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| I have 3 or 4 xanga posts stored up in my head, i just havent had time to gather photos and stuff, but we'll see if some time opens up now that im finding my groove at school and stuff. and im assuming all my family members and stuff got to read our Christmas Letter since its been up for 2 months.
but okay, heres a short post for the guys.
So lately the ONLY thing that I've been watching on tv is the NBA. I used to only watch Laker games, but now I find myself recording Clipper games, even pointless games they show on Wednesdays on ESPN. It's crazy, but the league is so exciting these days. The west is crazy, the east is struggling, but exciting still fun to watch get pounded. The emergence of teams like Phoenix and Golden State have upped the energy.
 Pretty much everybody is following the NBA these days So here's my question....
What has changed to make the NBA so exciting to watch?
You could say a whole buncha things like...
 But here's my reason why the NBA changed.
    Rasheed Wallace, Mehmet Okur, Andrea Bargnani, and Dirk Nowitzki. What do these players have in common? They're all big men (either 7 foot or have center eligibility) that can shoot the 3-pointer. Never in the history of the NBA have there been so many big men swishing threes as now. It truly has transformed how teams plan to play defense, how plays are run, and ESPECIALLY who to draft in fantasy leagues.
What spurred on this change in the big men of our beloved league? One man.
This xanga post is actually a tribute to that man.
Now as you probably know, I had a chance to go to New York this summer and as I was walking on the streets of Times Square, I saw a very familiar face. He was really tall, black, had dreads under a beanie. My dad turned to me and was like, "Hey... who's that? I recognize that face..." I looked again, and yes. It was our pioneer. The man who changed the NBA forever by evolving the C-eligible 3 point shooter....
 SAM PERKINS! I didn't get a chance to talk to him since he walked by pretty fast, but let me tell you about this man. Some of you readers might be youngn's and you may not know who The Big Smooth was. Okay fine, maybe I'm young too, but i had the privelage to catch the later years of Sam's career. - Drafted by the Dallas Mavericks in 1984
- Won a NCAA Championship at UNC in 1982
- Won a Gold medal in the 1984 Olympics
- Reached the playoffs in 13 of his 15 seasons
 He was 6-9 but had a sweet three point shot. Plus the dude was quite a personality. he was relaxed like Robert Horry, but cooler. Here's some 3 point stats from him - Participated in the 3 point shootout in 1997
- In a 1997 game against Toronto, he hit 8 threes without any misses (NBA record)
- Posted a 1997-98 season-high 21 points, on perfect shooting (5-5 FG,
4-4 3FG, 7-7 FT), and 3 steals against the L.A. Clippers on 12/14/97
- Between 1992 and 1997 (4 seasons), he hit 486 threes
 Here's to you, Big Smooth. Thank you for changing the game. Players like Dirk and Mehmet thank you and attribute 100% of their game to your example and pioneering of the center 3-point shooters. We all miss you and hope you are changing the world now, starting with the streets of New York.
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| Hello family, friends, and avid Xanga readers!
First of all, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, although you probably
received our "Christmas Card" half way to Valentine's Day. As
you can see, this year's annual family newsletter has been assigned to me
(Matt) to write, so I hope you enjoy my paperless twist on things and are also
updated with what's going on in the Kamada family.
Here's my analysis on Christmas family news letters... In the late 1880s, the artist Edgar Degas of France
painted an interesting series of pastel works. He chose to depict women
at their rawest states: struggling to get of bathtubs, drying themselves
in unflattering positions, often in humiliating fashion.
 
You see, the works of art that had preceded Degas often idealized
women to the point of unrealistic proportions.
Degas painted these works not necessarily to dehumanize or degrade
females, but rather to bring art back to reality, instead of a pipe dream
fantasy. He wanted his viewers to see the world for how it really was - embarrassing and un-airbrushed.
I feel sometimes like annual Family Newsletters do the same
thing. The purpose of annual newsletters is to update the world on the family, but is often clouded with idealized
bragging of the accomplishments of the family. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy
reading about the things you did and awards you won in 2007, but I want
to bring the Kamada Family Newsletter back down to earth in a Degas-like
fashion.
Many changes occurred this past year in our family, but I
want to show you the real, uncensored raw things that really changed in our home in 2007.
I'll share with you one good change the each family member has gone through this year, then I'll expose the naked reality of it. We’ll see if my mom ever lets me write the family newsletter again.
KENT
Okay we’ll start off with my dad. Not
too much has changed, he’s still working at the pharmacy and relishing in the
emergence of Kevin Love to the Bruins. But
for years he had been a closet guitar player and although he had never really
played in public, this year he had the opportunity to play electric guitar in a
baby-boomer worship band at church.
didnt have a pic of it, but thats pastor ted up there
It was cool seeing him up there but what really happened in
the home? Constant, late night
practicing upstairs in his room with the box amplifier. Normally this wouldn’t be so bad, but you
have to realize that his room is directly above mine so as I was trying to
watch tv, I had constant electric guitar rifts in the background.
JANICE
In the summer, our home had a water leak by our washing
machine which forced us to tear up the wood floors and also remodel the
downstairs bathroom. This gave my mom
the opportunity to apply everything she’d learned from hours upon hours of
HGTV. She picked out new floor boards
and remodeled my bathroom to a Japanese theme.
 The bathroom looks awesome but after months of using it, you
start to realize the flaws in the design.
The most prominent flaw is the placement of the toilet paper
holder. It’s a major change since
previously it had been on your left. Now,
not only is it on the right side, but it is inconveniently far back, forcing
you to turn your whole body and reach back to get what you need.
too far back!
ERIC
Eric graduated from Fountain
Valley High School
and is now taking classes at Orange Coast
College. He also landed his first real job at Sports
Authority working the cash register and earning a little spending money for
everything except a razor.
 
In a more realistic sense, I’ve noticed how my brother’s job
has exposed the frugal side in everybody.
When people hear of his job, it seems like the conversation cannot end
without the other person asking “So how much money do employees get off their
purchases?” It’s sad, but everybody is
always looking to save a penny, and I’ll answer your questions right here and
now. He gets 25% off everything, and no,
it doesn’t stack on top of the coupons you have cut out from the
newspaper.
here's my mom hoarding all the price-reduced merchandise from sports authority
KIMBERLY
Kimberly finished middle school and entered high school as a freshman at Fountain
Valley HS this year. Most of her time is
spent practicing and playing on the school’s Junior Varsity Basketball team as
a point guard.
 
It’s nice going to her games, cheering her on, but for my family,
it brings on different changes. My
parents have revisited the roles of being “crowd coaches.” I cannot go to a game without hearing my dad’s
voice yelling “Shoot it Kimberly!” and often I will come home to a lecture over
dinner on how my sister needs to be more aggressive on offense.
thats the face my dad makes after kimi misses a shot
MATT
For myself, I graduated from the University
of California, San
Diego with a B.S. in Microbiology. I have moved back to Fountain
Valley and am working full time at a pharmaceutical
lab in Irvine. It’s nice to have my own room again, plus
having a little spending money from my job.  
In a more subtle way, my return home has changed the Kamada
home dramatically. The laundry load has
grown to unmanageable sizes. The hamper
constantly is filled to the brim and it feels like the laundry is constantly
running. You’re probably saying, come
on, that’s not that bad. Well realize
that the hamper full of dirty, sweaty clothes is in my room.
  So there you have it, an update of each member of the
family. There’s a lot of stuff that I
skipped, so here are some photos of other headlines this past 2007.
In conclusion, I feel like the accomplishments and major changes that
happen in a family are worth noting, but the real, behind-the-scenes changes
that happen in a home are that which define the family. So if the purpose of this newsletter was to
update you on our family, I hope you were enlightened in the most realistic
sense of the true personality our family in 2007.
Here’s to a Degas-like 2008!
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| I walked into the living room a while
ago to see my dad playing guitar hero against my mom... i couldn't help
but wonder about a certain issue which has plagued me for years. they
seemed to be dealing with this particular issue well, but let me
introduce it to you, and you tell me what you think.
Now before I introduce it, we must agree
on one claim.... Guys are better than girls at video games. Truth is,
if a brand new game came out with a whole new interface and you gave it
to one guy and one girl and had them play against each other a week
later, for sure the guy would win easily. The only way a girl would
ever win is if she had extensive practice at the game before playing
the guy. If you're a girl and you find offense to this or don't
believe me, you don't hafta read the rest of this post. By continuing
reading this, you consent your video gaming pride to the male gender.
See matt beat girls at buzz lightyear
but lose to a guy
Okay now here is the issue. When you are dating, or even when you
aren't dating, there are times when guys play girls at video games.
Boyfriends play girlfriends at video games. Workers play coworkers at
video games. Somewhere along the line, you're gonna have some
experience playing the other gender at video games. Now for the guys,
we are in quite the pickle as you can see. That's why I named this
post "between a rock and a hard place" cause you see there is no way to
win in this situation...
Let's say you're playing your girlfriend at mario kart...
(First of all, only girls would pick
mario with this kart. most guys will know that that kart is pretty
slow in comparison to the other ones and mario usually gets pushed
around cause he's pretty light) Now you have a couple options here...
1) You let her win -
bad idea. Girls can usually tell when you let them win, and regardless
of anything, they ALWAYS ask "did you let me win?" after the race. If
you have a girlfriend like mine, she'll definitely hate the fact that
you patronized her video game skills and let her win. They don't want
to be babied when it comes to this kind of stuff.
2) You win - bad idea
also. It frustrates them that they can't win at something that is
genetically favorable to men. They swear that they will go home and
practice, but they never do. They get angry at themselves, yet insist
that you do not show any mercy, because they hafta do it by themselves.
So basically im faced with either an angry girlfriend or a sad/frustrated one. Take your pick.
The concept of the Co-op is that you find a game the you both work
together on against another enemy. Not only does this solve our
problem, it actually practices teamwork! According to coworkers and
friends, super mario galaxy has a pretty cool co-op mode where one
person can be mario, and the other person (playing a slightly inferior
role) controls a "star" which is used to collect coins and fend off
enemies.
Another example is wii tennis doubles. Ali and I challenge any couple to a best of 5 of wii tennis. bring it.
2) The "Over-play"
 She'll notice if you're not trying your hardest. But what if you tried
HARDER than your hardest? Overplaying consists of taking chances,
guessing, and overcompensating in high risk situations. Think of Mark Madsen. Nobody has ever blamed him for not trying hard enough. It's just that he tries so hard that it actually hurts the team. Thank goodness we got him out of LA.
Take those power slides on Mario Kart extra tight, go for the baseline winner on wii tennis, or go ahead and try for the 11 block combo in planet puzzle league. She'll just think you're trying to beat her extra hard.
3) The Scape-game
 This one takes a little planning out to do. Basically you designate one game that you swear to yourself you will not buy or practice. you hafta make sure she has convenient access to it so she will have practiced. Then when you play this one game, you will be trying your hardest, and she will just be better than you from experience. For ali and I, it was guitar hero. Her roommate had it in san diego, plus she had it on ps2 at home. Unfortunately, i broke my own scape-game and decided to buy it for the wii. its okay, ill find another one.
So there ya have it... 3 solutions to a problem which has plagued man since the release of atari.
I think the only time I ever consistently lost to a girl at a game was when I used to play my ex in thirteen. I remember i used to sit there and continually lose to her and i would be so frustrated. UGH. I know i've spent this whole post telling you girls how crappy you are at video games, but trust me, its WAY more frustrating if you're a GUY and are losing at things in your own arena to a girl. So i guess video games are just meant for guys to win, which would render this whole post useless. Well i guess if you're a girl and your guy isn't winning at the video games (whether it be because he read this post or if he just sux), be a sport and let him win. itll help his masculine side and will be much less of a sacrifice for you than him. Trust me - I can no longer enjoy the game thirteen.
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| I've had some requests to get the xanga back up and running now that I'm at home and stuff, so I'll give it a shot. I transferred all my files to a new computer so now I'm ready to go. okay, on to the post...
 how can you ever turn a jamba juice down? There is never anybody who will turn down a jamba, unless there is financial concern. Anyways, here's the setting for this post...
(On the phone)
Matt: Hey, do you want anything from Jamba juice?
Ali: Yeah, get me an orange berry blitz
Matt: alrite, see ya in a little bit <hang up>
Matt (to himself): crap, i forgot to ask what boost to get
And so begins the body of this xanga post. As I stand in line at jamba juice, my mind scans the multicolored menu. "Bill," "Jennifer," and "Max," all put in their orders, and yes I now know their names since the clerk asks for them. Jamba is a very personal place. My time is running out as the line shortens. What boost should I get for Ali?
Then my mind begins to wander. This is a very critical decision. The one free Jamba juice boost is so critical, that I could indirectly be telling Ali what I perceive of her by choosing what she "needs" in her boost. Jamba has choices like that. They like to make their juices specific for what each person "needs." Jamba is a very personal place.
So here are my choices...
1) Soy Protein™ - our classic vegan protein boost, with 7 grams of protein to help cell growth and build muscle.
I don't know about this... Soy Protein? It sounds way health-nutty. And by the description, it sounds like something that skinny nerdy guys drink after their biweekly k-swiss-wearing gym sessions. I think if I got this for ali, she'd think I think she's too skinny or too short, or something.
Yeah, maybe the Soy Protein boost is more for somebody like nicole richie. i dont know how she expects to support a baby like that.
2) Energy™ - caffeine-free energy to kick-start your day
Basically, what you're saying to your girlfriend if you get this boost is "You're boring." I don't know about you, but im pretty sure my significant other doesnt like to be called boring or sleepy, no matter how flattering she may look when she's asleep.
 3) Immunity™ - helps to support and defend your immune system when you're feeling "under the weather" I thought about getting this one, since its the one i usually get. but if you think about it, basically you're telling her that she can't take care of herself. Yes, everybody gets sick. but if you're not sick, why would you get this? only if you think the other person cant take care of themselves so much that you can predict their illness.
 sars has been suppressed by the immunity boost of jamba juice. 4) Fem Boost - I don't know what the description for this one is, but something about having stuff girls need like iron and other vitamins
hmm. this would be a good one to get your girlfriend right? She's a girl, and she needs stuff that girls need, so get her the fem boost. WRONG. You know what you're saying if you get your girlfriend the fem boost? She's not feminine enough. Like, she looks like this...
 5) Green Caffeine™ - derived from green tea, a caffeine energy source to kick-start your day
I don't know anybody who has ever gotten this boost. to be honest, it sounds like Jamba is trying to cater to the asian crowd by making it green tea-like. I think if somebody were to get this boost, it would be fobby people, and being a 4th generation japanese, id really really be offended if somebody thought i wanted the "green caffeine" boost in my jamba.
 6) Fiber™, Daily Vitamin™, & Calcium™ Boosts
Basically all these boosts are just saying you eat unhealthy and need to reach quota with good vitamins.
 sipping on her own jamba. The Conclusion
As I got to the front of the line, with a drip of sweat down the side of my cheek, I chose the "Daily Vitamin" one. It seemed the most general, as personal as Jamba may want to be.
I get to Ali's place, and give her the cup.
Ali: Thanks, boyfriend. (thats what she calls me)
Matt: You're welcome, I got you the "daily vitamin boost"
Ali: What? I never get boosts, it makes the jamba taste chalky.
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| This is one of those questions which has been lingering in my head for a while. First of all let me preface this post. It won't be funny, sorry. It's actually quite boring, there's no pictures or anythign! well it wasn't supposed to be funny, but maybe you'll find it funny on how ridiculous my mind can be in thinking these answers up.
It's meant for everybody to read, not just Christians. I've actually had this conversation with quite a lot of people in the past and I thought for the records, I'd make my thoughts a xanga post haha. Also, this post is not suggesting anything about my own life so you can just stop your little mind from running right now.
First of all, is it true? do Christians really marry at an average lower age? I mean yeah it seems like it to me, but is it proven to be true? I did some research, here's the closest thing I could find ...
"Other recent studies have shown that Christian men and women are more
likely to marry and tend to marry younger than the general population" - http://www.abpnews.com/www/8.article
"Members of some religious groups tend to marry at a younger age..." - http://www.namb.net/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=9qKILUOzEpH&b=1648583&ct=2729917
If that doesn't convince you then you don't hafta read the rest of this post. but leave some eprops.
Okay so why DO christians get married at a younger age? Let's start to answer this question. I have 2 spiritual answers, 2 social answers, and 3 psychological answers.
Spiritual Answers
1. A spiritual calling.
It would be inappropriate to leave this answer out, although it may be dismissed by any sociologist or somebody who wants to find a scientific, factual answer. It cannot really be explained how God directs Christians, and each case is different. For some couples, God may call them to marry at an older age. Overall, this is the weakest answer for a non-Christian, yet the strongest answer for those actually in the relationship.
2. It MAY be biblical to marry earlier.
Now before you start hammering me, realize this is a xanga post and its matt kamada's too. In 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 it says, "Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion."
Social Answers
1. There is less of an emphasis on career to Christians.
On the second webpage quoted above it says this:
"According to the winter 2005 ANSR Poll, 34% of lay members were married by the time they were 20 years old
and another 23% married when they were 21 or 22. While one-third (33%) of the members reported at least a college
baccalaureate degree as their highest level of education completed, 28%
said their highest level of education completed was high school or
less. And, 20% of members report a household income of under $25,000,
with another 32% above that but less than $50,000."
The point is that there is less emphasis on career. so what? Well if you're going to grad school somewhere, you're gonna be less likely to want to get married right out of undergrads. But since socially, there is less emphasis on that among Christians, it is just one less hindrance towards getting hitched.
2. Christians are put into social arenas like retreats, fellowships, etc where they are exposed to people of the opposite sex.
I hate to look at retreats and fellowships at a strictly social aspect, but its true. Whether its AACF, Mt hermon, church, whatever it is, you're gonna be meeting people of the opposite sex at maybe a more higher rate than if you weren't going to those things.
Psychological Answers - what the heck does that mean? i dont know i just needed to name this category something
1. For those going into ministry, there is an added stability for those who are married.
Imagine a pastor who is single and on the prowl vs a pastor who is happily married. There is a certain stability that comes with marriage where you can worry less about finding a wife and more on your ministry and spiritual things. Plus you'll have somebody to lean on if and when you hit theological walls.
2. Pre-marital sex is looked down upon by Christianity.
Let's be real. We're all a little carnal, and if you think about it in a really really blunt sense, the faster you get married, the faster you can move to the next level with your significant other. aren't you happy there's no pictures on this post?
3. The dating scene for Christians can be a little dry.
Again, think about this one in a really real sense. Christians look to date other christians. That is just one more aspect of a significant other you hafta look for. Not only is it gonna be good personality, good looks, convenience, etc. Now you hafta add on to that being christian and having similar directions in a spiritual level. So to be honest, Christians who are in the dating scene may be a little afraid to go back to the single life, so you gotta hold on to the one you've got.
Well I'm sure all the young couples who are getting/have gotten married had their own reasons, but as a third party observer, that's what I came up with. let me know what you think.
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