hello peeps! the middle of the week has passed, and it's all downhill from here. feels good.
i had lunch with my best friend from elementary school, mark. he lives in SF, which isn't too far, but i haven't seen him in a couple of years. he's on IM, too, but i hadn't chatted with him in that long as well. strange to be so close, yet so far. but anyways, i finally got off my ass and IM'ed him last december, and it took us three months before we finally met and caught up. it was good talking to him again.
he has this notion of taking long vacations that i just can't imagine. for example, his honeymoon was a six-month (SIX) trek through south america. i can't fathom taking such a long break away from work and stuff. it just blows my mind. i would probably get bored and homesick. i wouldn't know what to do with myself. but anyways, he's well-travelled, and i sort of envy that. he's even stayed at a capsule hotel in japan! (although i don't envy that... i'd probably freak out due to claustrophobia.)
so we were talking, and mark mentioned a friend who went to google pre-IPO. apparently, he's worth approximately $10 million. holy shit! what would you do with all that money? would you work? would you just retire? some people are just fucking lucky, to strike it rich and all that. i had dreams like that before, when i was an innocent engineer just out of school in silicon valley. that's why i slaved away in startups, dreaming of striking it rich. now, i'm just a jaded engineer, resigned to the fact that i'll be working until i'm old and gray. sigh.
and to my commenter, yes, i do confess a lot of things on this blog. but not everything, mind you. i do carry secrets with me, and there are some things that i have done that nobody will ever know. hehe. but it's not really about getting things off my chest or trying to achieve catharsis. i'm just looking for topics to write about.
so it's the girls' turn on american idol tonight. the guys did much better last night than last week. i really like melinda doolittle. she's not pretty or anything, but i love the fact that she's so humble. humility is so underrated. she's a backup singer, and being in the spotlight isn't something she's used to. but she's got good talent, and i think she could go far. but one performance i'm afraid to watch is antonella's. i'm afraid she's going to lay another egg.
did you guys hear about the tennessee/florida men's bball game last night? the women's coach, pat summitt, showed up in a cheerleader's outfit and sang the "rocky top" song. this was to reciprocate the women's game, when the men's coach, bruce pearl, showed up with his body painted orange. i think it's great when the coaches show up with such school spirit. that's pretty damn cool.
i've been taking dumps first thing in the morning. let's hope this keeps up. i like being regular, rather than not knowing when my dump is going to come and being nervous that it's going to happen at a place where there's no bathroom. this eliminates "accidents." there was this one time when i was walking the streets of boston with some of my friends at night, and suddenly, i had this impending diarrhea feeling. i stormed into a mcdonald's, but i had to buy something in order to get a token to use the bathroom. so i bought a cup of soda, but the token got jammed in the men's bathroom token machine, so i wound up using the women's bathroom when a girl came out. it was very embarrassing. ick.
ok. that's it. time to go home.
hey peeps. not much going on today. i'm pretty much done with my work on the chip; i was asked to help out on debugging another block, but someone else is looking into it at the moment. so i've just been hanging out at the office today.
so how do you guys feel about dating someone in your circle of friends? i did that my freshman year of college with k1. i think it's sort of dangerous, because if you break up, it makes things very uncomfortable. i remember senior year, our mutual friends had to separate us at a party where we both attended. the guys ushered me out of a room when she arrived, and the girls formed this virtual wall to block her from me. it was definitely weird. so maybe it's a bad idea? what do you think?
the weather's gotten cold all of a sudden. i went for a week or so without having to turn on my heater, but in the past few days, the temperature in my place has dropped well below 60. i've had to put on my hood when i go out for smokes at work. like i've said before, i've grown sensitive to having a cold head. i used to like chilly breezes, but now i can't stand it anymore.
so _the class_ got a bit interesting. nicole's leaving her husband yonk for her high school boyfriend duncan. it's sad, though, being in a marriage where you're not happy. i wouldn't wish that on anybody. i hope when i'm married, it lasts forever. and that's going to be a little tough, though, because i know that one of my problems is that i get bored with women pretty easily. it's one of my biggest faults. and i'm not sure how to correct that.
so tonight's american idol is only going to be 90 minutes. which is good, because i had a really hard time last week sitting through two full hours of intros, singing and commercials. i really hope the guys do better this time. they chose really bland songs for the most part last week, and the only guy i really liked was chris sligh. i was really surprised, though, the sanjaya, despite terrible marks by the judges, was one of the top 4 vote getters among the guys.
i'm wearing an old t-shirt today. and that is an indication that i'm getting a haircut. yeah, it's about time. it's the t-shirt that i wore to geoff's paintball outing, so i've got splatters all over it, and it smells dusty, like the vest armor that i wore. i've been going to this supercuts for almost 15 years now. pretty amazing.
did you ever get sent to detention back in jr high/high school? i got sent there once. i don't know what possessed me to do it, but i spit on one of my classmates. yeah, it was a bad thing to do, and i have no clue why i did it. the unfortunate thing was that i had to break it to my parents, too. they were pretty fucking pissed. and what was weird was that the guy i spit on was sent to detention as well, so his parents came along and demanded to know why the hell he had to go. it was a big fiasco. sigh. yeah, i was stupid. but that was the extent of my bad behavior in school. (oh, and once i corrected my teacher once. she was not happy about that, and she held me up after class to tell me that she did not appreciate it.)
weird. i've been debugging this problem with one of my tests, and the C model is getting corrupted. one of the variables is going to a strange number, and every time i compile, it turns into a different random number. it seems like the memory is getting corrupted, and these kinds of problems are very tricky to debug. i've handed it over to someone else to debug.
so i'm nervous for stanford. we lost both games last week, and we have a tough arizona and an improving ASU left to play. luckily, these two games are at home, so we have a better shot at winning them. currently, ESPN's bracketology has us as a 9 seed and falling. i really hope we make the tournament this year. i don't think we'll go very far, but given that our main roster consists of freshmen and sophomores, we should be better next year with experience. go cardinal!
man, mondays are tough, especially knowing that this is a full 5-day workweek. my last two weeks have been 4-day workweeks, and they were nice. i'm still sort of looking back at my trip to LA two weekends ago; it was a good, relaxing trip. it's sort of tough knowing that my next long weekend is way out in may (memorial day). maybe one of these days i'll take a friday off and just relax, although no one will be around to play. but then again, john and grace aren't working, so maybe i could call them up and hang out with them.
i saw some pictures of me at geoff's wedding, and i'm starting to get concerned that i'm losing too much weight. my face has totally slimmed down, and i look a little gaunt. i'm sort of scared to show these pictures to my mom (who's been clamoring for some pictures of me), because she might be a little shocked. we'll see what she says. i showed some pictures of me during my chow yun-fat shoot to some people last night at tap-ex, and man, my face was really full back then. that was when i was approaching 200 pounds. fyi, i'm down to 155 lbs now.
strangest thing. the day that i proclaim that mischa barton is a bad actress, i have a dream about her in which i am dating her, and i'm trying to impress her. i mean, i don't really like her, and i don't think she's particularly attractive. but in the dream, i am in fond of her, and i vaguely remember something about sitting with her in a ferris wheel (just like in the OC). odd, huh?
i've been getting small cuts on the right side of my chin lately. it's because when i tic to the right, my chin goes right into the sharp teeth of the zipper on my sweatshirt. ouchie!
so, update on the c-model problem: it's been fixed! the bug was that the variable was declared within a function, so every time it was called, the variable was initialized to garbage. so the fix was to make it a global variable, so it kept its old value every time it was called (it's a delay line register, so it needs to know its old value from previous calls). and the test now passes. yippee!
i need a haircut. i'm getting really scruffy, and my sideburns are out of control. maybe i'll get one tomorrow. i need to prep for haircuts, i.e. wear an old t-shirt because hair gets all over the neck and shoulders. i think this time, i'll wear the t-shirt that i put on for geoff's paintball bachelor party.
the tail end of today's dump was a little spicy. i wonder if it was the indian food i ate last night. it felt a little acidic and sour. the meal also gave me a lot of gas last night. i was taking my nightly shower, and all of a sudden, i felt the urge to take a dump. so i got out, dried off, and sat on the toilet, sort of bummed out that i had just cleaned myself. i strained, but all that came out was a ton of gas. i was sort of relieved, but it would have been a shame to take a shit right after thoroughly cleaning my asshole.
ok, that's it for today. off for a cigarette!
friday night, i met up with barden and haruka at gombei for dinner. i wasn't very hungry, so i just had two order of sushi, a california roll and a spicy tuna roll, 16 pieces in all. and then it was off to dinkelspiel for the taiko concert. i wasn't impressed with the stanford taiko pieces, but the kenny endo taiko ensemble was very good. i especially liked the piece "spirit of rice."
then, there was "symmetrical soundscapes." this was a very fast, coordinated and difficult piece, played by kenny, hiroshi, joy and susan. i now have newfound respect for joy and susan for being able to pull it off. i know kenny and rosh have played it before, but man, seeing the two girls rip off the song was amazing! bravo!
saturday, i had lunch with the taikofolk at maruichi. and then it was off to spoons to watch the stanford/UCLA game with diana, a proud bruin alumni. it was a friendly rivalry between the two of us, with no trash talking or anything. stanford hung in there in the first half, only down 3 at halftime. but then, UCLA went on a 10-0 run in the second half, and put it away down the stretch. that's too bad. jen joined us later on for a bit, and we teased her about this "date" that she was going on that night. i mean, when a guy picks you up, pays for dinner and a musical, that's a date, right? hehe.
for the rest of the night, i tried calling up various people for dinner, but they were all occupied. the weird thing was that nelson said he was available, but when i finally called him up, he said that he couldn't wait and had eaten leftover pizza. hm. if he was hungry, he should have called me, right? so i found that to be a bit weird. oh well. so i just had a tv dinner (stouffer's tuna casserole, yum), and called it a night.
sunday, alan and ting picked me up, and we went to chuck e. cheese's in union city/fremont for anthony's 3 year old birthday party. there were lots of kids there, and it was good to see jack/amy and jeremy/kate with their kid, audrey. we played some skee ball, hung around a bit, and had some mediocre pizza. the place was PACKED with people. the big mouse chuck himself even made a special appearance himself and danced for anthony, who seemed to be a bit shy.
after that, i went home and watched like two hours of E!'s red carpet special for the oscars. lots of strapless dresses and cleavage. people were raving about penelope cruz's dress (i think it was her) and her long feather train, but i didn't like it. but i actually missed the oscars itself because i went out to dinner in downtown san jose with some of the bowling crowd. we went to tandoori oven, and i had this spicy lamb seek kabob, which looked like a huge turd (no surprise) wrapped with onions in naan. it was ok, but i couldn't finish it.
afterwards, we went to tapioca express in mountain view and hung out for a bit. i got my yogurt green tea with pearls (good), and watched a little bit of _van helsing_, which they were showing in the store. i didn't like the way kate beckinsale looked in that movie, and i wondered why the flying vampire girls didn't have nipples, even though they were naked.
all in all, it was a good weekend, but i wished saturday night were more eventful.
man, friday at last. even though i worked only four days this week, it felt long. there has been lots of debugging going on, as we are in a big push to get this chip out.
so _the OC_ has come and gone. last night was the series finale, and i have to say that i'm sad to see the show go. it's been a good several years, and i will miss it. there were some down times (like the whole oliver thing, and mischa barton's bad acting), but all in all, they kept it interesting. and even though i would have liked it to go on some more, they had to end it. after all, the kids were in college, and i would have hated it to drag on like the way _dawson's creek_ did.
i am shocked, just shocked, that antonella didn't get booted from american idol last night. she was by far the worst performer of all the boys and girls, and she did not deserve to go on. i was checking vote for the worst, and apparently there are all these (real or fake) compromising pictures of her. haha! poor girl.
i'm going to gombei for dinner tonight with taiko friends barden and haruka. as much as i used to love gombei (it was a staple back in college, especially with the taiko peeps), to tell you the truth, i'm not looking forward to it. don't get me wrong, it's good japanese food, but i think my stomach has totally shrunk, and given that i had indian buffet for lunch with alan, my appetite is just no longer there.
i've pretty much lost touch with the taiko crowd the past few years. i used to hang out with them more in the past, but lately, my social activity has been all with the bowling gang. *shrug* i guess things change. but either way, i'm excited to see some taiko tonight; i'm going to the kenny endo/stanford taiko concert tonight, and i'm looking forward to it. i'm always nervous, though, when i see ST perform. i just hope they do well.
here's a gross story for you. this morning, when i got up, i took my usual morning piss. i also farted. but when i rubbed my asshole with my fingers, it was moist. yup, you guessed it. i got shit on my hands. it was pretty nasty. but don't worry. i washed my hands well, and it was all good after that. :) but i'm telling ya, diarrhea makes farts *very* dangerous.
there was one time i was about to take a dump in the stall at the office, but i noticed that there was piss all over the toilet seat. that really made me mad. what, the dude was so lazy that he couldn't lift the seat before he whizzed? when i was younger, my parents didn't like the splashing when i stood up to take a leak, so they made me sit down, and it stuck with me ever since. so when i'm at a friend's house or at any toilet that i "respect," i sit down to pee.
ok, time to wrap this one up. have a great weekend folks!
man, the girls (for the most part) totally kicked the guys' asses last night on american idol. well, except for antonella, whose performance was so bad that i got embarrassed for her and had to change the channel. i am pretty sure she will get booted off tonight. man, i have a lot of tv to watch. i'm going to record the office and scrubs, watch AI and the series finale (*sniff*) of the OC, and tune in and out of the stanford/USC game.
i played basketball today. i scored ONE point! haha. it was a putback of my own miss. i actually had another decent shot, which i was sure would go in, but it rattled in and out. sigh. i suck now. i was also called for travelling, although i contested that i didn't have control of the ball when i took my steps.
one of my coworkers came back from paternity leave. his son's name is an alternative spelling of a biblical name (i'm not sure if they're religious), but the cool thing is that it's also an acronym! i thought that was pretty cool. he looks tired, though; he says that at night, he has to get up every 3.5 hours to feed the kid. yeah, having children changes your life forever, huh?
yup, it's the second thursday again. you know what that means: it's MASSAGE TIME! yippee! last time, i asked my masseuse to do my neck extra hard, and it felt really good. my appointment today it at 5pm instead of my usual 5:30, so i'm leaving work early today. that's why i'm writing this blog entry early this time.
so my company's annual party is this saturday night. it's weird; our VP of engineering is requesting that we all attend, making it sound mandatory. i mean, they can't *force* us to go, can they? i mean, if i don't show up, will they even notice? most people are bringing their spouses and stuff, and it's a casino-themed party (i don't gamble, even with fake money), blah blah, so basically i'd be totally bored out of my mind. the only cool thing is that they're having a raffle for an LCD tv. i think i'm still going to bail.
i had a sputtery dump today. it sputtered so much that some of the juices splashed on my ass. gross. i had to wipe not only my sphincter but around it as well. ick.
oh, and to whoever left me that comment, i do not fart when people are around. :) that's just rude! (unless, it's just alan or my girlfriend.)
one of my blankets is disintegrating. i'm sad. i've had that blanket since high school, and i carried it with me all throughout college and beyond. it's a wonderful blanket, and it's one of those that's cool to the touch, which i love. sigh. things don't last forever, which is a realization that i find hard to accept.
my hits are ridiculous these days. just a month ago, i was averaging about 200 a day, but this past monday, i got 800! it's not from new readers, but from all these pervs looking for my picture of the perfect ass and the nipply picture of kate beckinsale that i posted last year. ridiculous, i say!
ok, that's it for today. it's raining and cold outside. i was gonna get my car washed this past monday, good thing i didn't.
so someone posed a question to me yesterday in my comments about whether i'd give up solid dumps for a medicated cure to my tourette's. that's a no brainer. of course i'd choose to have my tourette's relieved. it's the bane of my existence! i mean, the diarrhea is annoying, but compared to the constant ticcing and the pain in my neck and shoulders and the social nuisance of twitching in public and stuff (not to mention the obvious damage i'm doing to my body), it's an easy breezy decision to make.
so i was very disappointed in the guys' performance in last night's american idol. the only performance i enjoyed was chris sligh's. i actually voted for him twice after the show. i wanted to root for sanjaya and paul kim, but neither of them delivered, especially paul. i mean, i just don't like paul's voice, and what is up with the whole bare feet thing? it's just silly. i had a hard time sitting through the two hours. let's hope that the girls do better tonight.
for lunch, A and i went to thai basil. that and la bamba are our default places. i strayed from my usual pad see ew/pad kee mao and got the red duck curry. don't get it. it's bad. there's no duck skin! and that's the best part, the skin and the fat that lies beneath. yum.
so i was flipping channels the other day, and mtv has this show where the guy takes three girls' moms on dates, and based on the moms, he picks which girl he's going to eventually go out with. so this guy passes on these two girls, and they both turn out to be pretty hot. and when he finally sees the third girl, she turns out to be not attractive, and you could see the disappointment on his face. ha! i mean, it's sort of a crapshoot trying to judge how hot a girl is based on their moms, right?
i miss the old mtv, back when they actually played videos. i mean, what does this dating show have to do with music? sheesh. stuff like the real world, pimp my ride, etc., they're all entertaining to a certain degree, but they've got no relationship to music. and comcast in my area doesn't carry mtv2. i mean, do bands even make videos anymore?
i haven't taken a dump today. and my smokes haven't generated any inkling of a bowel movement. hm. i wonder when my half-of-a-pizza will come out of my ass. during the long weekend in LA, i only took one dump. i got kind of nervous, because i was afraid that i'd have the urge to shit during the wedding, and i'd have to run out during the ceremony. ack!
i hate flying. but it seems like i'll be doing some more of it this year. there's alan's wedding in LA coming up, plus his bachelor's party (most likely in vegas, according to best man jay), and mike's wedding in hawaii. plus, i might go back to taiwan again, although that's iffy. too much flying!
the reason why i hate flying is because i can't fall asleep on planes. so long flights are like torture; it's like being imprisoned, strapped to a seat, and forced to sit there with nothing to do for hours on end. yes, i could read or listen to music or something, but i get bored easily with that. the one time where i actually slept was when i flew back from taiwan first class, and the seats folded all the way flat. that was actually pretty sweet. i had caviar for the first time.
ok. i'm going out for a smoke, and i'm going to try to induce a dump. it's about time i flushed out my bowels.
man, i am stuffed. A and i went to giovanni's today for lunch, and we each had half of a pizza. that doesn't sound so impressive, given that alan and i used to each eat a whole medium domino's pizza back in college, but remember that my stomach's totally shrunk these days.
one thing about the LA trip: GPS is totally a lifesaver. without it, we would have been fucked. we used it the entire time, and it got us everywhere. i am thinking about buying one now. anyone have suggestions as to what brand is good? we used a garmin, and it was a pretty good model.
ok, about the record of the year vs. song of the year in the grammy's. they're both given to only one song. according to wikipedia, the record of the year is given to the producers, and the song of the year is given to the writers. there's an award for album of the year, by the way, and of course, as the name suggests, it's given to the entire album. so there! this year, the dixie chicks won all three of them. i can't get enough of their song, "not ready to make nice." i haven't bought it or downloaded it, so i only hear it on 101.3, which is the only radio station that plays it. i wonder if it's a political thing.
so it's tuesday, and plans are already shaping up for the weekend. friday night, i've got a taiko concert at stanford, saturday, i've meeting up with diana for the stanford/UCLA game, and sunday is jack and amy's son's 3-year-old birthday party at chuck-e-cheese's. i still have to buy them a gift, maybe i'll hit up toys 'r us sometime this week. what's a good gift for a 3-year-old? i have no clue.
i took two diarrhea dumps today. they were all floaters. i'm not sure what makes the shits float and what makes them sink. is it water or gas content? i think somebody left me a comment a while back explaining it. anyways, i had to flush twice this morning back at my house because the floaters wouldn't drain properly. and the one i had at work left these long skidmark streaks near the top of the bowl. cool!
man, i am not looking forward to american idol tonight and tomorrow night. both of them are 2-hour episodes, both featuring 12 singers each. that's a lot of singing! tonight features the boys, and the only ones i'm looking forward to are chris sligh and sundance head. there is a bay area local (he's from saratoga), the asian dude paul kim, whose voice i don't like. and the rest are mainly forgettable at the moment. we'll see they're any good. plus, this year, the boys are missing a crooner, like john stevens and david radford. i love crooners! sigh. they make my heart melt.
i think i've decided that i don't like prime rib. i've had it a handful of times, and i've never enjoyed it. i think it's the fact that there's always a patch of rare meat in the middle, and it just tastes like bloody tasteless mush. i like my meat cooked, but i think if you get prime rib well done, it'll be tough or something. *shrug*
ok, that's it for today. off for a smokie smokie!
so friday morning, i got up at the ass crack of dawn at 6:30. i picked up mikeC at 7:20, and we headed to san jose airport, where we met up with john and grace. our flight was delayed because of massive fog, but luckily, it was only like a 40-50 minute extra delay before we took off. we picked up our car (we settled on a chevy HHR), and headed to the hotel. unfortunately, grace's luggage didn't appear, so that was terrible news. grace's dress and john's suit were in that bag, so you can imagine the stress that it put on those two. (Fyi, the luggage finally arrived at 4am at the hotel. *phew*)
we had lunch at kookooroo, which i didn't like (i HATE black beans), and then headed off to pasadena, where grace and some other girls met up to try on bridesmaid's dresses for another upcoming wedding. mikeC, john and i took the car and went to old pasadena, where we shopped at patagonia and hit up a starbuck's for some hydration. then, we went back to the hotel and walked up beverly drive to rodeo drive, where everything was closed. we had dinner at island's for some burgers, where i ordered the kilauea (sp?), which was supposed to be spicy, but it wasn't, so i was disappointed. i did enjoy my whiskey, though.
the next morning, i got up at 8pm and got ready for geoff's wedding. he wore his military clothes, and looked very grand. and the bride, pak, looked very lovely as well. it was a short ceremony, despite the long list of items on the itinerary. we had prime rib at lawry's afterwards, and during the dancing the ensued, i got called on to do (and learn) the electric slide. i couldn't get the last part, though, so i was stumbling a bit. ha!
afterwards, we went back to the hotel and changed, and a whole bunch of us went to the 3rd street promenade at santa monica. the place reminded me of this one district of barcelona, with the street performers and all the shops. i was especially impressed with this one cello/guitar duo, the ken oak band, whose website is here. the guy had a really nice voice, and i really dug their music. we enjoyed the sunset over the beach, and then we headed over to koreatown and had all-you-can-eat meat at this place called manna.
at manna, christi was kind enough to check the stanford/oregon score for me, and guess what? stanford won! i was so fucking happy! hehe. that was a nice capper for my day.
on sunday, we checked out of the hotel at 10am and met up with jimmy and sabrina at empanada's place. empanada's are like turnover's stuffed with meat and vegetables. pretty tasty, after all, since they're fried. i had a spicy chicken one and a spicy meat one. yum. then, it was off to the hotel. we landed, went home, and i spent the rest of the day relaxing by myself. i had taco bell for dinner.
on monday, we had dim sum at dynasty. i was a good boy and properly disposed of my post-meal cigarette at an ashtray. :) afterwards, i went to alan's place and we walked the dog rylie and grabbed some tapioca at the rivermark. after that, i just went home, watched the penultimate episode of _the OC_, and called it a night. and that was the end of a very nice 4-day weekend.
i had a massive dump today. it wasn't thick or huge, but it was a lot of volume, as far as thin, long spaghetti-like turds were concerned. what's weird is that all i had to eat yesterday was a tuna salad sandwich and a bowl of cereal, so i'm a little perplexed. *ponder*
so tomorrow, i'm flying out to LA for geoff's wedding, so i won't be updating. i'm not sure what i'll be doing all day, as i get into LAX at 10am or so. i hope i won't be bored. four of us are on the same flight, so at least i'll have company, which will be nice. we'll see.
i'm nervous for tonight's game vs. oregon state. it's virtually a must-win situation, but our best shooter (anthony goods) is out for like two weeks with a high ankle sprain. *fingers crossed* i'll be tuning in and out of the game, as i have other shows to watch (the office and scrubs). let's hope home field advantage helps us. go cardinal!
so how was your valentine's day? i called up alan last night, as i was going to ask him what his dinner plans were, completely oblivious to the fact that he had already made dinner reservations with ting. ha! luckily, i didn't actually ask him to eat with me, and it came across as me being curious as to where he was taking her.
i'm so not looking forward to getting up tomorrow. i'm going to set my alarm clock for 6:30am or so, and comparing that to my normal weekends, i'll be getting around SIX hours less sleep. that's insane! maybe i'll take some xanax tonight to knock myself out earlier, just to get that extra hour or 45 minutes of extra sleep.
does anybody know the difference between the song of the year and record of the year on the grammy's? they make a distinction between these two awards, and i've never known what the difference is. either way, the dixie chicks won both of them, so good for them. :) i love "not ready to make nice." after looking for it last week on 101.3 (the only station so far i've found that plays it, why is that?), i finally heard it in full today during the drive back from lunch.
so american idol made its cut to the semifinalists last night (12 girls, 12 boys). there aren't many that i like this year. the only guy i think is cool is chris sligh, the rotund dude with the big hair. oh, and i kind of like the black backup singer dude. and of the girls, i'm like "meh" on all of them. no one cute like katharine mcphee from last year. i hope some of them grow on me, otherwise i won't be very interested in this season.
i was shocked to hear the interview of ex-NBA player tim hardaway, who blatantly said verbatim, "i hate gay people." i mean, he flat out admitted that he was homophobic. pretty crazy stuff. this was all in response to a retired player coming out of the closet. anyways, with hardaway's reaction, it's no wonder that gay athletes don't want to come out. damn. america has a long way to go, huh?
ok, time for a smoke. that's it for the week. see you on tuesday, and have a great president's long weekend folks!
so in last night's _american idol_, they went from over 150 kids to 40. there were lots of broken hearts and tears. i was really pulling for sarah burgess, this cute girl who lied to her unsupportive parents about trying out in the first place. there was also this brother/sister tandem, and the brother made it while the sister got cut. it was really touching to see their reactions upon finding out, and the brother consoling her sister. *tear* on a happier note, there was one performance by these four guys (with the beatbox dude) that was really rockin'. good job guys!
today, my boss was really riding me over this one task that i deemed too difficult a few months ago. it came up again, and he assigned it to another coworker, who finished it in a few days. i can't believe it. i guess it was just a lot easier than i thought it was, or she's a miracle worker. (or, i was just too fucking lazy, which is a strong possibility.) anyways, i gotta ask her how she did it, just in case it gets assigned to me again in another project.
so i saw my psych this morning. as a side thing, he's tracking my weight, and in the past 9 months, i've lost something like 23 pounds. pretty cool, huh? i should market myself as a weight loss program; it's all about portion control, and no exercise is needed! ha. anyways, i'm going up to 100mg of topamax twice a day, and if that doesn't help my tics, i'm going to ask to get off of it. hopefully that'll make my shit solid again. ah, i miss the days of solid dumps. no more soiling my underwear!
i wonder is sphincters tighten up after they haven't been stretched out in a long time. if that's true, then i'm in for a world of hurt when my solid dump comes. ouchie! for the past few months, i've only had tiny diarrhea shits, so i haven't needed to stretch my anus out at all. hm. i've heard that if you stretch out your asshole a lot, it loses its strength, so i wonder if the opposite is true. we shall see!
i wonder if i should change my hotel room (this weekend) to a smoking room. smoking indoors is such a foreign concept in the states, but it's sort of nice to be able to do it. when i was in japan back in 2001, i had a smoking room all to myself, so i would have naked smokes. now *that* was cool. i loved it. some might ask why i don't smoke in my house, but i don't like the way it stinks up the place, and plus, it's a fire hazard. but if it's a hotel, i'm fine with it.
ok, that's all from me today. time is nigh for a smoke.
whoops. remember when i said that with this diarrhea, farts are dangerous? well, i was right. this morning, when i got dressed, i farted. and some "stuff" came out. it was just a small amount of stuff, and it made a little skidmark on my boxers. so i took off my pants and boxers, examined it, and wiped off the excess stuff. (of course, i smelled it, and it was rank.) i changed boxers, and then went to work. sigh. it was my first accident in years. the last one was huge, though, i shit all over my boxers and jeans, and i had to drive home immediately and change.
tonight, i'm meeting up with yuji at our usual place (maruichi on castro), and i'm treating him because it's his birthday on thursday. as usual, i'll get the lowdown on his take on the state of stanford basketball, as he is even a greater fan than i am, if you can believe that. it'll be good to catch up with him.
i can't wait for thursday to end. i'm leaded to LA on friday morning for geoff's wedding. i'm not quite sure what we're going to down with all the downtime we have, but i'm looking forward to hanging out with the bowling gang for a few days. i think we're going to check out the getty museum on friday, but aside from that, i'm not sure what our plans are.
i had a dream about k1 last night. it's so odd that i still dream about her; our relationship ended almost 15 years ago. anyways, in the dream, we were still going out, and we were in college taking courses in japan. it was really nice, from what i remember, and i was really happy. sigh. i still feel guilty about the way i treated her after we broke up. i'm the reason why didn't enjoy her college years, and i find that to be heartbreaking. i feel sad whenever anyone says that they don't think that college are some of the best years of their lives.
i've become a sensitive to wind lately. when i go out for a smoke, i usually put my hood on. it's not that cold, but i just don't like wind blowing through my head. people have given me some weird looks when they walk by, because the weather of late has been rather mild, and it doesn't warrant hood-wearing.
leeya mentioned the other day the men shouldn't wear polka dots. i responded by promptly lifting up my shirts and showing her that i was wearing polka-dotted boxer shorts. ha! i actually have two pairs of boxers with that pattern, but unfortunately, both of them are on the fritz. one of them has a huge tear in the ass, and the other's waistband has rotted away. sigh. i really liked them.
ok, well that's that for the day. off for a smoke, then i'm headed out early. the week's half over for me!
man, it's been a heavy day of test translating. i'm taking friday off, so i have one less day to do my assignments. my boss told me today that i have all these things to do before i leave, and it's sort of stressing me out. luckily, i was able to finish my "to do" task today, so i'm happy about that. things weren't working for awhile, but it was all due to typos on my part. silly...
so about that cigarette butt thing. i usually keep a trash bag in my car, but i had thrown it away friday night in the dumpster at paul's place. i forgot to bring another bag with me, and had i had one, i would have thrown the butt away in there. yeah, i'm sort of a delinquent. i got scolded by ting about the issue before, and ever since then, i throw my butts away in the trash or an ashtray whenever there is one available.
i wonder what happened to my penpals. i had two of them back during the summer of 1992. that was back when i read newsgroups, and i found two penpals on rec.soc.penpals or something like that. one was named nana, and the other deborah. both happened to be half-asian teenage girls, go figure. we wrote each other during the summer, but once i got to college, i stopped corresponding, no doubt because of my business and obsession with k1. i'd love to know what those two are up to today. i never got to see a picture of those two, but given that they were both hapa, i bet they were cute.
i'm nervous for my stanford men's team. they're on the bubble right now, and they have been struggling the past two games. they were close in the first half of those games, but just died after halftime. they had so many turnovers in yesterday's game, and they couldn't get any rebounds, either. man. right now, espn's bracketology has them as a falling 9th seed. yikes!
i haven't taken a dump today. i think after i write this entry, i'm going to have a smoke and then force a shit out. i'm curious to see if my LA trip firms up my logs. saturday, we're having prime rib for lunch after geoff's wedding ceremony, and then, we're planning on hitting fogo de chao (brazilian bbq) for dinner. that's a lot of meat, and i'm hoping it solidifies my shit, if only for one sitting on the toilet.
ok, well, that's that for the day. time for that smoke and dump!
friday night, we had dinner at pho kim long on capitol and montague. their #24 is very delish: tasty stir-fried noodles, beef, and veggies. all for $6! afterwards, we went back to paul's place to play some nintendo wii. i bowled a 179! we also played some boxing (nelson got quite a workout), tennis and golf. it's a pretty cool system.
saturday, i watched a ton of sports. the stanford/washington women's game, the arizona/oregon game, the texas tech/oklahoma state game, and the pro bowl. i tried to soak in the pro bowl, as this was the last taste of football i would get this season, but i just couldn't get into it.
i had dinner with nelson at chili's (we both suggested it at the same time), and i was looking forward to their southwestern eggrolls. i wasn't very hungry, as i had taco bell at 3pm. but they ran out of them, so i just got the boneless buffalo wings. that was a mistake. i got sick of them halfway through, but i powered on, and i finished them, to my distaste.
sunday, i had dim sum at dynasty. when i left, i had a smoke, and as i flicked my cigarette butt on the ground, a police sheriff caught me, and he yelled at me to pick it up. i was in shock, and then i almost cried. i apologized, picked it up, and when he drove off (after staring at me for a while), i threw it back on the ground. i was lucky he didn't give me a ticket.
then, it was off to cindy's house to watch the horrible stanford/washington game. we played really badly. and to top it all off, anthony goods sprained his ankle. i hope it's just a mild injury, and not something worse. anyways, it was a bad loss, and now we gotta win some big games to make it to the tournament. ick.
for dinner, paul and i went to in 'n out for a quick dinner. i had already had two slices of pizza at cindy's, so i wanted something small, fast and cheap. and that was it to my weekend.
man, i am so fucking glad it's friday. that test i was working on finally passed, so i am relieved. now i just gotta get another similar test to work, and i'm almost done with my work on this chip.
for lunch, i went with A to this pho place on lawrence and sandia, called sunrise noodle or something. it's next to giovanni's. don't go there. the portions were really small, so small that the cashier even asked us if they gave us enough. hrmph. afterwards, when we got back to the office, A made a sandwich to fulfill his hunger, ha!
i plucked out my nipple hair yesterday after my shower. some of them were quite long. it wasn't as satisfying, though, as compared to plucking out my cheek hair, because there isn't much sensation on my nipples. i've had girls lick my nipples before, but i never enjoyed it because it doesn't feel good. on the other hand, those girls liked me playing with theirs, which makes me wonder how good it feels to them. what does it feel like to girls? *ponder* i'm jealous that girls seem to have more erogenous zones than men.
any good movies out? i wanted to see the two iwo jima movies, but after _saving private ryan_, i swore off war movies. i just can't stand the violence. it's too realistic, and it gets to me. i haven't seen a movie since _casino royale_ over thanksgiving break. hm. but nothing seems to be good out there.
i think i figured out why my right knuckles are more worn than my left ones. to keep from ticcing, i often drape my right hand over my left shoulder, and when i lean back, my right hand rests between my back and my chair. and that causes a lot of friction sometimes, and that's the reason why there's more wear on my right knuckles. *eureka!*
so it seems like friendster has once again changed the look of its front page. i don't like it. it's funny, though, because i think their office is where my old company used to be, on villa street in mountain view. that's my old stomping grounds! ah, friendster. i used to spend so much time on there, looking for cute girls to message. i went on a few dates with some of the girls i found, but none of them stuck. the only memorable one was k4, and she's engaged now, to this tall white guy. good for her. i don't like her anymore, and i no longer find her hot. it's funny, though, because i had such a crush on her.
these days, i've been getting to work later and later. my alarm clock goes off at 9:30, but i snooze many times. it's weird, though, because in between those 9-minute snoozes, i'm able to fall back asleep and even dream. i had no idea i could do that. i'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow and saturday night. i LOVE sleep!
speaking of sleep, i'm excited about the LA trip next weekend. but one thing that'll hurt will be the early mornings i'll have to endure. first of, my flight to LA is at 9am, so i'll have to get up at like 7. and then, the next day, geoff's wedding is at 9:30am (who the heck gets married that early?!), so that means another early morning as well. man!
ok, that's it for me this week. have a good weekend folks!
so my test finally works. i had to do some hacks to make it run through, but i'm finally heaving a sigh of relief. now we just gotta make sure the results are what we expect.
so i played basketball again today. last week, i played one game to 11. this time, i played two games to 7, so i'm inching my way up the stamina factor. hopefully, i'll be playing twice a week after a few more sessions. the ultra-competitive guy hasn't shown up so far, so i'm much happier not having to deal with him, especially since i didn't score a single point today.
i'm getting a massage today. can't wait! it's in an hour, and already, my neck and shoulders are looking forward to a good rubdown.
on the drive back from basketball, i heard that anna nicole smith died. i was never a fan of her, but i'm sad to hear that she died so young. i'm hearing that it may be drug related? that's a shame. i never thought was hot, though. and after seeing a few episodes of her reality tv show a few years ago, i don't have a very high opinion of her. but still... dying before the age of 40... that's young!
so the cowboys hired wade phillips as their new head coach. hm. one of the espn writers called this a joke, since phillips has never won a playoff game with the four teams that he's coached. i am having my doubts now that he'll be a good guy to lead my beloved 'boys, but we'll see. i'm cautiously optimistic about next year, but i think it all rests on romo's shoulders. he started off his season well, but i think our opponents figured him out, and he started struggling down the stretch.
do you guys have to pee in the middle of the night? or in the early morning hours? i usually don't have to, but this morning, at 7am, i woke up, and i had this uncontrollable urge to take a leak. at first, i just tried to shake it off, so i rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but i just couldn't. so i got up in a huffy puff, took a leak, and bam! i fell back into a sleepy bliss. i've heard in tv ads that older men with enlarging prostates have to get up a lot at night to piss, so i'm not looking forward to that disturbing my slumber.
i wonder if i'll ever grow my hair out long again. short hair is just so much easier to deal with. remember that i cut my hair short because of that chow yun-fat photo shoot a few years back, and i've kept it like that ever since. it's too bad that the video game got cancelled; i would have gotten a kick out of playing myself on the screen. :)
ok. time for that 5pm smoke. cheer up! tomorrow's friday!
hey folks. it's supposed to rain in the bay area for the next week or so. ick. i always remember february as a rainy month, so i guess it's no surprise. oh well. at least i'm not in school, and i don't have to bike around and get that nasty wet dirt trail up my ass; we used to call that "bike butt."
so tonight's the last episode of _american idol_ before the hollywood week. i was never a fan of hollywood week; i always found the group auditions and stuff to be kind of boring. and the contestants always seem tired and stressed out, and that's no fun to watch. one of the guys who made it to hollywood this year was there last year too, and he apparently bowed out of the competition because he was so stressed, poor guy. so far, though, there haven't been that many people that i liked. no taylor hicks, no john stevens. hopefully i'll find someone to root for, otherwise it'll be a boring season.
i have uneven wear on my knuckles. it's weird. the knuckles on my right hand have much thicker skin, and they're darker, too. i can't explain it. why is that? it's not like they come in contact more with other things, i mean, how often do our knuckles touch objects? *ponder*
i don't think i have a dandruff problem, but every time i wash my hair, the next day, i have all this dust in my head. it's really odd. if i run my fingers through my hair, all this stuff comes out. what gives? i thought washing your hair was supposed to get *rid* of the junk on your scalp.
i'm excited for next weekend. i'm taking friday off and heading to LA for geoff's wedding. plus, i'm coming back on sunday, and i get monday off for president's day. whee! four-day weekend, plus a four-day workweek! i love holidays.
i just had a smoke downstairs, and my boss was there, too. he's cool. he's a little bit of a stresscase, and he knows that i do good work when i set my mind to it. it told me that he only expects me to do about 4-5 hours of work a day (which is a stretch for me anyways), and that's good enough. hehe.
a few weeks ago, i saw a car with the license plate "CHP DZNR." i was a bit puzzled at first, but then i got it. chip designer! haha! only in silicon valley would somebody be proud enough to get those vanity plates. :)
anyways, i've hit major writer's block, so i'm going to cut this short. have a good hump day!
man, it's been a frustrating day. i'm supposed to merge two tests that exercise these two different blocks in conjunction, but things are just not working, and i don't know why. it's very mind-boggling stuff, and i hate it. plus, my boss is breathing down my neck, expecting results soon. argh!
one of the riskiest things i do nowadays is fart. given the fact that i have constant diarrhea, it's a fine line between farting and liquid-shitting in my pants. i'm sure i fart in my sleep sometimes, so i've been lucky so far that i haven't soiled my sheets. *phew*
i donated $250 to stanford the other night. i've been meaning to contribute, but i've always been too lazy to cut a check and mail it in. this time, they called my cell phone, so i just did it right then and there. it was easy breezy. yes, i am that lazy. plus, it was hard to say no to the girl; she was very courteous and polite, and i'm a sucker for that. i wonder if she was hot. *ponder*
even though i'm chinese and grew up on rice, i've come to realize that i don't like rice anymore. i went with C to the cheap korean place today, and i barely touched my bowl of the stuff. i much prefer noodles these days. hm. rice has no flavor, and unless it's covered in sauce or gravy of some sort, i don't eat it.
sigh. it's only tuesday. i think tuesdays are the worst. mondays are ok because i'm rested up from the weekend, but tuesdays are like, "damn, it's only the 2nd day of the week?!" at least there's american idol to watch. today's the last day of the tryouts before hollywood week, i think. they're hitting a city in texas tonight; i think it's san antonio.
i was watching part of the texas A&M/texas basketball game yesterday, and the A&M logo on the court was HUGE. it stretched out from one end of the 3-point line to the other. it was just ugly. i think espn had some article about ugly, large logos, and i have to agree. small and understated is better.
i had to force a dump today. usually, after my first or second cigarette of the day, i have to take a shit. but today, i wasn't feeling any bowel action, even after those smokes. so i just went to the bathroom and strained and pushed. i had some little squiggly turds come out, but nothing major. sigh. i've forgotten what it feels like to have a huge dump come out of my ass. maybe after i get off of this topamax med, i'll go back to excreting logs.
ok. that's it for me today. my hits are outrageous these days. i got like 500 yesterday. why are all these peoiple searching for "perfect ass"? hm.
*phew* my stanford cardinal men's basketball team are still ranked. right now, they're just barely in at #25 in the AP poll. this week will be tough, with them travelling to the state of washington for two roadies. we'll be lucky to get a split, i think.
at greg's birthday dinner, we were playing cal. the game started at 6:30, and the dinner was at 7, so i watched the first few minutes before i left. we were up 14-2, so i was pretty excited. at 8:25 or so, i called up jack (voicemail) and then jeremy, so he gave me the final score, which was 90-71. that made my night, and i was able to relax for the rest of the evening while i was out.
i'm not liking my new glasses. or, rather, they have a flaw. they're too close to my eyes, so my greasy eyelashes keep making smudges on the lenses. so every hour or so, i have to take them off and wipe them. who knew that eyelashes could be so greasy? am i the only one with this problem?
sigh. so football season is over. this season, like all the rest, went by so quickly. i'm still smarting over the cowboys loss, and that image of tony romo sitting on the field with his hands in his helmet after the botched field goal is etched in my memory. i know that the cowboys wouldn't have made it to the super bowl, but it still would have been nice to see us get out of the first round of the playoffs. oh well. there's always next year, i guess. i'm still waiting to see who our next head coach is going to be.
damn. i keep forgetting to try on my suit(s) over the weekends to see if they need alterations. geoff's wedding is in two weeks, and i need to know which one i'm going to wear.
i'm glad that i have a decent tolerance for alcohol. at greg's dinner, ann had three small sips of greg's drinks, and within minutes, she got flushed. i think it's good to have a reasonable tolerance, just in case you're at a social function where you need to drink at least a little bit. my current problem is that i can't get a good buzz going. i go from sober to headache-y, and it sucks. i think it's my medication, but i'm not sure. but anyways, i haven't caught a good buzz in years.
do you guys have recurring random thoughts? every so often, the word "eva" pops into my mind. and that's followed by the words "rain man," and then the chili's baby back ribs song. it's really really weird. like, i'll be doing something, minding my own business, and then those three things will just appear out of nowhere in my brain, with no reason. it sort of annoying, actually.
all righty-o. you know the drill. smoke time!
friday night, nelson, mikeC and i went to this vietnamese place on murphy in downtown sunnyvale. afterwards, we went back to mike's place and checked out his xbox 360. gears of war looked like a pretty cool video game, and we also checked out oblivion.
saturday, we had lunch at the original pancake house, and afterwards i picked up my new glasses. i have astigmatism in my other eye now, so it was a big weird; flat surfaces look slanted now, but luckily i'm not getting headaches so far. i ran a few errands afterwards, and i went back home to watch _the OC_ episode that i had taped earlier in the week. hooray for frank and julie cooper! i'm going to be sad when this show ends in a few weeks.
i took a little nap, and then it was time for greg's birthday dinner at cantankerous fish. i really didn't like the food there; i ordered the sea bass, and it was very dry. even the chipotle sauce (which i was looking forward to) was tasteless. luckily, they had jameson there, so at least i enjoyed my whiskey. afterwards, we walked three blocks to the tapex, and i had my yogurt green tea. thanks for mikeT for recommending it; it's my standard tapex drink now.
sunday, some of us met up at jack's place in union city for the super bowl. jack and i were the only ones who really cared about the game. alan and ting showed up, and they played with anthony for most of the game. i was really happy for tony dungy and peyton manning, who finally won the big one. there weren't any really good ads, though, and i thought prince's halftime performance was utterly forgettable.
and that was it for the weekend. it was a pretty good time, and i'm looking forward to geoff's wedding in LA in two weeks.
hey peeps. i'm so fucking glad it's friday. it's been sort of a slow week, and the days just sort of dragged by. i've got a big task to do, and i've been procrastinating. so next week will be sort of intense. my task is to convert a test that's been written in C to a test in TCL, and since i don't know TCL, it'll be quite interesting. we shall see...
man, today's company lunch hit a new low. with exception of the baklava, nothing was edible. ok, well, the vegetables were mildly edible, but everything else was fucked up. the salmon was dry, the chicken was tasteless, and they even messed up the rice. damn! even though the food was free, i would have gladly gone out and paid for lunch instead.
so super bowl sunday is upon us! go colts! i hope rex grossman has an awful day, and the colts are able to score on the daunting bears defense. i would like to see peyton manning win the big one, as well as coach tony dungy. i'm going to watch the game with alan, ting, jeremy and kate at jack's place in union city, along with their kids and dog. i hope there are some good commercials, too.
i got a call from pearlevision, and my new glasses are in. i hope they don't give me headaches. i think i've finally adjusted to the old pair that i've been wearing for these past few weeks. and i'm also concerned that my new pair will be light enough that they won't fly off my face when i tic, as that's what ultimately caused my other pair to break.
when you were younger, were you ever caught looking at porn by your parents? my mom once caught me looking at .GIF images of naked girls when i was in high school. she made me delete them on the spot, but thanks to norton utilities, i un-deleted them the next available moment. hehe. ah, the good old days of downloading pictures from BBS's and newsgroups.
i still remember the first time i saw a picture of a naked girl. it was during a sleepover at my friend karl's place in junior high. it was like 3am, and we were watching violent arnold schwarzenegger movies, and suddenly, karl emerged from his room and busted out a porn magazine. i saw my first vagina, and it looked so *foreign*. i had no idea what i was looking at, so i didn't even get excited. haha.
my first porn video experience came years later, my senior year in high school. i still remember the name of the movie: american taboo IV. i borrowed it from one of my friends, and it was the first time i saw people having sex. the quality of the sex was pretty poor, and i actually got off more on the previews of other porn vids after the movie. sigh. the memories. :)
man, i'm getting nostalgic now. here's to sexual awakening! *clink*
so i finally got off my ass and played some basketball today. it felt good, and it was even better because that hyper-competitive asshole wasn't there. and my team won a close game, 11-10. i made one bucket and missed a ton of shots. oh well. at least i made one, right? i was huffing and puffing at the end of it, though; i'm not used to 11-point games, as i have usually only played games to 7. but still, i'm glad i got some exercise, and maybe i'll play both tuesdays and thursdays next week. gotta get my heart in shape!
so last night's game against gonzaga was a heartbreaker. we lost by 4 points in double overtime. we started out really strong, and race to a 14-point lead. we were on fire from the perimeter, but then we cooled off and let the zags back in it. oh well. i just hope we beat cal on saturday; i won't be able to watch the game because i'll be at greg's birthday dinner.
so last night, instead of eating with dj at hyderabad house, we met up on castro instead at xanh, this fancy (relatively) new vietnamese restaurant. the food was pretty good, although we didn't get much, and it was fairly expensive. for example, the garlic prawns were delish, but we only got 6 of them for $17. pricey! i don't recommend the eggplant, though, but the prawns and the deuce rolls were good. we only got those three items (and dj got a $10 glass of wine) for $50.
do you guys get razor burn when you shave with an electric razor? when i shave the hairs between my lips and my chin (is that called a soul patch?), it really hurts. i get spots of blood where the follicles used to be, and it fucking burns like crazy. ouch!
the last time i went to the bathroom to take a leak, there was someone in there taking a shit. he had so much gas, he just kept on farting. and it wasn't those "pop" farts, either. it was those long, drawn out expulsions of gas. there must have been so much pressure in his gut, i wonder if he had a stomachache. anyways, i tried not to laugh every time he let one out. *shrug* farts are funny.
so i got mike's "save the date" card for his upcoming wedding the other day. if i go (and i do plan to), it'll be the first time i'll be in hawaii. yeah, i've never been, mostly because i've never had anyone to go with, and second, i've never been interested. i'm not a beach person, and i'm not a water person. what else is there to do there? i guess i'll find out. and anyways, mike's got this whole wedding site up, and it's pretty cool. i've always been impressed by people with good website design skills. it's something cool to show off.
uh oh. i feel a dump coming on. off to take it a shit (it'll be my third on today).