Posted on Tue, March 2 2010 at 6:30 pm
chemistry between two people is a curious thing. how does it happen? how does it *not* happen? what are the factors involved? can it be improved? can it decay over time?
i tend to make very quick and decisive first impressions, especially when it comes to women, and especially when they are negative. if a girl is not attractive, then i immediately write her off as a potential mate. i know, it’s really shallow, but i can’t help it. but i look at it as an initial screening process.
and then comes the conversation. and other nonverbal cues, i.e. facial expressions, hand gestures. is there a natural flow of speech, a playful banter? is the girl animated and energetic? witty? does she remember what was said previously and incorporate that into the conversation? are there awkward pauses? is she creative and random?
sometimes, we have to make an effort to make the exchange go smoothly. other times, more rarely, the interaction is effortless. those are the special ones. and what i can’t quite distill is what makes those special ones special, like what factors create those “sparks.”
one thing i have learned about myself this weekend is that i am, at my very core, a shy person. when i grew up, my parents never pushed me to go play with other kids. i remember being friends with the building blocks more so than other kids. my parents told me that my kindergarten teachers marveled at the elaborate structures i created with those blocks. of course, i had some friends, but those memories with them are very singular, i.e. i had one friend, or another friend, but not groups of them.
i also learned that i take time to warm up to people. i have two examples of this. first was my freshman year at stanford. i was dreadfully quiet during my first few months at college. then, after i was comfortable in my surroundings, i suddenly BLEW UP and became this crazy, wacky dude.
another example was during my trip to italy/spain. i went with 8 other people who i didn’t know. i was also very quiet at first. but throughout the course of the two and a half weeks, i became more and more vocal, and my travelmates told me that they definitely noticed that. so i definitely have an “incubation period.”
you guys read my previous post, “virginia,” right? well, i mentioned some of the silliness that ensued, a la the cartwheels, the mustaches, the dancing, etc. well, i held back and didn’t participate in that. i reverted back to my shy, reserved self. and it was not a good thing. and i am very disappointed in myself that i couldn’t dig deep within myself and open up more quickly. but the problem is, i think that it is just within my nature to be like that.
concurrently, i have this deep-set nagging thought that has been stirring in my brain ever since i talked to alan on sunday afternoon. and that thought is: am i boring now? i mean, all of you who have been following this blog should be able to answer this question. i used to be more outrageous and random in my writing, no? has my brain become more subdued, quieted, restrained?
and then, as i was talking to jay this afternoon, i started thinking: is it the meds? there is no question that haldol is the atomic bomb of psychotropic medication. has it killed off the spontaneity that was such a signature of the “me” of the past?
anyways, i have a gazillion thoughts of what went wrong this weekend, and i don’t have many answers. and i *want* answers. i want to know what i can do better next time. i want to conquer my shyness and jump into new social experiences like a fucking flaming chameleon. i want to be, well, like a normal person.
one thing that i know about myself are two phrases that i have always used to describe myself: “wallflower among strangers” and “fearless among friends.” i think that’s true about myself. when i am in a room full of people i don’t know, i, for the life of me, don’t know what the hell to do. i was never trained to do it. but once i get to know people well, i have no problems expressing myself. (ironically, the fact that i have this blog must mean that i treat all you darling readers as people i “know.” weird, huh? anonymity = intimacy)
anyways, S is an amazing, one-of-a-kind woman. she is a character among characters that i have never seen before. i adore her to bits, but my inability to connect destroyed what could have been. and i have no one to blame but myself. i can’t say that even at my best, whether we would have been compatible, but i would have liked to have given a better shot at it. a much better shot.
it will take me a while to get over her.
Tags: dating, girls, wonderment
notables » 1 Comment
Posted on Tue, March 2 2010 at 10:48 am
100th post! so what i didn’t tell you guys was that this past weekend, i took a flight out to virginia to see S.
friday night, i took will out to maruichi for his birthday, and then he took me to the airport. i had a 9:50pm redeye out to IAD (dulles). i drugged myself up with seroquel and 0.5mg of xanax, so i was able to catch some sleep on the 5 hour flight. the turbulence was pretty bad during some parts, and it woke me up quite a few times, though. the virgin america is a pretty cool, swanky airline.
i arrived in IAD around 6am. IAD sucks. you have to ride these trams to get from terminal to terminal. by the time i got to baggage claim, my roller was sitting there, waiting for me. S was still on her way, so our initial greeting, which i had been planning out like a hundred times in my head, was not to be executed.
she drove up outside on the curb (and it was COLD outside), and we hugged, and then, it was off on a 2-hour drive to richmond, VA. we grabbed some coffee at a local starbucks first. we chatted on the way down, and then we eventually landed at a hotel in richmond, where her friend T was sleeping on the floor. they had apparently been drinking pabst blue ribbon (PBR: also affectionately called “the people’s beer of richmond”) the night before.
we waited for T to get up and get ready, and then we dropped him off at the convention center, where he was representing his company at a handmade bike convention. and then, S and i went to grab brunch at millie’s cafe. the food was excellent. i had a soft scramble with lobster and a jameson on the rocks. (yes, whiskey in the AM.)
after brunch, we headed to maymont park, this really random place that had a bear, two bald eagles, some deer, falcons/hawks, and a random assortment of farm animals. there was also this old, blind sheep with vertigo that drove it walk around in circles, poor thing.
after the park, we went to carytown, this strip of a street with various shops. we bought four cupcakes (carrot for me) and looked at stationary and music (i decided that i would look into buying the latest MGMT and bebel gilberto CD’s).
then, we picked up T and decided to check out this place called hollywood cemetery. creepy, but ok. T guided us on his iPhone, and we wound up at this big cemetery. ok, now what? we were kind of like, “uh…” and then we left. then, S saw a sign for “hollywood cemetery,” and she followed it and wound up at the real one. apparently, this is a place where famous people were buried, like jefferson davis and other big historical personalities. we drove around and then headed back to the hotel.
at the hotel, we did some silly stuff. S started doing cartwheels. i mentioned how i wanted to play horse, so we wadded up magazine paper, propped the ice bin against the tv, and shot the paper. T and S started dancing to “all the single ladies” by beyonce. we took a “what’s your spirit animal?” quiz. S and i were both wolves, and T was a hawk. then, S and T drew mustaches on their index fingers and started talking with them on.
for dinner, we met up with S’s college roommate K at this bbq place. frankly, i thought it smelled better outside than it tasted. i got a brisket sandwich. not bad.
after dinner, we went out drinking. we first hit this bar called helen. a double bushmills for me, a dirty martini for S, and a gin and soda for T. we shared stories. then, i got a jameson on the rocks. we then tried to buy some hard alcohol to take back to the hotel, but the ABC store (apparently, you can only buy hard alcohol in VA at the ABC store) was closed at 9. so we hit the 7-11 and bought 4 40’s.
at the 7-11, we saw this cheap publication called _gotcha_. it featured local criminals and showed their faces and the crime they were convicted of. we were astounded. there were sections like “stubble trouble,” “look-alikes” and “multi-taskers” (people with multiple convictions). WTF?
while driving back, we spotted a chili’s, so we stopped by for more drinks. they had $1.50 coronas, so T got two, S got one, and i eventually had two more whiskeys. the bartender was really cool. had made this one self-invented concoction called a “chocolate strawberry” and let us try it.
i was pretty drunk by then, so by the time we went back to the hotel, i just hopped into bed and eventually passed out. S and T apparently danced the night away.
sunday morning, we packed, checked out of the hotel, and went to kitchen 64 for brunch. we got a $12 pitcher of mimosa. i got a breakfast burrito. then, we dropped off T at the airport, said our goodbyes, and S and i headed back to the DC area. she dropped me off at my hotel, and i got a 3-4 hour block to chill out. i called up alan to debrief him, watched the mavs game, dozed off, etc.
for dinner, we went to five guys hamburgers. amyM raves about this place so much that i had to try it. so we went to the dupont circle area of DC, parked, and walked to five guys. it was decent. then, we walked over to the 18th street lounge, which was another place i wanted to hit. they didn’t open until 9:30pm, so we walked next door to this placed called “public bar,” which turned out to be this MASSIVE sports bar. i mean, it had like 20+ flat screen tv’s and one huge screen. S got a peroni beer, and i had two jameson’s.
we watched the closing ceremonies of the olympics there, and when 9:30 hit, we went next door to the 18th street lounge. S got a guinness, and i would eventually have two bushmills. the music was pretty cool, as i remembered it to be. we would have a serious talk there. we left around 11 or so, and she dropped me off at the hotel. i called alan up, and we had a long chat of the happenings from that night.
monday, i woke up past 10, checked out, and we went to georgetown to have lunch. we walked around, and ate at la madeleine. sausage, mushroom and spinach omelette. we went to a stationary store and when walked along the waterfront. then, it was off to the airport.
i would spent the next four hours at the airport. my flight was delayed by two hours because of the SFO low cloud cover, which caused one of the runways to shut down. my 4:30 flight was delayed until 6:15. thank goodness for my iPod, which i almost didn’t bring. i slept for the first hour of the flight, and then, i checked out their “red” interactive service by watching various satellite tv shows and music videos.
will picked me up. i made him rush me home to watch the final 15 minutes of _the bachelor_ (man, jake picked the wrong girl), and then we went to fu lam mum for dinner. then, we went home, and i wrote an e-mail to S and called it night.
so yeah, that was my weekend. thoughts will come in the next post.
Tags: food, friends, girls
weekend updates » 1 Comment
Posted on Fri, February 26 2010 at 4:00 pm
well, looks aren’t everything… because if they were, then janell wheeler wouldn’t have gotten voted off _american idol_ last night. she was definitely the most attractive girl on the show. so that’s too bad; i would have liked her to stay longer, but america didn’t seem to share my fondness for her. i’m astounded that haeley vaughn didn’t get booted, though. does votefortheworst.com really have that much sway?
the guys’ result was even more astounding. the worst singer by far (also votefortheworst’s champion) got spared. i was baffled. and even *he* was baffled. that look on his face was priceless, like “WTF?!” i think that he was ready to go, but now we get to experience at least one more week of his horrible singing. i can’t wait to hear simon’s scathing criticism. i mean, this week he told him, “we made the right decision the first time in not electing you to the top 24.” OUCH.
i made a lot of good progress this week at work. however, it did not end on a high note. i wrote a register test yesterday, and for some insane reason, it just hangs there after the first register read. this test was built on a template, and the another templated test runs fine, so what the fuck? i am utterly confused. i’ll need some help in debugging this one.
i slept for a good 11 hours last night. i think my body was not expecting it. i woke up at 2am, 5am, and then at various times in the morning. i really wish i had seen kim yu-na’s free skate, but i really needed wanted some extra sleep. i heard yu-na KILLED it. good for her.
the skiing aerials are nuts. how do you even begin to do some of that stuff? stuff like 3 flips, 5 twists in one jump. i mean, the amount of body control required to do something like that is just astounding. pretty neat. it’s a nice juxtaposition to ski jumping. both of the activities involve massive jumping action, but on one hand, you’ve got a crazy, frenetic twist/turn stuff, and on the other hand, you’re completely motionless.
so more alkaline phosphatase test results came back. my doctor called me yesterday afternoon. one test in particular says that my ALP is mainly coming from my bones (something like 92% of it, and only 6% liver, 2% from a third source), so that points to a hyperactivity in my bones, which could be something called paget’s disease. this disease involves a fast bone growth, which could cause misshapen bones in the future, which could cause pinched nerves or a tendency to get fractures more easily. anyways, my doctor said that i need to get a fully-body bone scan sometime soon to verify that i do have this disorder. fuck.
the human body is amazing. it’s amazing that everything works most of the time. it’s so complex; there are so many systems (nervous, circulatory, digestive, endocrine, etc.) that have to function just right to keep us alive, and for the most part, they do. of course, sometimes, things to terribly wrong, but the fact that most of us are generally healthy is a very impressive thing. if you really think about it, it’ll blow your mind. life is truly a miracle.
i’m not 100% sure about this, but i think i’ve been having fitful sleep. sometimes, i wake up, and i find the pillow that i hug to be completely off the bed. it’s like i’ve flung it onto the ground while i sleep. the other day, my three blankets were rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise. what is going on here? usually, i’m a peaceful sleeper, but now, weird stuff is afoot. am i tossing and turning a lot? is it the nicotine patches? am i dreaming of wrestling somebody and acting it out?
shit, i gotta find some time to do my taxes. I WANT THAT REFUND!
i think my jaw is going to have massive arthritis when i get old. every time i yawn, it clicks and pops. when did this start happening? i think it was when i developed TMJ back in 2000. i still remember why i got TMJ. it was when i bought the internet stock CMGI during the internet boom. i bought 6 shares at $198 per share. i was so stressed out because the stock was so volatile. i eventually sold it a few weeks later at $199, after it had split, so i doubled my money. i remember being at CES in las vegas and trying to log onto yahoo finance on a public computer to check the stock quote. it was so fucking stressful. funnily, though, i get more stressed out when a stock i own is going up than when it’s going down.
ok, this is my 99th wordpress entry. time has really flown by on this blog. and i’m telling you, entry #100 is going to be a doozy. just a warning.
Tags: health, sports, tv, work
general mundane shit » No Comments
Posted on Thu, February 25 2010 at 7:08 pm
hey people, it’s almost 7pm, and i just got out of a 1.5 hour meeting that was like pulling teeth. so i’m going to make this short and go home. my meeting was about static timing constraints, and if you know what i’m talking about, then you will know that it is one of the most painful and tedious parts of chip design. so i’m exhausted.
last night, i had a dream where i was wearing a red shirt with red pinstripe pants. yeah, just dandy, right? and my pants had these metal hooks for… suspenders! yup. super-dandy. i forget why the hell i was dressing up in all red; maybe it was for chinese new year or a gay ball or something. but the moment i snapped the suspenders in place, i woke up.
then, i had a dream, my very first one, i think, where k1 and k2 were in it at the same time. i was with k2, riding a gondola of sorts, and i saw k1 in a long flowy white or eggshell dress, with an infant sucking at her right breast. (they both have kids now.) i remember thinking in the dream that even though i was going out with k2, i really wanted to be with k1. conflict of emotions there.
that’s about it. other than that, AI was really boring last night. lee dewyze made “chasing cars” sound tolerable, as i fucking hate that song. he was the best performance of the night for me, and but that’s not saying much because most of the other guys sucked ass. the dude who sang “apologize” was horrible (he couldn’t hit the high falsettos), and that alex lambert guy was so scared he looked like he was about to piss in his pants. so far, it’s shaping up to be a horrible season.
not much else to report. i had my 4th 8:30am conference call with israel today. hopefully this will be the last one. i’m aiming to get a lot of sleep tonight, as tomorrow will be a long day.
i was going to have just a pear for dinner last night, but at 10:30, i broke down and got a jalepeno six dollar burger from carl’s jr. it was so damn good. talk about going the complete opposite way on trying to cut down on food. but yes, these six dollar burgers are quite tasty. it’s got something to do with the way they season their beef. it’s peppery or something. if only st. john’s would do the same, or else i’d go there more often. st. john’s burgers are quite bland, i’ve realized. i mean, their half-off deals are very attractive, but their stuff just doesn’t taste very good.
ok, i’m tired. i’m outta here.
Tags: dreams, food, tv, work
general mundane shit » No Comments
Posted on Wed, February 24 2010 at 5:46 pm
i guess that’s the motto of a verification engineer. code is never verified unless you test it. otherwise, you have to assume that it doesn’t work.
that’s what happened today. we got a new release of the AC code, so i ran through my basic sanity tests. things were fine. but then, this test had a new feature, and the designers said they “tested” it, and it worked. but i didn’t take their word for it, so i went ahead and wrote two tests of my own to exercise the new feature. they failed. yup. i dug through the code, looked at some waveforms, and there was a glaring mistake in the RTL. motherfucker! WTF? how could they have tested it and gotten it to pass? i don’t get it.
anyways, i made a fix to the code, and i’m re-running the test right now. we’ll see if i did the right thing. it’s a really good thing that i didn’t just trust their claim that the feature worked, otherwise we would have been hosed. this feature is critical to the AC’s functionality, and without it, we would have been fucked.
so what does this mean? probably another 8:30am conference call tomorrow morning. ugh.
AI was really boring last night. nobody blew me away. i was mildly interested in siobhan magnus’s rendition of “wicked game,” but that was mainly because it was a girl singing it. i have to say, janell wheeler is quite attractive. haeley vaughn looks scary. and that’s all of my thoughts on last night’s TWO hours of tv. yeah, boring, huh? let’s hope the guys do better tonight. i swear, SYTYCD is such a better show.
i’m slowly learning the names of all of the contestants on AI. as you know by now, i’m a freak when it comes to lists. i can still recite the bottom 12 (in order) of seasons 6 and 7 on AI. (strangely, i can’t recite the top 12 of any season, though.) but yeah, this year, the format is conducive to me doing it again, so i keep staring at the names when they come up. for some reason, i have a really hard time learning paige miles’s last name. it’s just so plain.
i’ve noticed that the three turkish engineers in my company love fried chicken. like, the golden chicken at dusita (it’s breaded, deep-fried chicken) and stuff like chicken katsu at japanese restaurants. is this akin to some popular turkish dish? i can’t eat too much katsu-type stuff without sauce; the fried breaded grease gets to me. i once got 6 mcd’s chicken mcnuggets without sauce, and i couldn’t eat more than two of them plain. it was just gross. it’s amazing what a big difference sauce makes.
lots of visitors coming into town the next few months. gina’s coming next week, then my dad a few days later, then my dad again the following week, then emi from LA, and then dave and carolyn’s family in april. i love having visitors; it really breaks the monotony of the routine of workdays/weekends.
i ate baked ziti for the first time last night. the volleyball crew decided to go to frankie, johnnie and luigi’s last night instead of fu lam mum, and ann reminded me that the last time we went to FJ&L’s, i promised myself i would order the baked ziti. it was not bad. it was quite a struggle to finish the whole thing; i could have gone with just eating half of it. but i powered through. one thing i didn’t eat was the entire piece of congealed cheese on the top, though; my heart probably thanked me for doing that.
one funny thing was when i tried to put some parmesan cheese on my dish. the cheese had stuck in the holes of the shaker, and i couldn’t get any more of the parmesan out. i looked over at ann helplessly. she just took it, pounded the shaker on the table, and voila! the cheese shook free of the holes! i felt so stupid for not thinking of doing that. i guess somethings are just common sense to people. *bonk*
when my dad gets here next saturday, there’s taiko performance featuring three collegiate groups, including my old group, stanford taiko. i’m debating whether i should take him. i don’t know how interested my dad is in seeing people bang on drums, you know? i’d personally love to go. my parents were never really big on the fine arts and performances and stuff. i mean, i grew up taking classical piano lessons, but we never went to the symphony or opera or anything like that. i don’t know if it’s because we didn’t have the money, or if my parents were just not interested.
i had a dream about work this morning. it was very stressful, like the dream was about me having half a dozen issues to deal with and work on. that’s a bad sign. i think it means i’m getting too involved with my job. when i first started working, i was waaaay too into it. i would get headaches at the end of the workday, i would dream about work, i would think about it when i was in the shower, in the car, etc. lately, i’ve been so embroiled in this audio verification that apparently it’s seeping into my subconscious. bad, bad, bad! i need a break. luckily, this weekend, i’m going to get one. and hopefully, no more dreams about work.
have you seen the trailers for the new _the karate kid_? it stars will smith’s son jaden, and jackie chan as the mentor. it’s set in china, where a black family moves there, and the young black kid gets picked on, and jackie chan teaches him kung-fu. hm. kung-fu ain’t karate. so why call it _the karate kid_? the trailer seems decent, as the scenery and stuff looks nice and all. the fighting looks more choreographed and artistic than the original. but still, i just don’t think they should have made it stem from the original. they should have called it _kung-fu black boy_. haha. i kid.
ok. i’m blogging earlier and earlier, it seems.
Tags: dreams, food, friends, movies, tv, wonderment, work
general mundane shit » No Comments
Posted on Tue, February 23 2010 at 5:50 pm
i had a crazy dream this morning at 6am. (i always seem to wake up at 6am these days.) i was part of a military force, and i was packing a pistol. my regiment was scanning around a plaza or something, and suddenly, we identified a suicide bomber. (i remembered that i thought he looked suspicious and out of place earlier in my dream when i was scanning the public.) everyone panicked, and the bomber started CHASING ME. i ran backwards, trying to shoot him with my pistol, but i couldn’t hit him. he was gaining on me, so i turned around and started running as fast as i could. then, he must have detonated himself, because then i woke up. (i’ve never died in my dreams before.)
what a dream, eh? i am chalking it up to another one of my crazy nicotine patch dreams. and i think it was influenced by watching _the hurt locker_ a few weeks ago. nuts. i didn’t like this one so much. 
i am maxed out on vacation again. i just checked my latest paycheck. 320 hours of PTO. EIGHT WEEKS. crazy, huh? so i talked to the project manager, and i am taking monday off. it will be nice to have a 3-day weekend. my PM basically told me to get my audio testing done this week, and he’ll put me on some other assignments starting next week.
last night’s _the bachelor: the women tell all_ was very disturbing. there was one point where one of the girls and rozlyn were telling very different stories about rozlyn’s alleged romance with one of the producers, and they both swore that they were telling the truth. the girl swore on her dog’s life (and she said that her dog is the most important thing to her in her life), and rozlyn swore on her kid’s life. but *someone* had to be lying. how can one of these women swear so flippantly? i don’t get it. anyways, i can’t wait to see what happens in next week’s finale. last night, chris harrison asked jake if he was happy with his final decision, and jake said simply, “i’m happy.” not “i’m ecstatic” or “i’m SO happy.” so sabrina and i are wondering if jake picked no one at the end. JUICY. yeah, i’m so sucked into this trashy show. and if ali gets picked to be the next bachelorette, you know i am TOTALLY watching it.
i had pho with jay last night. he’s going to french laundry tonight with margaret. i’m jealous. not that i want to spent $250 a person on a prie fixe 9-course meal, but i just want to get the french laundry experience. it’s touted as one of the very best restaurants ever, so yeah, i want to go one of these days. i’m actually not that into fancy food, but once in a while, it’s a good luxury to have. i wonder if they have good whiskey.
speaking of whiskey, we went to grab pho (again, but i got a rice plate instead) for lunch today, and after the meal, i walked over to the convenience/liquor store next door and bought a $40 bottle of 12-year jameson reserve. i’m running low on whiskey at home, and when my dad comes in a few weeks, i want to have something to offer him to drink. i’ve only got a little bit of black bush and a few drops of sheep dip left in my kitchen.
i’m excited about my dad coming. the only thing is, he’ll want to smoke with me, and i can’t. ever since he started to smoke recreationally, we’ve had a lot of bonding moments over our cigarette breaks, but now that i’ve quit, i’ll have to be firm with him and tell him that i can’t do it anymore. maybe he can smoke, and i can have an altoid or something. i have a feeling that my dad smokes more than recreationally, because he told me that he’s tried to quit five times. but anyways, i resolve not to smoke with him. i just can’t do it.
well, _american idol_ starts tonight. two hours of karaoke tonight (girls), and two more hours of it tomorrow (boys). ugh. i am NOT looking forward to it. but i have to watch. i feel like this is such a big part of american pop culture that i have to keep with it. but honestly, i’d rather not if i had the choice. it just seems tedious to me. there are only two contestants that i like this year: didi the girl and andrew garcia. i’m slightly interested in john park the korean guy, but they haven’t shown much footage of him throughout the audition process, so i don’t know what to make of him. but he’s asian, so i support him. i just hope he’s not another paul kim, the barefoot korean dude a few seasons ago who sang “careless whisper” and got booted out in the first week.
of course, with AI comes a whole new round of memorization. yes, i memorize who gets eliminated every year. i can still recite the bottom 12 of seasons 6 and 7. (not season 8 because the format made it too difficult.) however, what’s funny is that while i can remember the bottom 12, i can’t remember the top 12. weird, huh? ah, me and my obsession with lists.
i finally heard from gina the other day. gina is a taiko friend from stanford. she completely disappeared from the face of the planet when she went to NYC for medical residency. i would call her, e-mail her, but no response. but this past saturday, she resurfaced, and she’s coming out for an interview at stanford next thursday! i am going to give her grief about ignoring me these past few years. but yes, i missed her. i will always remember her making me “her bitch” for one afternoon, where i had to carry her stuff and do her bidding that entire time. ha!
ok, i’m off soon for a haircut.
Tags: dreams, food, friends, smoking, tv
general mundane shit » No Comments
Posted on Mon, February 22 2010 at 6:05 pm
so today, i was in the office bathroom, taking a dump. when i finished, i wiped (twice, of course), got up, flushed, zipped up, and then stepped out of the stall. then, i realized that i needed to take a piss. however, someone was at the urinal (there are two). i didn’t want to use the other urinal because i thought the guy might think it was strange that i didn’t take a leak while i was sitting on the toilet. so in the end, i just left the bathroom, took the elevator to the first floor, and took a leak there. am i weird?
this does happen to me sometimes, i.e. taking a dump, not “feeling” a piss coming on, and then finishing the dump and realizing i need to do a #1 afterward. i guess i am just not that self-aware of my own body sometimes, which is REALLY strange, because sometimes i am hyper-aware of my body’s state. *shrug*
so i had yet another 8:30am conference call with the UK and israel today. this was my third one. getting up for it is painful. luckily, i can be at home for these, so i just get my cordless landline phone, keep it next to me in bed, and i call in while i’m still laying down, snuggling in my blankets. it turns out that the changes (clock dividers) i made last week aren’t needed, so that was all for naught. oh well. that actually frees up part of my work, because otherwise i would have had to edit two netlists, run formal verification on them, etc. yay for that.
this morning, i dreamt that i was eating huge bowl of apple jacks. apple jacks rule. they are way better than froot loops. before that, i also had a dream where i was sitting on a ledge naked, and i clearly remember playing with my foreskin, like peeling it back and staring at the ridge of the head and stuff. in the past week or so, my dreams have been less vivid, and my ability to remember them have diminished. perhaps i’m getting used to the nicotine patch? hm.
over the weekend, i watched an ex-coworker’s daughter on a tv show, _veronica’s blog_. it’s a pretty low-budget teenage sitcom that’s shot in the bay area, and it shows on saturdays on UPN. it just so happened that i got home from buying the sprinkles cupcakes, and i logged on facebook, and an update told me that it was on. i remember my ex-coworker saying that her daughter was going to be featured on an upcoming episode, so it turned it on. and what do you know, she was right there! she got to sing on the show (the episode was about a talent show), and she did a pretty good job. that’s pretty cool.
it must be hard trying to get into show business. i mean, how do you get discovered? we know of people who get big breaks, but for every actor or actress who gets discovered, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, who fail. it must be so tough.
i need to do my taxes. hm. when can i do them? i need to find a few hours one of these weekends when i can come into the office and just rip them out. i’m getting thousands of dollars back this time because of my mortgage interest, so i’m excited.
tonight, i’m going over to jimmy and sabrina’s place to watch _the bachelor: the women tell all_. it should be super-trashy fun. apparently, this reality steve guy knows a lot of stuff about these shows. how does he get this information? how does the info get leaked to him? he knows about all the strings that the producers pull for the sake of ratings and stuff, etc. crazy, to have such inside knowledge. and sort of sad, too, to be so embroiled by something so junky as reality tv. but hey, the public loves it, so there’s a demand for this sort of stuff.
i saw a great youtube video the other day. it’s a polka (it think it’s polka) band doing katy perry’s “hot and cold.” i don’t have the link handy, but do a search for it. i think the band’s name is “los colorados.” it made me smile.
i get a lot more sleep than everyone else i know. i don’t think it’s a good thing. i mean, someday there might come a day when i’ll have kids, and the number of hours of sleep i’ll get will go down drastically. right now, i get about 10 hours of sleep a day. that’s a lot, right? i have a friend on the east coast who goes to bed the same real time as me, and she gets up way earlier than me. it boggles my mind. i really need to learn how to function normally on less sleep.
i got this google phrase hit today: “public tekoki competition.” huh? what is that? how do you “compete” in tekoki? whichever girl gets the guy to blow his wad first? that’s the only thing i can think of. but different guys have different sensitivities, so that wouldn’t be an unbiased contest, right? i don’t get it. i’d love to know more about this.
woah, it’s after 6pm. i need to call jay. ok, i’m going to end it here, folks. have a nice day.
Tags: bodily functions, dreams, dumpage, tv, work
general mundane shit » No Comments
Posted on Mon, February 22 2010 at 3:58 pm
friday night, my cousin D was visiting SF from LA, and he took the 8:40 caltrain down to come to my place. before he got here at 9:50pm or so, i watched the celtics/trailblazers game. rajon rondo can’t really score, but he’s a pretty damn good point guard otherwise.
i picked up D from the MV caltrain stop, and then we went to the duke of edinburgh for dinner and drinks. D seemed unsure of what drink to get, so he just copied me and got a black bush on the rocks, even though he’s not a real whiskey drinker. i don’t think he liked it very much. he got a burger, and i got a BLT with extra mayo, just like the night before. this time, they gave me the mayo on the side, so i dunked my sandwich generously in the white stuff.
we chatted about D’s 2-month travels around the globe (thailand, nepal, jordan, europe) and stuff. D seems to be doing some soul-searching. then, i drove him back up to the city. on the drive down, i was getting really sleepy, so i blasted some music and cold air in my car.
i got a drunk text and drunk dial that night, so i talked to my friend for a while before going to bed.
saturday, i had brunch at hobee’s with barden. hobee’s was having olympics-themed special, so barden got the apolo ohno omelette. i got my usual: stanford cardinal omelette, with pork sausage instead of chicken. damn good.
then, i went into work for a bit, as i got a call from the project manager to send over some files to the israel guys. i was only there for about half an hour, thank goodness. then, i drove to stanford shopping center and picked up a dozen sprinkles cupcakes for the party at night.
i drove home, relaxed a bit, and then headed off to alviso for geoff’s big sendoff party. he’s headed to iraq to do a military tour of duty. yeah, it’s heavy stuff. i will do some agnostic praying for him while he’s gone. he says he’ll be gone for about five months, but i don’t know what obama’s plan is for the iraqi occupation, so we’ll see about that. i just hope that geoff will be ok and come back safe and sound.
the party was held at alvin and jen’s house in alviso. alviso is in the middle of nowhere, but damn, they have a nice, big house. it was over 2,500 sq ft, which is more than twice as big as my place. crazy, man. they own a bunny named “cadbury,” and it just roamed around the living room as the party went on. cute, but a little odd. i had a fun time hanging out with the bowling crowd. and this time, i made sure i said a proper goodbye and good luck to geoff when i left.
sunday, i had dim sum at dynasty with 7 other people, an outing that was organized by jen. and that was all the in-person social interaction i had that day. i went home and napped for two hours, and then watched olympics and basketball the rest of the day. i played some piano (man, that chopin piece is NOT coming back to me), chatted with eriko on the phone, talked to S, got another drunk dial, talked to jay, talked to alan (multiple times), etc. so at least i did some stuff.
anyways, this upcoming weekend will be BIG. i’m very excited for it, and i’m already getting a little preoccupied with it. details will be revealed later.
Tags: food, friends
weekend updates » No Comments
Posted on Fri, February 19 2010 at 6:02 pm
this morning, i had a really scary experience. i got to work, and i sat at my cubicle and immediately started to do some work after a few minutes. then, my brain just started to freak out. it sped up faster and faster, and suddenly, i felt like my head was in hyperspace. it’s hard to describe, but it felt like my brain was about to explode, like it was speeding up to a ludicrous speed. have you guys ever felt like that before? the last time i got one of these spells was a few years ago.
i don’t know what caused it, but if i had to venture a guess, maybe it’s because of work stress. i worked really hard yesterday debugging the audio testcase, and i noticed that i got this weird attack when i started writing my second test. i don’t quite remember what made it stop, though, but i do remember at after about 15-20 minutes, my brain just started slowing down, and eventually things went back to normal.
it was really scary. i was in a state of hyper-awareness; i could still type and function, but i felt like i was about to burst in a million little pieces. ugh. i *almost* went out for a cigarette just to calm myself down. i don’t know if i would have worked, though.
anyways…
work-wise, i made good progress today. i wrote the remaining three tests from the test plan that i drafted. i realized, however, that i probably have to write one or two more tests to fully exercise all the hardware. oh well.
i’m trying to finish all the work i have left early so there are no reason that my bosses can use to keep me from going to taiwan in mid-march. it’s coming up soon, and i don’t want my dad to have to reschedule my flights and pay penalties. plus, as it stands right now, we’re flying back together, and i really would like to do that.
i’m chewing gum right now. i was curious to see how that could affect my nicotine craving, you know, keeping my mouth busy and all that. so far, it’s pretty good. i added a second piece of gum so i can blow bubbles. i still know how to do it! haha. is there a difference between chewing gum and bubble gum? like, in the formulation or anything?
my cousin david is in SF right now. we’re planning on meeting up tonight. i told him to take the caltrain down, and that i would take him to the duke of edinburgh for drinks. funny, i just went there last night with tim for dinner and drinks. i wanted to celebrate my triumph at work with whiskey and a BLT with extra mayo. that was one fucking delicious BLT. mayo makes all the difference.
ok, my jaw is starting to get tired and sore from all this gum chewing. but i can’t stop! it something’s in my mouth, i have to chew it. arrgh. should i spit it out? i love blowing bubbles!
we had our free company lunch today. to celebrate lunar new year, we had chinese food, made by the regular catering people that serve the daily lunches/dinners. it was horrible. the only decent dish was the hot and sour soup. the worst things by far were the eggrolls, which resembled oily flaccid penises. ick. my favorite part of company lunch day is the fact that they stock the fridges with free drinks, and that means… free dr pepper! i’ve had three today. i might get one more after i write this. yes, i know, too much soda. but it’s only once a month that i do this.
so today is day 14. tomorrow morning, i’ll be done with one box of nicotine patches. then, i’ll start another 2-week regimen of 21mg patches, and then it’ll be one box of 14mg, and then finally one box of 7mg. six more weeks to go before i’m completely nicotine-free. i’m really curious how it’ll go when i step down from 21mg to 14mg. will i/my body notice it? will i get physiological nicotine withdrawal symptoms? we shall see.
we were talking about my quitting smoking during lunch today, and i showed one of my coworkers my patch. i did so by pulling down the neckhole of my t-shirt and exposing my left upper chest. the manager, P, was like, “oh, i thought you were going to show her your breast implant.” *sarcastic laugh* i guess it’s sort of suggestive when i show someone my chest, huh? at least i’m not exposing nipple or anything.
CIGNA, my company’s PPO health insurance provider, gave everyone in the company (even those not enrolled with CIGNA) two rubber squeezy balls. they’re blue. haha, two blue balls. i guess they’re for stress relief? have times really gotten so hectic and stressful that people need to be handing out these things? i wonder what that says about the perceived atmosphere in the workplace.
i don’t like the new e*trade baby. the old one was cuter. but i guess he probably grew too old, and the advertising agency had to replace him with the new baby. shucks. the new one’s pretty ugly-looking. that’s the problem with using a real person as an anchor for a commercial; when that person dies or gets old or something, you’ve got a problem. companies like geico, jack in the box and wendy’s were smart by using characters that don’t depend on actual humans.
ok, 6pm. i’m off to find some more dr pepper. and then i’m off. have a STUPENDOUS weekend, darling pups!
Tags: food, health, smoking, tv, wonderment, work
general mundane shit » No Comments
Posted on Thu, February 18 2010 at 7:03 pm
so i found a weird issue in my test today, one which could explain why it’s failing.
so suppose you have a clock that’s sampling another signal. and in your simulation, at the clock’s edge, the other signal changes at the exact same time. which value do you get then? ah, that’s the million dollar question, and that’s the problem i ran into today. it was getting the latter value, and it screwed up the serial-to-parallel converter in the audio CODEC that i was simulating. eureka!
i’m tired. last night, i fell asleep in front of my tv until about 1am. i watched AI, and then the olympics. shaun white is cool. i didn’t feel offended when his coach started cursing, but i think NBC’s west coast feed muffled out what he was saying. double mctwist 1260! then, i watched the news, which was interesting because there was that plane crash in palo alto that knocked power out in that entire city for 10 hours. then, i watched more olympics, and passed out. i was all groggy and stuff, so i skipped taking a shower and just went to bed.
this morning, i woke up at 8:25am and got on a conference call while i was still in bed. it lasted for about 35 minutes. then, i went back asleep, and the next thing i new, it was almost 11am. so i jammed and hurried into the office.
i quickly fired off a simulation to reproduce some debussy waveforms, FTP’ed the results, and then went to my coworker’s farewell lunch. upon my suggestion, we went to fu lam mum. their dim sum is quite good! i was surprised. the best thing by far was their leek dumplings. they were HOT (temperature-wise, the hottest i’ve ever had them ever), flavorful, and juicy. total yums. i would go there again for dim sum. of course, i had massive food coma afterward.
then, i was asked to debug the audio test, which i wasn’t planning on doing, so i did it begrudgingly. the code that i was supposed to debug was like a massive 4MB jumbled mess of a file, so i was like, “what? i don’t want to do that!” however, i’m glad i did, because i found a serious problem (that race condition thing). i discussed it with the project manager at length, and i modified the code, and i’m running it now.
i just took a look at the test. it seems to be working! WOO-HOO!
well, that’s a load off of my chest.
this has been a long week. it *feels* long. i know we had a holiday on monday, but today feels like a friday already. i guess i’ve been embroiled in this audio testing so much that i’m completely spent. and getting up early for these conference calls and going into work on monday didn’t help, either. *sigh* i’m ready to have a whiskey or two this weekend. my cousin D might come down tomorrow for drinks, so i’m excited about that.
i keep burping up my dim sum. i can’t tell which food exactly that is giving me gas. usually, it’s the leeks, but these burps don’t taste like leeks. could it be the turnip cake? i did eat a lot of those. hm. my turkish coworker C took one bite of the turnip cakes and put the rest on his plate. i guess those aren’t for everyone. turnip cakes are my favorite dim sum dish; my earliest memory of going to dim sum in boston was eating those. i remember gagging on the “long noodles” as a kid, but now i actually enjoy them, especially the bbq pork ones.
did i tell you it was my brother’s birthday two days ago? it’s the year of the tiger, so he turned two cycles old, or 24. (his chinese nickname is “little tiger.”) i sent him a $100 amazon.com gift card, and he said that his wife got him a lebron james basketball jersey. i also called him after he was done with his church meeting. his throat clearing tic is getting pretty bad, and i’m getting concerned for him.
it’s the time of cycle birthdays. both my parents are oxes, and they celebrated their 5th cycles (60 years) last year. this year is my brother’s 2nd cycle, and next year (year of the rabbit) is my 3rd cycle (36 years). ah, the chinese zodiac.
i want a whiskey NOW. i’m IM’ing tim, and we might meet up tonight for dinner. my vote is for the duke of edinburgh so i get a black bush on the rocks. and, of course, a BLT with extra mayo.
what is the buzz on martin scorsese’s latest film, _shutter island_? the reviews on rottentomatoes.com are lukewarm, hovering around 60%. jim asked me today if i wanted to see a sneak preview tonight, but i was very iffy on that. first, it seemed scary, and second, i’m not a big fan of leonardo dicaprio. maybe i’ll talk to jim tomorrow and see what he thought of it before making a decision.
i’m excited. after weeks of effort, my test is finally passing. i feel like having a celebratory cigarette. not because i crave cigarettes, but because smoking is a way to celebrate. ugh. well, i just popped an altoid. that’ll have to do. btw, today is day 13.
my doctor hasn’t called me about my high alkaline phosphatase level test results yet. i wonder if she’s stumped on it or something, like she can’t figure out why it’s sky high. i got more blood test results back yesterday, and they all came back negative. should i be worried?
ok, sorry to be to scatterbrained on this entry. my thoughts are somewhere else today. it’s been quite a day of debugging and sleuthing.
Tags: food, health, movies, sports, tv, work
general mundane shit » No Comments
