tonight, i’m rooting for cal vs. louisville. i don’t know if i’ll be watching the game, though, as none of my cal friends seem to give a shit about their own alma mater. how is it that i have such unathletic-appreciating friends? if stanford were playing, i’d be skipping work (which i have done before, and i’ve gotten in trouble for it, too) and watching the game, by myself if i had to. alas, stanford sucks now, and i think it’ll be two years until we’ll be good again.

but march madness is great. there is so much more passion in college basketball, compared to the NBA. school pride is so wonderful. and unlike the NBA playoffs, there are true upsets in the NCAA tourney. murray state vs. vanderbilt. ohio over georgetown. crazy shit happens. and it’s just all so so sublime.

i met up with wendy (of wendyness.com) for lunch today. it was like a mini-blogmeet. she’s been blogging since high school. we went to maruichi (where i just went last night with adam), and i got there after her, and she was so easy to spot with her pink hair. we chatted, and it was fun. she’s cool. i recommended that she get the kakuni (stewed tender pork), and i didn’t quite hear her correctly after she took her first bite into it, but i *think* she said, “wow, that’s *stupid* good.”

but yes, i had kuro ramen (without sprouts) for both lunch today and dinner last night. i think i’m sick of it now. i burped this afternoon, and i puked some of it up in my mouth. i think that is a sure sign that i have had too much kuro ramen. hehe.

tomorrow will be a big day. i have to get up early to drive up to SF for the king tut exhibit at 10am. i really, really hope that i will be able to find parking easily. i mean, i don’t mind SF that much (i actually think SF is a little ugly), but the one thing that makes me HATE SF is that i can’t find parking. it seriously makes me loathe going up there.

and after king tut, i have to rush back down, grab a quick lunch (i’m thinking of trying taco bell’s new pacific shrimp tacos, they advertise six shrimp in each taco) and meet up with alan and jay at vasona park. no dinner or night plans just yet, but i think i’ll be tired by then.

last night, i went over to alan’s place to watch _flashforward_. the show was meh, but i really enjoyed just watching tv with somebody else. (ting was there, too.) another thing that i liked was that their dog, rylie, curled up next to me and lay her head on my lap during much of the show. i really love dogs. and rylie had just gotten a haircut, so her body’s fur was a lot softer and less wire-y than normal. ah…

i want a whiskey. there is no better way to unwind after a workweek.

during the AI results show, one of the musical guests was kesha. she seems really trashy. not really a good role model for today’s young girls, if you care about that sort of stuff. what i found interesting about her performance was that there were four dancers with huge tv’s for heads. the tv images were semi-real (i doubt they were real CRT or LCD images), so i wondered how the dancers were able to figure out where to move and stuff. were the screens translucent so they could see through them? hm.

ugh. i am still burping up my kuro ramen. at least i’m not puking it up. NO MORE KURO RAMEN! it’s my fault, really, for ordering it again for the second straight meal.

today, i had three sodas, and three different sodas: dr pepper, coke and pibb xtra. that’s never happened before.

i actually double-booked my social engagements for today’s lunch: i had my lunch with wendy, and i was also supposed to have lunch with will and kevin. i felt bad about bailing with will and kevin, so after maruichi, i sped over to giovanni’s to see those two. i got some good short catching up with them. it turns out that kevin lives in mountain view, too. he used to play basketball back at T with us, and i called him “the rabid wolverine” because he was so relentless on defense. many a time did he steal the ball away from me.

today was also my company’s free lunch day. the theme was indian food. hm. indian food cooked by a korean catering company. could that have possibly been good? it smelled like curry in the first floor hallway when i came back to the office. maybe i should be glad that i went out for lunch, despite the chance at free food.

i think it’s a good thing that i changed my cell phone plan when i did. i’m racking up peak minutes like there is no tomorrow.

ok. 6pm. time to get out of here.

i’m getting refunds on my federal and state taxes, totaling over $8,500. WOW. that’s pretty cool. unfortunately, property taxes are due soon, so over $3,000 of that will disappear in less than a month. is owning a house worth it? i don’t know if i’ll be cash flow positive by the time i will have owned my house for a year. i guess i am building equity, but that’s a slow process. real estate appreciation? i don’t know about that; i think my house’s value has actually dropped a bit. well, we shall see.

i did my taxes with turbotax online. i’ve been doing so for like a decade, and before that, i just hand-edited a 1040EZ form. turbotax online rocks. it’s gotten a bit expensive, but i don’t mind paying for convenience. i also bought the audit defense package, and after having gotten audited for my 2005 return, it’s totally worth it. all i had to do was fax all of my forms over to this dude, and he handled everything with the IRS. the only other thing i did was write a check in the end. that was it.

march madness is upon us! there were some big and near-big upsets today. old dominion over ND, robert morris *almost* over villanova, and the murray state over vanderbilt. my diagonal cubiclemate went to vandy, so we watched the last 4 seconds on MMOD (march madness on demand, a godsend). murray state was down 1 point with 4 seconds left, and they scored at the buzzer to win by 1. AMAZING. my coworker wasn’t that bummed, as he isn’t into his alma mater’s athletics. me? i would have been crying if stanford lost that way.

i love march madness.

oh! speaking of basketball, i had to leave early. during my last game, S tried throwing a bounce pass, and i stepped into the path of the ball. it went SMACK INTO MY CROTCH. OUCH. there was this huge smacking sound, and the pain slowly seared into my brain. needless to say, running was *not* an option for me after that. my testicles stung for a while after i came back to the office. i think i’m ok now, but damn, now i’m thinking that i need to buy a cup or something when i play bball. what do college and pro players do to protect their genitals? you sometimes see them double over in pain when a hoodlum player punch them in the groin (it just happened the other night), so it doesn’t seem like they’re wearing protection.

plans for the weekend are slowly shaping up. at least, saturday is. i’m headed up to SF to see the king tut exhibit at the de young museum in golden gate park. that’s at 10am, so i have to get up pretty early. i hope parking isn’t horrendous. that would piss me off. and after that, i’m going to speed down the peninsula to the south bay to see alan and jay at vasona park. i’m looking forward to that.

sunday is amorphous. emi and shoji are in town (i’m seeing them at king tut), and we might hang out with them some more with some other taiko peeps. but there are no solid plans just yet.

i still haven’t watched the final episode of _dollhouse_ yet. it’s “epitaph II.” i don’t know where i can find “epitaph I,” which is available on the season 1 DVD set. mikeT says i should watch that before i watch “epitaph II.” hm.

i’m getting sick of filet o’ fish. on basketball days, i eat breakfast, and i’ve been purposefully waking up past 10:30 so mcd’s serves lunch items. i am already sick of mcmuffins and biscuits. i love the filet, but i’ve had it like 4 times in the past two weeks, so i need to find something else to eat. big mac? mcnuggets? mcchicken? mcdouble? i guess there are a lot of options.

amyM called me today. she got an apartment to herself! now i can visit her. she has had an awful experience with living with a random roommate, one that doesn’t allow her to have visitors over. so she found a small 400 sq. ft. place in soho, and she moves in on april 1st. so i’m planning on visiting her in maybe may or june. i canNOT wait. i miss her badly. i haven’t seen her since march 2003.

last night, i celebrated st. patrick’s day with tim with dinner at elephant bar. of course, i had irish whiskey (bushmills on the rocks). i went away from my usual lamb shank and ordered the jambalaya. it was ok. i was stuffed and felt sick afterward. i felt like puking. (no, i am not bulimic.) then, i went home and watched the AI results show and _scrubs_. am i weird, or is the character cole starting to be less annoying? i thought he was a total 100% douche at first, but i am starting to like him.

it’s curious how we judge looks. some people might think a certain person is attractive, and then others think “meh,” while still others think the person is unattractive. how do we as individuals come up with a standard of beauty? is there one consistent measuring stick? does everyone think catherine zeta jones (for example) is beautiful? (i, for one, admit that catherine is empirically beautiful, but i am not attracted to her.) clearly, it is fortunate that we are not all judging the same way, because otherwise we’d all go for the same person, and the “unattractive” people would not be able to find mates.

ok, i want to leave now. it’s only 5:06pm. i’m having dinner with adam tonight. and i want to go to alan’s house to watch the 2-hour spring premiere of _flash forward_.

and to celebrate during lunch, i took three coworkers of mine to my favorite scottish (not irish, though) pub, the duke of edinburgh. i was a bit worried for the vegetarian R, but he found something on the menu that he could eat, a cheese quesadilla (ah, a classic staple of the scottish, haha). i got my usual BLT with extra mayo, and three of us ordered drinks. the weather was BEAUTIFUL, so we sat outside. you know, to get our vitamin D. it was a great long lunch.

today is also rainbow’s birthday. happy birthday, bow! yes, it is a coincidence that rainbow’s birthday falls on a day that is celebrated by leprechauns chasing after a pot of gold at the end of a real rainbow.

i upped my cell phone plan today from 450 minutes to 900 minutes + 5 unlimited friends/family. it’ll be just for a few months. all the phone calls i’ve been making lately has necessitated it. as of today, i had like 30 minutes left on my old plan for the rest of the month, so i just said “fuck it” and got a new plan. it’s like $30 more per month, but it’ll beat any $0.45/min overages i’ll incur if i keep using my phone at my current rate.

i immediately used up 4 slots for my friends/family: A, alan, jay and tim. i don’t know whether i’ll use up my 5th slot.

last night’s _american idol_ was pretty painful. but i must say, siobhan magnus is pretty damn cool. she’s a quirky, alluring little thing, and i want her to win. i don’t know if she’ll sell records, but i just like her. they say the race is pretty much over now, and it’ll come down to siobhan and crystal bowersox. i think i agree. and i can’t stand the goofy-looking aaron kelly. he looks like the awkward kid who wallflowers in the dark corner of the smelly gym at a junior high school dance.

big plans were made today. i’m excited. it’s all about carpe diem.

i want to have another whiskey tonight. i called tim up, and he’s up for dinner as long as he can get out of work at a reasonable time. but i don’t know if i want to go to the duke again. it might be crazy there because of st. patty’s day. i asked the waitress at lunch today if they’ll be busy, and she said definitely. hm. can you celebrate st. patrick’s day with a bowl of beef noodle soup?

what kind of beer do they use for green beer?

there are amorphous plans for this weekend. emi and shoji will be in town, and i think i’m going to the king tut exhibit at the de young in golden gate park on saturday. it starts at 10am, which means i have to drag my ass up early to drive up to SF and find parking. then, i don’t know what’s happening after that. sunday is the same as far as taiko peeps hanging out. then, alan wants to do something with jay. hm. it might be a jumbled mess of plans gone awry. we’ll see.

do you guys like to plan things? are you big planners? i think i’m beginning to become a planner vs. flying by the seat of my pants. i think the latter has left me with nothing to do for long stretches, and i get bored. i hate being bored. and with my non-smoking, i crave a cigarette THE MOST when i am bored. it is like an endless, fidgeting, mind-wrenching craving. it’s deadly, deadly stuff.

man, i wish that census form was more interesting to fill out. it left me wanting more.

this morning, i came up with the idea of selling covered call options on my company stock. i mean, i can sell like 30 contracts at my target price. suppose each contract is like $25. 30 contracts would be $750, and i can keep selling these every month as long as my target price isn’t met. and if it is met, then i get to sell my stock at a price i want, so that’s not a bad thing, either. what do you think? i’ll check on the price of these contracts tomorrow and think of doing it starting the month of april.

i really should pay more attention to my investments. i have all this money in the stock market (well, not that much), but i should make my money work for me, you know? money languishing in a 0% yield checking account is useless. money is important, and i should be more diligent about investing it wisely. anybody got some good stock tips? i might sell some languishing or break-even stocks and reinvest in a better stock.

i used to be really into investing. (or rather, “speculating.”) i used to read ragingbull.com and yahoo stock message boards. i would look at the stock quotes dozens of times a day. of course, it was during the dot com boom (and subsequent bust), so the action was exciting back then. some of my stocks doubled, and of course, a lot of my stocks went to shit. i lost so much money that i could have bought a house much earlier in my life. but yeah, i had much more of a passion about money and investing back then. i think i’m just scared now.

i had dinner at the office for the first time in months last night. it was lasagna, vegetables and garlic bread. damn, that garlic bread was tasty; i had three pieces. no one was available for dinner, and once i heard that it was lasagna (which i like), i figured, why not eat at the office. it was a quiet night for me. i just ate, went home, watched AI and talked to A for a bit on the phone. i’ve been feeling more social these days. perhaps it’s because i feel spring/summer is around the corner.

ok, i’m out.

i was very disappointed that it only took me like 2 minutes to finish it. the census form basically just asked me what race i was and if i owned my house. little else. had i had a family or a roommate, it would have been more interesting. but no, i live alone, so over 80% of the form was useless to me. FIE. i got overexcited about it. haha. oh well. at least i didn’t have to spend a stamp to mail it out.

last night, john emerged from his shell and organized a group dinner at southland. a huge group showed up, so much so that we had to put two big tables together in an eyeglass shape. i was debating what to get, as my meals at southland aren’t very exciting, but i found a good dish: chicken cutlet curry. yeah, that’s more of a japanese dish, but the taiwanese version (a yellower curry) was actually pretty tasty. i kept on burping it up after i got home. yum.

paul and leeya’s baby daughter, chloe, is really cute. she’s almost 8 months now, and she has the ever-so-inquisitive look on her face. so cute. i hope my kids are as adorable as she is.

so sabrina just e-mailed me on facebook. _the bachelorette_ has started filming! eeek! i can’t wait to see it when it starts (on 5/24, sabrina says). i LOVE ali. she’s so cute, and she seems to have a good head on her shoulders. i really hope she finds love, because she deserves it.

i’m debating whether i should look into tickets to the stanford women’s NCAA tournament tickets. the first two rounds will be at maples, and i’d love to go support them. they were something like 30-1 this season so far, with the only loss to the ridiculously good 70+-0 uconn huskies. GO CARDINAL! stanford was the last team to beat uconn, two years ago.

basketball turnout has been really bad lately. today, we had only four people. so what did we do? we played 2-on-2, with all three permutations of the possible teams. P lost all three combinations, and the rest of us won two of our three games. i was really tired afterward. but it was good exercise, and i even got to drive to the basket a few times. go power basketball!

i really don’t have a nose for the basketball. like, when there’s a loose ball, i don’t have this killer instinct to go get it; my body just wants to stand there and admire watching it roll/bounce/fly around while everyone else goes after it. so it’s a HUGE rarity when i actually grab a rebound or, better yet, steal the ball. people actually CLAP and cheer when i make a once-in-a-blue-moon steal. i’m the one who usually gets the ball stolen from.

i’ve got less than 50 minutes left on my cell phone plan for the month of march. fuck. i really need to switch to a bigger plan, or maybe even an unlimited plan. i’ll look into that tomorrow.

AND. this weekend, i MUST do my taxes. i will. promise.

are you people reading this? sometimes i wonder about that. it’s curious, because i got an abnormally high number of hits when i came back from virginia, so it makes me think that people really are aware and curious of what’s going on in my life.

_gossip girl_ is back! more relationship shuffling between cast members. ah, it’s getting a little tiring. how many permutations can there be left? i find refreshment in chuck and blair, who are now the constants in the show, and who would have ever thought *that* to be the case? ha! jenny humphrey’s storyline is such a bore. she is my least favorite character on the show.

i am really not looking forward to more AI tonight. two hours of painful rolling stones karaoke tonight. whoever sings _(i can’t get no) satisfaction_ should get spanked. that song is untouchable. and i still can’t get over the fact that lilly scott got cut last week. *sniff* she was really cool. it was all about song choice for her, i think, and maybe the fact that there are very few alternative people watching AI.

hm. what to do for dinner. alan just called, and the first thing i asked him was, “what are you doing for dinner?” unfortunately, he’s got plans. RATS. i’ve been craving more social interaction lately. i think it’s because of daylight savings, and i feel like being outside while there’s still light.

shit. ben just logged on, and he’s already in the philippines. i asked him when he will left, and he said, “i will leave YESTERDAY.” i wanted to see him one last time before he left. well, good morning, ben!

ok, i’m off.

i hope there is no more rain. because that means that i can wash my car. speaking of my car, i need to schedule in alan’s paint guy to come. i scratched up my right front bumper on my house a while back, and my roof has started to peel a bit. i want my car to look its best, you know? it’s my darling honda. (i named her kendra.)

hm. not much to say today. one of the guys from our office in paris is here, so we took him out for dim sum. he tried chicken feet! i heart dim sum. we went to dynasty, and man, on weekdays, that place is a ghost town. the only good thing is that we don’t have to wait for the carts to come, as we order off of a checklist.

these days, i can’t seem to justify purchasing DVD’s or blu-ray discs. i mean, the most number of times i’ll watch a movie at home is maybe 2-3 times. is it worth it to spent upwards of $20 on a movie then? i can’t see it. my dad bought two movies (_we are marshall_ and _rudy_) at fry’s on friday night, and he also bought this crappy computer video camera. he didn’t like the camera, so he asked me to return it after he left for taiwan. i also returned the blu-ray discs because they were unopened (so i could get cash back), and i didn’t want them. my dad was like, “they were good movies, and i think we should reward the producers of the movies for their good product.” what do you think? why collect movies on disc? is it worth it?

i myself have wasted a lot of money on movies. i used to buy a lot of DVD’s. they just sit there in a plastic bin, unwatched and languishing away. and get this: i own the entire _kimagure orange road_ anime series, all 48 episodes, on LASERDISC. i do *not* own a laserdisc player. WTF? what the hell was i thinking? i also own (somewhere in my house) the original _macross_ series on DVD in japanese. (not robotech, but the original.) they are still shrinkwrapped. man, i have spent money on useless crap.

and one of THE most useless things i have ever bought was the $2,000 black playstation yaroze. this is the programmable playstation. i bought this sucker back in 2000, when i had dreams of being a video game programmer. the hardware and software cost $2K, and all i ever did was program this little dinky thing that drove a little tank sprite around. i didn’t even program it to shoot bullets or anything. and that was it. two thousand dollars down the drain. of course, the black playstation was unlocked, so i could play japanese games, so i did get some use out of it (_bust a move_, the original _gran turismo_), but that wasn’t worth the hefty price tag.

i almost gave sony even more money, because when the aibo (the robotic dog) came out, i was thinking of buying that, too. man, i am a sucker for cool things.

*sigh* to think how much money i could have saved if i weren’t such an impulsive buyer.

ok. shit, i need to go. i gotta go to the pharmacy before meeting up with john at southland. see ya.

afterward, we went home and both took naps. when dinner came around, my dad just wanted a mcdonald’s salad, so i let him be independent, and he drove off by himself to mcd’s, fry’s and the gas station to buy lottery tickets. i, instead, met up with tim at southland.

we hung out the rest of the night, drinking some whiskey and watching the golf channel. i swear, i have never seen so many cialis ads on tv. the golf channel demographic must be totally suffering from erectile dysfunction. ha!

sunday morning, i got up at 8, when my dad said he would be packing. however, i peeked out my bedroom window, and his car was gone already! so i called him up, and he was at the shoreline driving range hitting golf balls. so i rushed over there to say goodbye.

then, i went home and fell back asleep on my couch. i met up with a friend in milpitas for lunch. i got the beef and egg over rice, and it was cooked taiwanese style (i.e. with vegetables). then, i went home and watched some college basketball.

i went to fry’s to return some stuff my dad had bought the day before, and i was suppose to get $170 in cash back. however, only one register had that much cash, and i was directed to register #21. however, there was this indian family there, buying over $2,000 of hard disks, two NAS servers, and a bunch of cables. the cashier was this really slow indian woman, and she was really taking her time. all in all, it took like 15 minutes for her to complete the transaction. the supervisor was constantly looking over her shoulder, and i could tell that she was getting impatient. i finally got out of there with my money when the supervisor told the cashier to bypass the family’s business and just get me the cash.

then, i rushed over to AMC mercado to meet up with cliff and tim to watch _alice in wonderland_. we watched the 5:10 showing in 3D. it was a decent movie, tempered by my low expectations (51% on rottentomatoes.com). visually, it was great, and i actually thought the story was passable. after the movie, cliff and i ate across the parking lot at tomatina. i was actually excited to have some caesar salad.

after i got home, i was bored, so i drove to san jose and watched _precious_ on blu-ray with tim. it was a HEAVY movie. but very brilliantly acted by gabourey sidibe and monique. even mariah carey’s bit role was decently well-done. (and i HATE mariah carey.)

i lost an hour of sleep (as we all did in the US) saturday night, and i got up groggily on sunday morning. i watched my DVR’ed _the office_ and _gossip girl_ (it’s back!) before having lunch with mikeT, paul, leeya and baby chloe at pho kim long at 1pm. the line was stupefying. i introduced mikeT to their #27 dish, but i don’t think he liked it very much.

then, for the rest of the day, i was a lazy bum. i took two naps, watched the entire NCAA tournament bracket be revealed (poor showing for the PAC-10), ate a guacamole bacon six dollar burger, watched spike’s _star wars_ marathon and some episodes of _south park_, and finally finished watching the opening ceremonies of the olympics (although my DVR cut off right before they lit the torch, GAH).

and that was it.

but, i will say that that spicy chicken sandwich was DAMN GOOD. tasty as all hell. i love the mayonnaise-like substance that jitb uses, no matter how bad it must be for me.

tonight, i’m meeting up with adam and rae (among others) to celebrate their birthdays. they’re married, if you didn’t know, and their birthdays are one day apart. isn’t that cool? we’re going to los charros. i haven’t decided yet if i’m getting the wet burrito. i don’t want to stuff myself. lately, i’ve stayed away from getting 100% full. i usually stop at about 65-75% fullness. eating small portions is one of my goals for losing weight and being healthier overall.

did i tell you i watched jamie oliver’s speech at TED on the internet? he is really passionate about correcting the food issues that we have. it really hit me when he said that america’s children will live shorter lifespans than their parents. something about that makes me really sad and panicked. it is true, though; when i was growing up, my schools’ meal plans were shit. i remember eating pizza and sloppy joe’s during elementary school, and during high school, it was always french fries and fried chicken strips. terrible, just terrible.

i’m taking tomorrow off from work. my dad’s coming, on his outbound voyage back from texas to taiwan. i don’t know what i’m doing with him yet. i think it’s supposed to rain, so golf might be out of the question. and besides, i want to take some lessons in taiwan before i resume hitting the ball so i don’t perpetuate my bad habits (form-wise). mongolian bbq? i do crave it.

after tomorrow, i will have been smoke-free for 5 weeks. 62.5% done with my patch regimen. i don’t even think about the patch anymore. in fact, this morning, i went to work without changing my patch. i realized this after i got to the office, so i had to go back home and put on a new patch. *bonk* damn, forgetful dardy. so stepping down a level on the nicoderm didn’t really affect me. however, i have to admit that i still get cravings, and like i said, it’s especially strong when i am bored.

people tell me that the urge to smoke is very strong when they are under stress. i haven’t been stressed lately, but i hope i weather the storm well the next time i am under pressure. i remember when i used to smoke, and i was working really hard, i would really savor my cigarette breaks. so i can totally understand how smoking helps a person cope with stress.

i had a dream last night, but i can’t remember the context anymore. but it had something to do with me pressing a springy spacebar as fast as i could, and i got a million points at some game. *shrug*

/15 minutes later/

WTF?! my computer just gave me the blue screen of death and rebooted on its own. how does that happen? i have a PC at work, and it’s been reliable these past 5.5 years. what the FUCK just happened? now, i had to restart all of my simulations and everything. *RAAR* i hate random unexplainable unreproducible catastrophes like this. it makes life unreliable. *sigh*

anyways…

sometimes life gives you too many choices, and you become paralyzed. that’s why i like to stick with the fewest choices possible, namely: one. like, when i bought my car, i knew i wanted a black honda accord V6. i didn’t look at *anything* else. and when i bought my house, i focused on the townhouse that was open in my complex; i didn’t consider any other listing. it makes life easy, clean, and uncomplicated. i think that one of the problems with today’s consumer society is that there are simply too many choices. look at the number of digital cameras or HDTV’s out there; how the hell are you supposed to pick one of them to buy? it’s absolutely discombobulating!

who wants to go to orbital with me? please?

i really need to do my taxes this weekend or next, before i go to taiwan. i need to stop procrastinating and just bite the bullet. i really want to know if owning a house is worth it. i mean, yeah, i’m building equity, and my interest is tax deductible, but is my bottom line going up? i don’t like the idea that the number on my bank account statement is going down by owning a house.

speaking of which, property taxes are due soon. time flies! another $3K. yikes.

one of my coworkers just got back from a three-week trip to malaysia. that’s where his family’s from. when he came back, he looked different. he got a haircut, for one. but i felt that his face looked rounder or something. maybe he ate a lot of food while he was at home? and his skin tone changed, too, but what’s funny is that i can’t tell if he got paler or redder. anyways, poor guy, he’s jet-lagged, and he worked so hard yesterday that he didn’t even go home. now that’s dedication.

basketball was a bust today. we had FIVE people. what the hell do you do with five people? so before the fifth person came, we played 2-on-2, and then, after the fifth person came, i let them play 2-on-2, and i left. this week has really been a bust for me, bball-wise. i hope next week, more people show up.

ok, that’s it for me today. i don’t know if i’ll blog tomorrow, with my dad being here and all. if i don’t, have a STUPENDOUS weekend, folks!

so i went to work, and i had three large mugfuls of water and a pibb xtra. i pissed three times before my scan. and by then, my urine was totally clear. awesome!

i went back to PAMF at noon, and i was told to remove everything from my pockets, my glasses, and belt. i was allowed to keep my watch on. i then lay on a platform in front of this huge machine, and the platform hoisted me up in the air, and two gigantic things rotated around me and performed the scan. they performed three scans: two 5-minute ones (pelvic and chest), and a full-body one that lasted about 12 minutes. and then i was done.

so that’s that! i don’t know when i’ll find out if i have paget’s disease. i scheduled an appointment with the referred endocrinologist on the 23rd, but i wonder if they’ll call me sooner with the results. *shrug* i’m sort of anxious to know, but it’s not killing me or anything.

on the way back to work, i got some yoshinoya. my standard: spicy combo, extra sauce. yum. other than that, it’s been an uneventful work day for me.

last night’s GNO was a bit weird for me. it started off great, but near the end of it, i started feeling a bit panicky and paranoid. i don’t know why. i think i started having a nervous attack or something. i notice that i tend to get this way when i am around crowds. it happens when i play basketball, too. anyways, when i drove home, my brain felt like it was shaking. it took me about 40 minutes to calm down after i got home. hm. i need to get to the bottom of this. do social situations freak me out? this is a serious problem. i don’t want to be like this.

otherwise, GNO was good. we went to hunan homes to celebrate (VERY belatedly) chinese new year. we had one cancellation, so there were 8 guys in the end. the food was good, although as usual, jeremy didn’t get enough to eat. we introduced jose to peking duck, which i think he liked. we talked about all sorts of random stuff, thanks largely to jack’s knowledge of trivia. did you know that pilots’ offspring tend to be girls? go figure!

i had a dream last night where i was getting my portrait taken with three dogs. apparently, i loved those dogs. later on, a blue dog appeared as well. one item that has a recurring appearance in my dreams is this SLR camera. actually, there are two SLR cameras; they have slightly different aspect ratios, and every once in a while, they’ll pop up in my dreams. anyways, the more often-used camera came up again in this dream with the dogs, and i used it to take some pictures. ah, i’m going to miss the nicotine patch giving me funky dreams when i’m done with the regimen.

two of my cousins started using twitter. yesterday, i also started following conan o’brien. he’s pretty funny. i wonder how celebrities incorporate twittering in their lives. i mean, are they doing their celebrity thing (shopping, acting, etc.), and suddenly they have an idea, and they stop in their tracks and reach for their cell phone and tweet away?

i’m almost at 500 tweets now. are you guys following me? honestly, i’m not that interesting. but just to let you know, i’m at twitter.com/choccobo.

i hear that daylight savings starts this sunday. (thanks ann.) spring forward one hour. while i don’t like losing an hour of sleep, i definitely look forward to it getting darker later on in the night. that makes me feel more alive.

i still haven’t tried 5-hour energy yet. i could have certainly used it today. i crashed at 4pm in my cube. but frankly, i’m afraid of 5-hour energy. what if i go bonkers/berserk? the last thing i want to do is get on some weird high and not be able to come down from it. i have had caffeine affect me twice in my life. once was when i had my very first cappuccino, and i couldn’t sleep that night. the second time was when i drank like 3 dr peppers in 10 minutes, and i started shaking. neither of those times was fun for me. 5-hour energy is like a caffeine shot, so i’m afraid of similar adverse effects. hm. i wonder if i’ll ever try it. i sounds like a bungee jump for my brain.

i wonder why much of the world is trained to believe that a beautiful girl is expected to have a hairless body (i.e. legs, armpits). who started that? i mean, in victorian times, did they shave those areas? when did it all begin? they didn’t have razors/wax all throughout history, right? i mean, i am one of those brainwashed people, but i do question it sometimes. i do love the look and feel of a smooth shiny leg of a girl, though. *lick*

i feel bad for women who have mustaches. when alan and company and i went to southland on sunday night, one of the younger waitresses who served us had peach fuzz on her upper lip. it just didn’t look right.

i remember when i had peach fuzz. i didn’t start shaving until late in high school, so i had this black shadow on my upper lip until then. it looked very awkward. oh, btw, i’m thinking about upping my shaving frequency. right now, i only shave every wednesday and sunday. but by the time sunday rolls around, my stubble is so long that shaving is a bit of a hassle. so i’m thinking about changing it up a bit to three times a week. maybe tuesday, thursday, sunday.

ok, 6:19. special time. it’s one of those numbers that looks the same upside down as upright. i’m off!

basically, in my first blood test after my latest physical, my alkaline phosphatase levels were through the roof. like i got a 290, and a 140 is considered the high threshold. so i got yet another blood test, and they looked for a problem in my liver, which there wasn’t any. it turned out that 92% of my alk phos was from my bone, so my doctor is suspecting something called “paget’s disease.”

basically, paget’s has something to do with my bone cells turning over faster than a normal person’s. it can cause pinched nerves, arthritis, abnormal bone growth, etc. so i’m doing a bone scan tomorrow to see if there are any irregularities in my skeletal system. i’m not too worried about it; it’ll just be yet another “condition” that i’ll add to my list of current disorders. *sigh*

anyways…

last night, i watched the blu-ray that i borrowed from tim: _the girlfriend experience_. i was interested in the movie the moment a friend of mine told me about it: it’s about a high-class call girl, played by sasha grey, a real-life porn star. who wouldn’t be interested in that? sex fascinates me. tim hated it, so much so that he fell asleep. but i actually thought it was fairly interesting. i thought it was an interesting look at the emotional and physical detachment in the escort profession. *shrug* i can’t say that i’ll watch it again (even though it’s a short 80-minute movie), but i definitely feel like i got something out of it.

i like sasha grey. i think she’s attractive. (but not hot) she has a nice smile, a sort of genuineness. the only thing that i noticed was that her eyebrows seem sort of abnormally dark.

tonight’s GNO! t-minus an hour and a half! i double-checked my reservation with the restaurant, and we’re all set to go. unfortunately, cliff just texted me and said that something came up, so he’s bailing. that makes our party 8 people, still good and large. it’ll be fun.

how did jake (or any other bachelor) handle dating more than one person? did he just shove his emotions for the other women under the rug when he was with one particular girl? i can see how a person can like more than one girl, because i’ve been in situations where i really liked two girls at once (jo-ann and k3). but in the end, you have to choose just one, right? how do you make that decision? do you go with your heart? your mind? your gut? a combination of all? it must be tough.

i had a dream last night where i was hanging out with cobie smulders (who plays robin in HIMYM), and we wound up eating at this place called “por: the world’s best steak burgers.” we were trying to decide between por and five guys, and we were given this map that showed that the two places were really far away, and we had to navigate through this maze of streets and alleyways.

i had a huge crush on cobie smulders. she was the sole reason why i started watching HIMYM in the first place; i thought she was so hot. now, she’s just ok to me, but i’m hooked on the show. (read: obsessive compulsive)

last night, i picked up nelson at the MV caltrain and met up with paul and leeya at st. john’s. it was 50% off cheesesteak night, so i got the “beg for mercy” cheesesteak. it wasn’t that spicy, but damn, at 5am this morning, i woke up with a huge stomachache. i had to drag myself out of bed and hop on the toilet. and you know what happened next. things got so bad that i was afraid for my sheets, and i had to put on boxers when i went back to sleep as added protection.

yup. that’s me and spicy food. sometimes i can take it fine, but other times, it wrecks me. i really hope that i can continue to eat spicy food without frequent repercussions like that. i adore it so much.

speaking of food, i watched jamie oliver’s 20-minute speech at TED this afternoon. we really need to change the culture of food in the world. sugar, fats, processed food, etc. obesity and unhealthy diets are ingrained into our lifestyles, me included. i mean, i’m relatively slim, but still, i definitely could use healthier eating habits. i think my killer is sodium and a lack of vegetables/fruit. i love strong-tasting food, as my mom cooked with a lot of salt when i was growing up. i detest blandness. and that’s a big reason why i don’t eat vegetables/salad.

if you saw a hot girl, would you think less of her attractiveness if you later found out she had gotten cosmetic surgery? how much do you value “natural” looks? to me, being natural is very important. i don’t care if you look perfect, but if it’s because you went under the knife, then it doesn’t matter. it cheapens the look. when i found out that one of my ex’s had gotten the eyelid surgery, i felt really ill. i remember standing there next to her, looking at her, thinking something was different. she told me that she got the surgery, and i immediately felt like throwing up. people should accept their natural looks. (i mean, unless they have a cleft palate or something extreme like that.)

however, i guess there is a twist in that thinking. i mean, what about weight/diet? haircuts? these are not considered “surgery,” but they are definitely less drastic ways to change appearances, right? hm. i guess to me, going under the knife is just where i draw the line; surgery is too extreme for me. natural ways of changing one’s appearance are acceptable to me, but paying thousands of dollars and going under and getting all cut up and stuff is just too much.

ok. i’m leaving in 50 minutes for GNO. eek!

i still can’t get over that dream i had yesterday morning where i was making out with my junior high school crush, P. it was SO vivid and sensual. tongue, lips, sweat, everything! it was hyper-real. and there was a bicycle thrown in that dream somewhere, too. ha! random. and what’s truly odd about that dream is that it happened when i was sleeping on the couch in the living room, and the tv was on the whole time. who knew that i could dream with that kind of a distraction?

everyone needs a cell phone. really. today, oh, william and i went to choi’s, and we were waiting for viet to come. he responded in an e-mail that he was going to come, but we waited and waited, and we even ordered for him, but he didn’t show up. now, viet doesn’t have a cell phone, so it wasn’t like we could just call him up and ask him where the hell he was. so we had to pack up his cold food and take it to him (at least the other two did). when i got back to the office, there was an e-mail from him saying that he didn’t get a confirmation, so he thought lunch wasn’t happening. *doh* damn!

GNO is happening tomorrow night. i grabbed the reins this time after consulting peter, jay and alan, and declared that it was going to happen tomorrow. it’s a belated celebration of lunar new year, and we are going balls out and ordering peking duck. i LOVE peking duck. i already made a reservation for 9 (the entire gang is coming!), so i’m pretty excited about this. it’ll be good to see all the guys again.

i heard there was some small hail falling today on stanford campus. crazy weather. while i was driving back from lunch today, it was raining like crazy, but the sun was out. i should have stopped to see if there was a rainbow somewhere.

so far the 14mg nicotine patch hasn’t made me jittery or anything. i haven’t noticed a change in the dosage, so i think i’m good to go. no physiological withdrawal effects or anything. nice! i have noticed that i get a craving for a cigarette most when i am bored. not when i have had a meal, not when i am drinking, not when i am driving (altoids help me in that case), but when i am bored. i need to find something to do in those instances.

i think i’ll do my taxes next weekend. i wonder how much longer it’ll take now that i have a mortgage and property tax. i really hope i get a lot of $$$ back.

tonight, i think i’m going to watch _the girlfriend experience_. tim loaned me the blu-ray version of that movie that he got from netflix. i almost never watch recorded movies/tv at home. i dunno. i guess i just don’t like the feeling of watching something that’s not “live” when i could be doing something else. yes, it doesn’t make sense, and it’s something very psychological. i mean, tv is tv, right? what’s the difference if it’s recorded vs. if it’s live? it’s all entertainment, no? but i don’t want to hold up tim’s netflix queue, so i feel an obligation to finish this movie ASAP and get it in the mail tomorrow morning. and besides, i was the one who recommended it, and i already feel bad because he said the movie sucked. i just want to watch sasha gray. luckily, the movie is only 75 minutes or so.

i only watched a bit of the oscars last night at jay’s place, but one thing that i was glad i saw was ally sheedy during the john hughes tribute. i had SUCH a crush on ally sheedy after i watched _st. elmo’s fire_ (which, by the way, remains to this day my favorite movie of all time. yes, surprising choice, no?). and, she looked kinda cute at the end of _the breakfast club_, too, when molly ringwald’s character cleaned her up. ally has definitely aged now, but i can still see a bit of what made me attracted to her. what is she up to these days? i guess i should look her up on IMDb.

sometimes, i go into the men’s bathroom, and a guy is standing there, peeing with no hands involved. how does he do that? i mean, yes, i can understand that his schlong is freewheeling it (and oh, what a wonderful feeling that must be), but how does he keep his pants up? i am too afraid to try that. what would probably happen to me if i did that would be this: my pants would start to fall down, i would panic, and i would clutch at them, and then my schlong would flap around, and i would wind up pissing all over the place, including the ground, my jeans and my shoes. yeah.

ok, time to go look for some food.