i opened the jug this morning in my cubicle, and i noticed that there was some liquid inside of it. so i sniffed it, and this acrid waft went shooting through my nose, stinging the hell out of my face. so i read the label on the side, and it was 6N hydrochloric acid, used to preserve the urine. holy shit!

so far, i’ve recorded three samples. they gave me this big white bowl thingie with wings that straddles the toilet. i actually hold the bowl with my right hand (and my schlong with my left) when i pee, and then i pour the contents into the jug. (you’re not supposed to pee directly into the jug.) then, i wipe the bowl clean.

the first two times, i was alone in the bathroom, so things were fine. this last time, though, two of the three stalls were taken, so i felt a bit self-conscious. i mean, the stream makes a clearly different sound when it hits the bowl as opposed to the toilet, and then, of course, there’s the sound of me pouring the urine into the jug. people must be wondering WTF i am doing. so far, i haven’t had to face anyone in person yet. and man, when i open the jug, it stinks like a motherfucker.

but otherwise, it’s been an interesting experience. i am not supposed to eat any meat or foods with collagen or gelatin, but this morning, i had an altoid, and lo and behold, when i read the ingredients, there’s gelatin in altoids! so i only had one this morning.

today was a basketball day, so i couldn’t eat my normal mcd’s breakfast. instead, i went to IHOP by myself and ordered a glass of orange juice and a belgian waffle. it was good. i thought about the fact that waffles have eggs in the batter (right?), but jay consulted margaret and told me later today that eggs should be fine. but yeah, breakfast was cool. i felt a bit weird dining at a restaurant alone (i haven’t done that in many years), but i was satisfied with my food intake experience. the waffle tasted great with the butter and lots of syrup. i hadn’t had a waffle in a long, long time. maybe i should buy a toaster and some eggo’s.

i got banged around during basketball today. i got hit in the jaw a few times, and i think i must have gotten hit in the neck/head, too, because right now, my neck is really, really sore. it’s so bad that i scheduled a massage for 6:15pm tonight. ouch! and after the massage, i’m meeting up with jen, diana and caroline at shimbala for some stinky tofu. since i’m on a vegetarian diet, maybe i’ll just order an entire plate of stinky tofu and eat that for dinner. ha!

last night, because A loves the show, i recorded _criminal minds_ and watched it after the AI results show. (btw, i need to stay away from twitter on AI results nights because it ruins the suspense for me.) _criminal minds_ is about the FBI’s BAU (behavioral analysis unit) division, which profiles criminals. in last night’s episode it was about a serial killer in san francisco. it was interesting, but i don’t know if i’ll pick the show up in my regular rotation. but i did notice that paget brewster is in it; the played the actress kathy in _friends_. you know, the one that joey dated, and then chandler stole, which caused joey to put chandler in the wooden box? i liked kathy, although she doesn’t doesn’t look as good now with her long hair.

remember how i messed up my urine sample yesterday at the hospital? A comforted me by telling me that the peeing-in-mid-stream thing is usually for people with UTI. basically, it’s to get rid of the bacteria which may get into the cup and then grow and mess up the results. A knows a lot about medicine, and i find that people who are really knowledgeable about things to be pretty sexy. especially in medicine, because they use big words and stuff.

i was talking to adam last night about roth IRA’s. i downloaded the IRS form today, and after working out the math, it turns out that i qualify for a $3,700 roth contribution for 2009 (the max is $5,000). damn! i could have been contributing all this time! i had always thought that i made too much money to qualify. shit. roth IRA’s are awesome because you don’t get taxed on distributions, since it’s a post-tax contribution. so yeah, i’m doing it once i finish linking my etrade account to my bank account. but what should i invest my money in? the market’s been doing fairly well, and i don’t know what’s a good stock to buy.

oh, i should have written about this yesterday, but on tuesday, my coworker C and i left work early to go to st. john’s to watch the stanford/uconn women’s bball championship game. the first half was awesome; stanford was up 20-12. uconn played its worst basketball of the year. i had so much hope. but then, in the second half, they destroyed us. i was so sad. i felt the worst for senior center jayne appel, who was like 0-10 and had no points. she was hobbled by a sprained ankle, and it really messed up her game. *sobs* we didn’t even finish watching the game, and we left with a few minutes left. i just couldn’t bear it anymore.

i think i care too much about certain sports teams. during the past few stanford women’s games, i’ve developed mild panic attacks after they’ve ended. that’s not good. i mean, it’s one thing to root for a team, but it’s another to get clinical psychological reactions to the games. ugh. i’m such a weakling when it comes to stress. i hope this doesn’t happen to me weekly when football season starts, and i’m watching my cowboys.

anyways, back to my subject line, one of the managers played with us today. things were going well, he was playing great, but then, during the third game, he came rumbling down the court with the ball, and he collided with me and R. he yelled out, crumpled to the ground, and started writhing in pain. he proceeded to twist and write some more for a few minutes. it looked horrible. it was his left ankle. i really, really hope it’s not a tear or break or anything super-serious. but he was down for a good five+ minutes, and he couldn’t put any weight at all on it.

we had to help him into his car, and i rushed back to the office to get his laptop and other personal belongings. he drove straight home. ugh. i feel really bad. i mean, i didn’t foul him or anything; he just barreled straight into me and R. he’s a big guy, too, so there was so much momentum that he couldn’t stop himself. ugh. he rarely plays with us, and the one time he decides to, he gets a severe nasty injury.

anyways, i’m writing this super-early today because i’m leaving around 5:15 to go watch the stanford women in the national championship game. i’m proudly wearing my cardinal red today. i talked to barden, and he gives us a 20% chance of winning. i am probably feeling about the same. uconn is a fucking powerhouse, and we’ll have to play perfectly, and uconn will have to suck a bit for us to have a chance at winning the title. but there’s hope! the last time we played them this season, we were up by 2 points at halftime. but uconn is one of the most well-conditioned team in the nation, and we lost by 12 points (i think) in that game.

this morning, i got an e-mail from jason. (we both dated k1; he dated her right after me.) he sent me four pictures of this grafitti’ed wall that had this sticker on it. the sticker said, “the dardys.” ha! naturally, i got curious to see who they were, and they turn out to be a band. i listened to a few of their songs. they’re meh. but i wonder how they got their name.

well, tomorrow is my big appointment with the endocrinologist. i find out whether i have paget’s disease or not. i’m not too worried about it. i mean, if i have paget’s, then so be it. i’m not suffering from any symptoms right now. it’s not curable, but my medical friends tell me that it can be controlled with medication. ah, more drugs to take, i guess.

i crave food right now. especially thai food. there’s no dish i want more right now than a plate of steaming hot jun pad poo. (heh, i said “poo.”) i got this notion because two of my coworkers went to barn thai and got some JPP. i fucking love that dish. i am so grateful that i went to krung thai years ago and decided to try it. jun pad poo has seriously made my life better.

my cousin S is thinking about looking for a lawyer job up here. that’s awesome. her brother, D is also looking for jobs in the bay area as well. i am all for that. if they both move here, i’d be so stoked. i don’t talk about them much, but they’re family, and that’s important. we used to be a lot closer, when i was growing up, around the elementary school time frame. both of our families lived in the dallas/fort worth area, and i’d be so happy when we got to play together. we sort of drifted apart when they moved to LA, but they’re still important to me. and if they moved up here, i’d love to see them more often.

one of my coworkers asked me if i had any gum or mints. i offered him a choice, and he chose gum. i told him i had altoids, but he said that they would burn his cankersores. hm. cankersores. i haven’t had one in many, many years. but i used to get them quite often as a kid. what causes cankersores? and why don’t i get them anymore? is it a diet thing? like eating too much oily, greasy foods? that’s why my parents told me. anyways, i’m glad i don’t get them; they made eating and drinking very painful. what a nuisance.

adam lambert is going to be the american idol mentor next week. is he worthy enough of being one? i mean, don’t get me wrong, i think he’s totally awesome, but i thought mentors were supposed to have a lot of experience and stuff. hm. but anyways, what do you think about his latest single, “what do you want from me?” i think it’s ok; the song gets better during the chorus, but the verses are a little repetitive.

so the SYTYCD “all-stars” named so far are: twitch, kathryn (season 6), pasha, and allison (season 2). i was a little surprised at kathryn because she got so little exposure (she came on strong at the end, though), but i think all four are pretty worthy.

ok, i need to make a phone call, and then i’m off to watch the stanford women. GO CARDINAL!

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.

then, i drove to sneha to have dinner. it was good, as usual. then, i went to tim’s dad’s place to watch _the hurt locker_ on netflix. it was ok, a little intense at places, but not as good as all the critics had raved about. i don’t know why so many of them claimed it was the “best movie of 2009.” meh.

when i got home, i had a cigarette. then, i took a shower, and then, i had my final cigarette at 1:20am, february 6th. then, i called my mom and told her that i was going to quit smoking. she burst out with a “PRAISE THE LORD!” and then proceeded to tell me that believing on god would help me quit. ugh. then, i went to sleep.

then, saturday was the big day. i woke up, wanting a smoke, but i resisted. i popped an altoid. then, i read the instructions on how to place a patch on my body. i cut open a packet, peeled off the backing, and slapped it on my right upper chest. it itched like crazy for half an hour or so, and i didn’t feel anything. and you all know that my morning cigarette(s) are the most important because i don’t have any nicotine in my system yet, so that was really hard getting through the initial hours of being awake. but i got through it, with the help of altoids.

i had lunch with peter at cafe yulong, and then got a haircut. since i had a patch on, i didn’t want to take it off for a shower, so i got a shampoo at supercuts. my hairstylist was a chinese lady named linda, and she recognized me. we conversed in mandarin for a while, so i tipped her $5 on a $24 cut/shampoo.

then, i took a nap to the texas/oklahoma college basketball game, and then i watched the stanford/USC men’s basketball game. we were up 1 point with 0:55 left in the game, but we wound up losing by 5. fuck.

then, tim drove down from the city from an engagement photoshoot of vienna teng’s brother, and we went to dinner at maruichi. after dinner, he went to get money, and then, i drove us up to SF for aileen’s birthday party at lava lounge. i brought altoids with me.

i was determined to get drunk. i had three jameson’s on the rocks, and i wasn’t feeling much, so then, i told tim to get me a long island iced tea. that really fucked me up, especially since i drank it in like 10 minutes.

at the party, i saw aileen (of course), helen, cindy and rainbow. i told everyone that i was quitting smoking, and they were all happy and supportive. but when i was drinking, that was the second time on saturday that i really wanted a smoke.

we drove back down (i didn’t drive, of course), and i just passed out. i didn’t puke. however, i did forget to drink water, so on sunday morning, my tongue was bone dry and scaly. i dropped like two pounds of water weight.

i grabbed some jitb for lunch, and i wanted really greasy food to combat some mild hangover symptoms, so i got three eggrolls. then, i took a nap to the magic/celtics game, and then, i headed over to adam’s place for the super bowl. i brought altoids and two dr pepper heritage’s with me.

the game itself was well-played, but i didn’t find it exciting. i guess i wasn’t emotionally invested in it, and the interception by the saints really sealed the deal in the fourth quarter. oh well. my favorite commercial was the mcdonald’s dunk contest between dwight howard and lebron james, with the cameo by my favorite NBA player, larry bird.

after the game, i went over to santana row to meet up with tim at pasta pomodoro. i got the gnocchi in lamb and sausage sauce. it wasn’t so good. it was salty, and there were just too many gnocchi dumplings. then, i headed home and just chilled out.

day 2 of not smoking was easier to handle than day 1. i think the nicotine patch is definitely working, because i feel mellow and a bit sleepy from the constant flow of nicotine in my system; i really noticed this on saturday afternoon. i had less altoids on sunday than i did on saturday.

today will be a real test for me: a work day without smoking. i take smoking breaks every hour, and that routine will be hard to break. i brought a tin of altoids to work with me, and i still plan on going out downstairs to get some fresh air every hour, but this time, i just won’t smoke. i brought in my last two packs of cigarettes, and i am going to give them to my boss.

wish me luck!

i had always thought that the reason for dropping weight in the morning was because i sweat it off while sleeping. i believed that for many many years, until i got a digital scale last year. then, i finally had an accurate measuring device, so i ran some experiments, and i was shocked to discover that i didn’t drop any weight after sleeping, and that all the weight loss was after the morning leak. amazing!

some of the music i’ve been listening to today: propellerheads, quarashi, queensryche, R.E.M., rage against the machine, real life, recoil, red hot chili peppers, the refreshments

about 95% of my music (at least) is really old. i noticed that during my taiko pizza party. dishi remarked, “i haven’t heard these songs in a long time.” it’s true. a huge portion of the music i have on my iMac is culled from my CD’s, most of which i collected during college and a short while after that. and that was during the 90′s! so that means the vast majority of my music is at least a decade old. egads! am i *old*?

it’s a good thing that i still listen to the radio when i’m driving. it allows me to stay current with respect to today’s music. but i have to say, most of the stuff out there is crap. i mean, it’s the same with all pop culture: movies, television, etc. so i don’t feel so bad not knowing about everything that’s out there.

so john finally called me back, and he, and consequentially, i, are passing on jack’s mavericks/warriors tickets. i guess $100 was just too much to pay for a basketball game. i kind of agree. i mean, i would pay $100 to see my beloved cowboys, but i just don’t feel as strongly about the mavericks. football is a much bigger passion of mine than basketball. if it were a stanford men’s basketball game, and if our team were good, then i would rather go to that and pay more.

speaking of the stanford men, they got spanked by washington on thursday, and they lost again on saturday to WSU. thursday, they were down as much as *41* points. ouch. the recap on espn was like, “stanford finally played like the team that was expected to finish last in the pac-10.” double ouch.

it’s supposed to rain this whole week. sigh. i hate the rain. at least i’m not in college, when i would have to bike through the rain. the worst was “bike butt,” when the rear wheel would kick up dirt and water onto the back of my pants, forming a vertical line of crap on my jeans. i hated that.

i checked my verizon account today, and i have 20 minutes left on my month’s cell phone plan. it resets on the 28th of january. shit. i will have to be very strategic on how i use my cell phone during the weekdays. texting will become very important. i would use my office phone to call my friends, but the problem with that is that i doubt my friends would pick up, since they won’t recognize the number.

why do i have so few minutes left? it’s because of winter break. the tail end of december/beginning of january, i was at home, so i used my phone a lot during the day. winter break is always a drain on my minutes. so it’s not a problem with my plan or anything, just a side effect of having weekdays off.

i cleaned/organized a part of my office desk today. my desk is a HUGE mess. i got manila folders and filed away all of my tax stuff. i now have tax years 2002-2008 filed away. i also filled up my little garage bin with all sorts of old crap; some of the mail is from 2005! it’s amazing what shit you accumulate when you’re a mail horder like me. i still have a ways to go with my desk, but i made great strides today. the reason why i didn’t go any further is because my garage bin is full, and i need for the janitor to empty it before i can continue throwing stuff away.

i had a dream this morning where i was in the videogame “double dragon.” remember that game? i was in a castle at the top, and i had to go down this spiral staircase and prepare to fight all the characters from the videogame in sequence. i was with my junior high/high school buddy stephen. then, suddenly, alan and jay showed up, and the three of them busted out these fancy night vision goggles. the rest, i can’t remember. but it was quite a dream.

i used meebo for the first time today. it’s decent. i got a virus alert on my computer, and somehow i think it killed my default AIM and YM clients. i felt alone, disconnected from the world. so i just had to find a way to connect to my friends on IM. i remembered that william uses meebo, so i tried it out. not bad. (i would have rebooted my computer, but i’m running a long job that’s taking all day and still hasn’t gotten to the point where i need it to yet.)

i’m very disappointed with ryan seacrest. earlier today, he tweeted, “blah blah blah let you know what’s happening their [sic]” THEIR? THERE! is his grammar that bad? sheesh. mixing up their/there isn’t a typo; it’s sheer ignorance. i’ll chalk it up to a brainfart and let it go, but damn, it’s a big letdown to see an adult do that.

ok, i’m off. what do i want to eat?

1997 – lost to utah (8), arizona won, knight/madsen/young
1998 – lost to kentucky (4), kentucky won, enter collins, lee/weems/sauer/madsen/young
1999 – lost to gonzaga (32), uconn won, same lineup as 1998
2000 – lost to unc (32), mich state won, enter jacobsen, mcdonald/jacobsen/collins/madsen
2001 – lost to maryland (8), duke won, mcdonald/jacobsen/mendez/collins/collins
2002 – lost to kansas (32), maryland won, jacobsen/borchardt/scrubs
2003 – lost to uconn (32), syracuse won, barnes/childress/lottich/little
2004 – lost to alabama (32), uconn won, hernandez/lottich/childress/davis/little/robinson
2005 – lost to mississippi state (64), unc won, hernandez/grunfeld/robinson/haryasz/little
2006 – NIT, florida won, johnson/hernandez/grunfeld/finger/haryasz
2007 – lost to louisville (64), florida won, johnson/goods/washington/hill/lopez/lopez
2008 – lost to texas (16), kansas won, johnson/goods/lopez/lopez/washington/hill/finger
2009 – CBI, lost to osu, unc won, johnson/goods/hill/fields/owens/brown