Amazon.com describing the requisite miracles that accompany a lot of the fad diets out there. The basics of the diet sounds pretty sensible and a lot of it sounded in line with another diet – The Abs Diet. I’m generally trying to follow the Abs Diet so I’m just gonna ignore this part of the series. Plus I’m not sure if I buy into the whole alkaline/acid blood theory.

A few days ago I came to the conclusion that I’m just not burning enough calories to get lean. Part of the problem is that I’m not doing enough cardio and the other half of the problem is that I find it hard to find the time to actually do cardio. So I started thinking about all the methods of shedding bodyfat. On paper it seems simple. The methods in shedding bodyfat boil down to: consuming less calories, burning more calories and increasing resting metabolic rate. You accomplish these things through diet, cardio and putting on lean muscle. So I started thinking, isn’t there a way to naturally increase metabolic rate throughout the day without using stimulants? Well, green tea has shown to increase metabolic rate, but isn’t there some sort of non strenuous exercise I could do throughout the day to burn more calories? Well I did some google research and found suggestions such as getting up and walking around the office every hour. But then I found some NEAT research. NEAT stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis and the Mayo clinic has done some research that shows that people who fidget during the day burn up to 300-800 extra calories! That’s huge! That would definitely accelerate weight loss. So now I’m vigorously jiggling my legs up and down hundreds of times under my desk trying to burn those extra 800 calories a day. Yes I may look like a freak with my chair shaking violently, but burning 800 calories in a day without breaking a sweat is COMPLETELY worth it!

today’s nutrition
breakfast: cranberry odwalla bar, 1/2 mango, green tea
lunch: 1packet chicken of the sea wild alaskan salmon, handful of marcona almonds, 2 c water, few slices on mango
snack: few slices mango, green tea, 1packet chicken of the sea wild alaskan salmon, handful of marcona almonds
dinner: pork chop, zuchinni

today’s fitness
none / 6 hours of NEAT (vigorous leg jiggling – don’t laugh)

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Happy Thanksgiving!

I find it hard to stick to any kind of diet during the holidays but this year Heather and I had our own Thanksgiving by ourselves since we couldn’t afford to visit our families. For Thanksgiving we cooked:

• A honey brined free-range Heritage turkey
• Green bean casserole with organic green beans
• Oyster stuffing made with Marcona almonds and oysters
• Horseradish mashed potatoes made with organic potatoes
• Broccoli salad
and…
• Ginger snap Pumpkin Pie made with organic Pumpkin and raw creme

Everything was delicious!

Thanksgiving is also a good time to actually give thanks for all the blessings in your life. No matter what your situation is, there is always things to be thankful for. It’s a good exercise in positive thinking! For me I’m thankful for my good health, my job (even though it’s not exactly what I want to do), my beautiful wife, my supportive family, Heather’s supportive family, all the talents I have been blessed with, the life I have been given and all the successes I have achieved.

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My Internal Monologue

This morning I was feeling a little on edge as I was driving to work:

“I gotta make something happen. I’m sick of being a slave to corporate America. I gotta make some films, I gotta get myself out there. I need more auditions. I’m getting older and I’m not doing enough to achieve my goals. I…”

I was getting anxious and I had to force myself to stop my internal chatter. I know part of my problem is that I get so anxious to achieve my goals that I end up going in a million different directions with no focus. My focus right now needs to be changing myself and my thoughts about self. I need to find confidence and power in who I am as a person and as an artist. I need to be able to be unabashedly true to myself and my feelings. If I can’t do this, how do I expect to reach my full potential as a person and an actor?

So I started meditative breathing. Then I started thinking: How do you fundamentally change who you are?

Believe. I remember my friend Matt whom I grew up with through high-school and college. We went to the same oppressive Baptist church and participated in all the church activities. We were decent kids and didn’t get into a lot of trouble, but then we went to college and rebelled. Matt got involved in the typical college life of partying and drinking. Then one night he got in a really bad motorcycle accident and his life started to change. Eventually he went to seminary and now he’s a pastor. Back in college I would have never imagined him as a pastor, but he fundamentally changed his life through his faith and beliefs. The same thing happened with rapper Kanye West. Kanye was a hot beat producer for people like Jay-Z, but he wanted to become something more. One night he got in an almost fatal accident that landed him in a hospital for months with his broken jaw wired shut. There in the hospital he found his faith in God and also found his voice as an artist. That experience transformed him into the mega-star he is today.

So to me, faith and belief are one of the most potent catalysts for transformational change. Whether it’s a belief in God or choosing to believe in yourself or even choosing to believe in the goodness of others. Belief is a powerful force.

Breathe. If you focus and control your breathing you can positively affect your own physiology. This has already been proven by Asian monks for centuries.

Think. This is tied closely to belief. If you think different, you will behave different. If you think positive, your actions will be positive and will eventually lead to success.

Move. Life is filled with movement. Movement effects emotions and physiology. If you want to think different, feel different, move, dance, throw your body into the rhythm of life.

Eat. What you eat determines how you feel, how you think, how you act. Food is fuel for life. Do you think race car drivers put generic gas in their race cars on racing day? So why should you fuel yourself with bad food?

So these are the things I must strive to do to fundamentally change myself for the better: believe, breathe, think, move and eat. I can feel myself changing already.

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It’s all about change

I changed the name of this blog a few days ago after I had a conversation with my friend, and fellow actor Jeff Ross. He said that I should not concentrate on the fact that I’m an “Unknown Asian Actor”, but instead I should say I’m the “Best Damn Actor” in this town (my paraphrase). I think it’s funny ’cause I had not even mentioned the fact that I was reading books on positive thinking. But he was right. I’m trying to change my negative thinking and self deprecation into positive thinking and self empowerment. So this blog is now called “Yes. I am an Actor”. I also decided to revamp my other domain: http://davidchiu.com and make it a blog about my journey to transform my life and my acting career with the power of positive thinking. How these two blogs fit together I have no idea, but like my life – it’s a work in progress.

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