dual vertical monitors

yesterday my manager came in to my room randomly, after being sparse from my area of the office for a month or two, and asked me how i was doing, in his typical style: "are you having fun, son? are you coming into work on time?" then he asked, "do you need anything? hardware wise?" before i said no, he said, "i'll get you another monitor."

so now here i am sitting with two 1920x1200 widescreen monitors on my desk. i am virtually impossible to see if you're just walking by my room because i am completely blocked by the two 2 ft tall monitors.

and yes, this morning i decided that it would be a good idea to rotate them both 90 degrees, so i have two monitor towers, from which i can code without ever having to scroll through a function. (of course, that says alot about my bad coding style.) and i've downloaded ultramon - a utility to expand your desktop, allow multiple wallpapers, and extend your task bar - not a giant japanese transforming summoned-by-card beast. i can see easily how, once you go beyond your typical 1200x800 lcd monitor, it's hard to stop before you have a 3x3, 50 megapixel jumbotron display.

the great bike saga 2008, pt 2

to continue the story. so now i was left with a bike tool and my old bike, which was being used for parts. fortunately i had picked out a frame from the trash a while ago - it was a large hybrid commuter bike with a nasty tricolor stripe and half-decomposed seat. the sign said "free" and basically the owner didn't feel like replacing its pedals. so then, the obvious thing was to fix it up using the other pink pedal that was left. with a little air in the tires, my interim bike was almost ready - except we were missing one more pedal, the other pink one that, unfortunately, got stolen with my old bike.

i tried several times to obtain pedals - often with a flashlight and pedal wrench, looking for abandoned bikes in the streets. being without a bike meant i had to skateboard everywhere - to work, to taekwondo, and along my neighborhood. there was one bike that was almost completely stripped - the pedals remained because only the seat was easy to remove..but i couldn't take away the pedals because they were stuck too hard. i even considered going back to alicia's apartment to see if there were any abandoned bikes in her complex's bike rack, but i decided against it.

unfortunately, the next day, i received a call from alicia asking if i had ridden her bike to work, which i hadn't. "oh no," she said, "i guess it got stolen." so if you see any decathalon bikes with a huge sign that says "MyBike.com", it was either hers or some other poor sap's mybike.com loaner. but from that point on i decided that no porch would be safe from bike thieves, and that as much of a pain in the ass it is, it's probably necessary to lock the bike to itself and something else, every time you leave it at home.

so now, we are bikeless, and suddenly the hunt on craigslist has started.

the great bike saga 2008, pt 1

here begins a saga about bicycling in boston, and the adventures we can have while looking for a good ride.

it all began with the huge, man eating rose bush that grows under my porch. this particular rose bush has somehow found a way to survive any harsh conditions boston can throw at it, and visibly grows several inches every week, slowly consuming the wooden railings in the porch. over the summer, this rose bush had grown to the point where the entrance to my apartment was no longer visible. this was a good thing, because each day, returning home was like disappearing into a secret entrance behind a jungle of thorns. as a result, i was also able to park my old, red bike on the porch, hidden without fear of being targeted by bike thieves.

some time during the summer, as i was riding, the right pedal snapped off of the bicycle. rather than getting ripped off at cambridge bicycles, i purchased a bike tool set and found that replacing bicycle pedals was easy, if you only had the spare parts. luckily, i had some junk bikes in the basement, and i replaced the broken stub (which had already worn a hole in my shoe) with a nice, inconspicious pink pedal. i also successfully made a switch with the wheels, skeweres, and various other parts so that i had, for once in a long time, a fully working road bike.

so then i continued to trust in the rose bush for protection of this relatively acceptable steed since i was too lazy to even use my chain combo lock. and then in the morning on some july monday, i came downstairs to catch the lincoln shuttle, and it took me a second to realize that the porch was bare. someone (probably the gardeners) had trimmed the rose bush and other plants so the porch was nice and neat and exposed. and empty, because now my red bicycle, no longer protected in a nest of thorns, was gone, and only the stub of the old pedal remained.

here's to the new year

let us applaud the financial upswing of the new (fiscal/lease/school) year, starting september 1. i just received a small annual raise (my first, ever, haha) and, though nothing like a big promotion or new job, it feels pretty cool.

all of this, of course, is offset by many financial stumbles i've had recently dealing with credit card payments and overdrafts. bah. due to a chinese superstition, i'm unable to get rich because my fingers don't snugly nestle up with each other when i put my hands together, so money will always slip through my fingers.

but to cover that for next year, i've practically given myself a small raise as well by moving into a 2 br with omar. that cuts rent by almost half from what i was paying before. true, i've gone back to roommate living after a quiet year of owning 100% of the personal space of the apartment i lived in, but i think it should be fine. we'll get along great, we'll have more room to decorate/furnish, i'll actually have a kitchen and back yard, and we'll have a KITTEH!!

the housewarming party will be additional fun because of our slanted east cambridge floors.

hunting season

apartment hunting, that is. we've started the mad dash to find a place to call home - and right now, that place could be anywhere. but now, being a current cambridge resident, i am receiving as many calls, if not more, from realtors as i am making calls to realtors. and the hardest part is knowing that the apartment i've loved for the past year is going to become someone else's getaway...and that i might not be able to find anything better.

but it's always important to move on and look toward the future. my motivation is primarily financial - i want to find a cheaper apartment that is as good as my current one. that'll be hard to find, considering the lucky central location to work (shuttle), mit taekwondo, cw taekwondo, and alicia's apartment. and the fortuitous existence of a window pseudo-balcony that allows me to indulge in my container gardening needs. but the lack of a real kitchen, the hope that i can miraculously find a city apartment with a sunny, rich garden, and the hope for hardwood floors without large cracks in it, keeps me searching.

looking back on it, maybe a few unfortunate parking accidents and bike thefts are the only scars that mar my memory of 456 putnam. but i'd like more - more luxury, more convenience, more financial freedom - hopefully without the costs. maybe i will sacrifice a bit of location, but i'm sure to find new things to love about the next apartment. moving on goes hand in hand with moving out...but maybe the next place will be a place where i can finally stop moving.

and look - here is my current place on craigslist!

infestation

any pretense that the world you live in could be clean is an illusion. that nice white apartment wall? look closely and you'll probably see either a swarm of fruit flies or mosquitoes sitting there, wondering just as much as you how they got there.

the damn puddle outside my window is the cause of my latest insect infestation. since it rained a few weeks ago and the roof outside my window was flooded, there have been probably millions of mosquitoes breeding. and each time i've opened my window, or turned on a fan, i guess i'd been sucking in hundreds of mosquitoes. ugh. today i noticed that the spots on my wall were tens of the tiny bugs...and now i've gotten so used to seeing them that each time i see a dark speck, i reach for a newspaper, a shoe, or just a wad of tissue paper.

i must have squished 15 earlier this evening, before i found my pants on the ground, covered in the corpses of the ones that had died of starvation. i hope that they all swarmed and died in the same area...otherwise, my floor is covered in mosquito exoskeletons. then as i got ready for bed, i killed maybe another 15. funny, i guess they were all male, because i don't think i've been bitten yet. (knock on wood)

of course, i had already come up with a great solution to catch the fruit fly swarms that infested my trashcan and my dirty plates. now, all i need is a similar trap...maybe a gatorade bottle with a sack of blood inside?

this monday

this morning i had a near runin with the towing and cambridge parking nazis again. i was looking to park the car near my house when i realized that it was around the 2nd monday of the month, and the spaces that were all untaken were probably due to eventual street cleaning. then i looked at my phone to check the date: 7-19...but that's the third monday, for sure? maybe july 4th didn't count? fortunately some neighbor confirmed it and i spend another 10 minutes finding another spot. i really hope my car is still there when i return.

then i looked at my watch and it was now 7-25. or, rather, 7:25 am. so it was the 2nd monday after all.

on the other hand, my tech + superstition makes it a good day:



ba ba ba - fa fa fa!!

damn cambridge parking

i was too unassuming. july 1 - leave for airport at 4:30 am. park car near alicia's apartment, after using it to pick up a hogu that i left at home. july 2 - no parking sign goes up. i compete at nationals. july 3 - goddamn tow company takes away my car. july 4 - 7: each night i am charged $20 for car storage.

this is the second time my car was towed. sometimes i think it's a sign that having a car in cambridge is more trouble than it's worth. of course, sometimes you really really have to have a car, and that really makes it worth maintaining through the rest of the year. but i wonder why, of all the luck, did i have to park in one of the two spots that ended up becoming no park zones, when i was so careful to find the right place to park my car on street? the only sliver of redemption is that i might have gotten it broken into if it wasn't towed, and if i keep telling myself that, or that my plane could have simply crashed on the way to nationals, then there is a silver lining.

vacation

the vacation starts! after today, there's free access to burgers and milk shakes, food at 3 pm and 11 pm, and beer. tomorrow: the last day i will have some sort of abs, and ability to kick well, then chicago. this best western is the nicest one i've stayed in, with a huge pool and jacuzzi and some quality framed decor on the walls, and fresh warm cookies. i had one yesterday after cutting weight.

trader joes high fiber cereal

trader joes sells a high fiber, low calorie cereal that is literally shaped like little packing pellets or the little rice noodle crisps you get with lettuce wraps, and tastes just about as bland. it's basically the most plain, unpretending cereal you can get. the title doesn't even try to make it sound appetizing. it's just short of being called trader joe's high fiber hamster pellets for humans. or bedding.

but right now it tastes so good. there's a point when your body normally craves real food - things that have real fat content, or salt and spices, or fulfilling, high calorie carbs. then it gets to a point where even the small amount of processable grain matter in each spoonful of pellet can be savored on your tongue, and the fiber is a vehicle to fill your stomach. and that's when you know it's only a week to tournament.

international surf day, june 21

looks like tomorrow's international surf day.

via treehugger

and here's a related jack johnson video (via treehugger)


i went to Sachuest beach for some east coast surf a few weekends ago. the waves were about waist high, but the best i've had in a long time. i rode a comfortable 9 foot board that was rented for $20.

it's finally summer in boston. i hope to be able to learn to sail at the mit pavilion soon. then all i need to do is get rich, buy a yacht and a private island, and live my dream life.

take that, iphone

my samsung a707 phone has finally reached its full potential.

i bought a set of accessories for it - usb cable, earphone jack, and some chargers. then after a bit of work - but considerably less work than it took to get my old motorola phone to work - i downloaded and installed the correct software to be able to transfer files to and from my phone.

and here, finally, are some of the photos i took using my camera phone. the quality is actually really good.


paul and steve!


more king richard's faire photos


a bugatti that i followed all the way to costco


spring at the old work place

and what's more, i can now more fully customize all my media with ringtones and mp3s. a 2gb microsd card for the phone only costs $15, making my phone a fully functional mp3, camera and phone. just like the iphone.

so currently i've got my new ringtone set up to be the ff7 battle victory song. the more calls i get, the faster i'll level up! but i've also got some rihanna and usher lined up. the speakerphone is actually pretty decent quality - it plays music louder than my laptop speakers. and there's no loss of sound quality through the earphone connector. i guess what was i expecting - the phone is supposed to have really good speakers because you're not going to talk to someone in MIDI.

so now my initial random decision to just get a media-able phone has paid off. i didn't think i would actually want to use my phone for multiple purposes, but after seeing that its camera quality and mp3 playing ability was pretty decent, i'm pretty glad i bought a sync.

end of year blues

currently listening to:
Red Garland Jazz Piano collection


i love and hate the end of the mit taekwondo season. it's always a flurry of activity with celebrations of yet another tremendous year, and it's also an emotionally stormy period of people preparing to leave, and for some, to move on. even as a not-so-recent graduate, i found myself in the mix, spending late nights preparing what was probably the best highlights video i've ever made (or helped make). its reception at the banquet was great. the banquet itself just seemed a nonstop stream of activity, from plays, awards, videos, food cooking contest judging, etc etc. and after a few other end of year partying mishaps, i think i enjoyed the peace and normalcy of the banquet a lot more, in a way.

we capped the year in the studio with a pair of belt tests. i gave what i thought was my highest belt test yet - the red belt/black stripe test on monday. and despite being somewhat unprepared i believe i gave a worthy and enjoyable (and challenging test.)


here is ning and snix performing their one-steps.

however, then i had the honor to give my first black belt test this past wednesday, for a very deserving teammate. i had to look back to conor for inspiration - as much as one looks to a captain for sparring technique, one looks toward a higher instructor for belt testing wisdom. i threw technique after technique at jarek, interspersed with sets of nx10 sit ups/running men/crunches. i don't even remember what i called, i just called out numbers and he did them. after the sparring he looked exhausted, and i knew all the instructors were pleased and lower belts were horrified at what a spectacle a black belt test is. but after doing 100 running men and using up his last ounce of strength before proceeding to his final form, jarek must have been happy with the completion of a test worthy of him, because he ran off to the thirsty ear to grab maybe a pitcher or two.

today is a saturday and for me that means going to haymarket, enjoying the weather, making some kick ass lemon mint ice tea, and listening to jazz. but for the rest of the mit kids, the last stretch of this academic year will be crammed into today, tomorrow, and the days of next week without finals. yet we managed to have enough time to relax yesterday, with a barbeque at mccormick, a fun sparring practice, another trip to mccormick to eat more of the leftover banquet foods, a movie at the commons and a pretty late night drinking at senior house. it seems that after the last day of classes, everyone feels the need to bbq despite two or three inches of rain throughout the evening. we'll make up for the lack of sun over the summer, of course.

for someone like me, the goal is always going to be the next practice, because there are no other times when i would naturally (and not sketchily) be hanging out on campus. but who knows who will be here on monday? who will be there the next week? if the summer goes well, the end of this school year will just be the beginning of the beginning of another great one.

gangastgrass

my cultural clash has finally been reconciled! no, gangstagrass is not about weed. my southern roots and my gangsta roots have finally found a way to combine - bluegrass from the good old deep south, and hip hop, because every true azn is an original gangsta.

here is the unique album from Rench via boingboing.

gangstagrass

it's just a sunday

current music: Sia - Healing is Difficult listen to it here
and i'm using these old school earphones (clip ons that i used to run in.) brings back memories, sort of.

and btw holy shit look at this fucking candidate, you know you want to vote the shit out of him.

ultimate workout

today the weather was nice again - around 70, sunny, not too windy, beautiful. so i dragged my lazy ass away from my desk and forced myself to go to the gym. the ambitious, committed, motivated bobby (and unhappy and bitter bobby) is gone since the weekend tournament ended. actually, he disappeared the moment we parked in the lot by the taekwondo dojang where we weighed in. and now it takes a monumental effort for me to get up, go out, work out, and not be lazy.

well i had to decide what to do because treadmill sounded awful, jogging outside was nice because of the weather but was potentially a 3 mile commitment i didn't want to take on, and i felt too antisocial to try to go and meet people to play racketball. in the gym locker room, as i was going over all of my unhappy options, i saw a guy putting on running shoes (cleats, actually) and grab a disc. just as i got up the nerve to ask where he played ultimate, he left out the door.

i decided to go for a jog and went past the field where they play ultimate frisbee, and i had another stupid moment of deciding whether i wanted to actually go play ultimate, or just forget it and take the familiar and boring jogging route. i took the jogging route halfway, then decided i hated just jogging and instead, i ran toward the frisbee field. another reason to do that was that if the people weren't playing a game, i could just cut my run short and go home.

but when i finally got there and talked to some people, i was reminded of how great of a socializing and exercising tool ultimate frisbee is for people like me - unconventionally athletic (though who defines football as conventional, anyways?) and socially awkward. we fit right in with the ultimate frisbee crowd. and there i remembered the two times i played ultimate for the social benefits and not just fun or exercise - once on a ACSL field trip with my high school math teacher and the biggest nerds from all of NC's best high schools, and once when I was rushing phi sig on a george's island jaunt. and this time i felt similarly welcome, with my adequate disc handling and slightly above average physical fitness gaining me attention where my social skills would not. maybe. and it's great to think that i can now forego the horrid mindless routine of the treadmill, erg, and elliptical, and even slightly more interesting jogs around the base and the occasional racketball game, for addictive, track-of-time-losing games of ultimate frisbee. plus i lost 3 lbs (of water) and gained a slight tan.

and coming back to the office, i felt i could let myself have some candy (because i'm still feeling the residual anorexia from cutting weight) and therefore went to the atrium cafe to buy yogurt raisins, peanut/m&m mix, milk balls, and chocolate covered peanut chunks. the salty sweet chocolate nut snacking brought me back to the good old days at vision robotics, where the exact same food would have been free. i miss the zone bars and starbucks mocha drinks, but i can still buy my memories back once in a while.

draining

today i went through the worst cutting experience of my life. and it was only a measly 2 lbs of water. but basically i have become very intimate with saunas, more than i've ever been.

the pain started last night after dinner, when for some reason i was suddenly hungry. i wasn't hurting because of small meals before but once the water cutting started, the whole ordeal made the future bleak. and i started counting down the next 24 hours.

at work i was like a zombie, and i started rationing water. fortunately, the hours passed relatively quickly in the morning, and i was always surprised when the next hourly sip was available. at about 3 i started to zonk out, and i could not care for the group meeting at all. driving home was just another obstacle to me getting into the final sauna.

when i got to the gym, i was at 138.0 - about 1.5 lbs. three long and torturous sessions in the sauna were made better by the presence of talkative people who were surprised to no end that i was in full track pants and a hoodie. i also saw some phi sigs and managed to hang out with them in the sauna. and it surprises me that anyone would willingly sit in the sauna if they're not trying to cut water.

that made me wonder if there's anything actually good for you about saunas. there was a guy who doesn't actually work out at the gym - only uses the sauna, alternating between drinking water and pouring water for the 180 degree steam. is there any actual health benefit to sweating regularly? i don't know. maybe it just feels good.

and the last thing i remember thinking is how scary an actual world shortage of water would be. at the office i was reading treehugger and wondering what % of the world's fresh water is available outside of the glaciers. and then i remembered the cool, clear, flowing feeling of a water fountain, and i was suddenly scared. when gas becomes a rare commodity, we can compensate by not being road hogs. when water becomes rare, that's the time to really be concerned.

morning wonders

i got up this morning at 5 to go to the airport, and then couldn't really sleep so I went directly to work. but even at 6:30, you have the early birds running along mem drive. sometimes i wonder, what's so appealing about running in the morning? i feel perfectly fine running at 2 pm, and might even prefer it because the warmth makes me sweat more. is it the chilly morning air that people enjoy? or just having an early start? i'm not sure. but other wonders of being up early is not only you get to be in an empty office much longer than usual, but little things, like how the water fountain stays steady in the morning because the water pressure is still stable, i assume. next time i come in early, i'll be sure to enjoy the steady pressure in the fountain, and maybe i'll even try to be the first to use one of the urinals.

elfquest

i'm not a big old comics fan but apparently elfquest was a big thing in the 80s, and once i found the digital version online i've been addicted. i even got some elfquest books from the great lincoln book drive.

and it's a cute little epic comic. the characters look pretty old school and there are some times you can definitely see the influence of 70's flare pants and disco hair. the plot is gripping but still lighthearted, with none of the bitterness that pervades today's epics. (think simplicity, like voltron or transformers, instead of cowboy bebop.)

but then i get to the "dance" of the mountain elves. and guess what - "quietly an elven youth herds all the children upstairs. 'we haven't earned the right to stay. we'll get our turn someday.'" and then they go full out into orgy mode:



how could i ever think that a 70's comic based on elves could be innocent???

and then i realized

they turned on the weather machine!!! it's cpw and as i skated home there were all these prefrosh walking around, not appreciating the nice weather. it's uncanny how the big green building weather ball can be used to manipulate the weather. the only time i can remember was last year, when it was rainy and somewhat cold. but for the past five years, it's always been like freezing or rainy all week before cpw, then sunny and 70 that weekend. and as soon as the potentials leave, back to bleak weather.

spring

today is a glorious day. i looked at the weather and it was 67. this is coming from days of sub 40 weather in april, and suddenly the sky's blue and sunny and there's a warm breeze.

i went rollerblading in lexington during lunch, and it was like summer. a cool, breezy woodsy summer, not those hot humid boston downtown summers. and i discovered some new things in lexington that i didn't know were there - a paved bike trail that cuts through the woods, apparently straight to cambridge (~15 miles or so), and a huge "lexington compost center" right beside it. so aside from having to go a mile or so on a narrow, crunchy bike lane beside a two lane highway, having to skate through basically bogs and compost smelling semi-industrial terrain, it was like a stroll in the park.

doesn't matter though, because it's gorgeous outside, and it's so close to staying spring you can feel it. maybe a change of weather will also influence those guys on wall street to feel less negative...if they can actually look out the windows once a while from the floor.

losing hope

what's the feeling when your parents finally lose all hope in you for greatness? i think it's probably the most depressing thing to hear your mother say "i guess i have to accept that you're not going to achieve anything great. it's easier to bear if i give up." and you have to wonder, am i really that much of a failure that my own mother has accepted living out the rest of her life in depression? is it my fault, or the fault of her fucking chinese friends who love to gossip and compare the achievements of their children, who sell out to wallstreet? part of me thinks that this should make me mad, and i should rebel against her hopelessness, get into harvard just to "show her". and part of me wonders why it ever could have happened.

honey

makes everything better. mmmmm. raisin bread is awesome.

wisdom...gone

i had my wisdom teeth extracted today. i've always been unlucky at the dentists. i fear the drill and needle just as much as the next guy, and my one nightmare is that a drill or pick will slip and i'll feel it in one of my dental nerves. that's why i opted for full anaesthesia, and while they're at it, went ahead and did another operation on my root canal. (that's the third time now.)

surprisingly i wasn't very nervous going up to the surgery. i think it's because i knew that i'd be completely out, thanks to gas. but then they told me to make a fist so the veins on the back of my hand would pop out. i hate IVs, and at the moment the gas hadn't started taking effect so i'd say that was the most painful part of the surgery.

then the gas hit. it was slightly sweet smelling but somewhat suffocating, and i found myself preferring to breathe real air through my mouth instead. but i made do by only breathing out of my mouth, and then the high hit me. it was a very familiar high, except for a claustrophobia that accompanies being strapped down in a chair and having no choice to breath in the gas. but at that moment two things happened - all my muscles suddenly relaxed (and i sank about two inches downwards into the chair) - and my attention instantly focused on nothing but the hair of my doctor that was flapping with each breath i took. and the last thing i noticed was that they had another needle with some other injection, but it was no longer scary.

light vs dark

i had a revelation today when i unscrewed the cap of my sprite bottle (now used to store water). i saw the familiar lines of code that go with mycokerewards.com. and i thought for a second, sprite is also having a points system? then i saw the mycokerewards.com symbol on the label and realized that sprite and coke are made by the same company and i had been throwing away mycokerewards points from sprite.

but then my world collapsed. sprite and coke are mortal enemies (though deliciously complementary.) on a given night, you either want something light and citrusy, or something dark and deep. like sometimes you want a wine with your fish, and other times you want a beer with the burger, but generally they don't mix. and if you start with a rum and coke you can't go to the sickly sweet of a sprite and liqueur. so how is it that they both contribute to my rewards?

free tshirt, here i come!

there's something in every taekwondoist that is a monster. a completely different persona that comes out in the middle of a ring that is completely different from who you are once you step off the mats. have you ever looked at someone who you know is good, and wonder how they can be good? but then you know that when they step on, there's something in their eyes that starts burning and out of their lungs and legs is this energy that you won't see in their everyday steps. at least we all have a balanced sense of self so that when we're outside, whether we're drinking beer, working at the office, going to school, or being nerds and playing video games.

my inner monster is dying to go to sleep and never come out again. i know there's a fire inside, and i know what it felt like when it burned, years ago. but when i creep toward the edge again, and the flames begin to kindle, it dawns on me so heavily. with the fire comes a lot of pain that i just couldn't face again. i know what it takes to cultivate that monster, and right when i considered going to the next qualifier, the weight just fell on my shoulders and i was visibly depressed for the next 12 hours. in fact, the past day i felt so unhappy just because of the possibility of competing that i almost needed to skip taekwondo practice to cure it.

and then there are some people who remind me of what it was like to want so much out of taekwondo. and it's hard to even think about what is going through their minds (much less read their blogs about it..) because i don't want to relive what i used to feel, and what i don't want to feel again. the moment you put on an extra layer of warmups, you start obsessing about your kicks, your opponents, psyching yourself out, worrying about weight, obsessing about what to eat next and what you cannot eat anymore...i think one day it's just not worth it. and when i see someone else looking downwards during practice, with a glazed look in their eyes because their mind is actually off somewhere else, burning itself to death, i will painfully remember it, then try to walk away.

bsg last supper

very cool:




for comparison:

bsg has it going on. also, the 8 minute catch up is great.

penny arcade manga

a part of me never wants to grow up and leave the wonderfully real-world-escaping worlds of comics, gaming and japanese culture. to me all of japan consists of high school age kids, and japan's only worthwhile output is anime and manga.*

however the world of american gaming is equally good at keeping 20-30 year old men living out their 15 year old lives. the flagship of the gaming community may very well be the comic Penny Arcade documenting the lives of two professional gamers/game reviewers living the life. not only do they provide comic relief and gaming references every WoW nerd would recognize, but Penny Arcade is a critic, reporter and watchdog of current events in the gaming world. most importantly, i find myself identifying with the message of many Penny Arcade strips, for example:



so what happens when you take an american artistic work completely out of context and cross cultural boundaries into the hands of a new artist (though the audience isn't necessarily different)? here is The Penny Arcade Remix Project.

here are some of my favorites, along with their originals:

"You are Tom Cloose!"
Original: A Mario Kart Double Dash reference
Old school Penny Arcade style
Original:here
Oh those perverted japanese men
This one didn't learn any engrish
Original: here
Why the American economy is down
Is this what japanese think of american relationships? or just japanese ones?
original: reference to blade

* in reality japan is a rich, productive society whose many worthwhile exports include, economically, sushi and automobiles, and culturally her exports include anime and manga, kabuki theatre, ancient philosophy, american-adaptable horror films and bukkake porn.

giving to red cross

i have never given blood until today so here is the account of my i conquered my fears, only to be shot down by my lack of preparation.

when i went down to the red cross station before lunch today, the nurse asked me if i had eaten enough and been hydrated enough that day. I didn't think one bowl of cereal and milk was enough so she told me to go back and drink some water, and come back after lunch, which i did. I was even smart enough not to drink a diet coke because something in my mind said having caffeine in your system probably won't be good during blood donations. When I left the station it was actually a relief that I wouldn't get a needle stuck into me just yet.

At around 1:45 pm I finally got up the nerve to go back downstairs, because once you sit in the lab for a few minutes you really begin to have second thoughts about losing your blood. And now that I was actually going to have to go through with it, it almost seemed an adventure, an eye opening experience that I would have once in a lifetime. (although i guess most people give blood regularly.) I was all excited until the guy manning the booth had me sit and fill out some forms and take a number, because apparently the station had gotten somewhat busier.

Many people say that the initial prick of the finger for your blood test is the worst part. Looking back on it, they're probably right, because it continues to hurt as the nurse squeezes all the living liquid out of your throbbing finger. But I started to get queasy even as I walked toward the bed where they actually stick the needle in you. The nurse was nice enough, knowing it was my first time, and tried to engage in some meaningless conversation while I visibly turned pale and started losing feeling in my right arm. This was all before she started applying alcohol to the spot.

Finally, when the needle was in my vein, I felt like a trooper, a brave philanthropist giving his own life essence to help others who needed it. A good two minutes passed, during which my nurse kept looking at various instruments and dials, and adjusting the needle with some minor amount of aching. Through which I grimaced enough to make her ask if I was ok. Then, she switches with another nurse, who continues to adjust, then finally sighs and says, "We can either try again or stop." As most people prefer not to reinsert the needle she decides to remove the needle. "We've got enough blood for a few tests, but the blood's stopped flowing. Good try, though."

As she said that, I was struck with a feeling of utter defeat. All my internal struggles and (what little) external pain that I had gone through, for nothing. About 1/4 pint of blood, that probably wasn't even worth the bag they used to collect it. I felt disappointed that I had gone through all that, only to fail at my first attempt at giving blood. I wasn't hydrated enough, it seems, like the other time when a nurse was unable to insert a needle into my veins and had tried multiple spots before giving up. Or maybe it was that my body, intending to hold on to my fluids as hard as possible, caused it to stop flowing through my right arm. As i walked out of the room, the nurse kept asking me if I was ok. Sure, I was fine, I didn't even really lose any blood, but it was my pride that had been bled dry. I joined the other donors at the snack table, but they wore the medal of honor, a blank stare on their faces as they placidly chewed on cookies, whereas I was bouncing around like a failure. a failure full of blood. i only took one cookie and left.

on the up side, i will probably be able to go to taekwondo. i will probably hold paddles. I will probably not kick because of that lazy hypochondriac voice inside my head saying "you're not well, don't overexert yourself." and i can only vindicate myself by typing with my unweakened arms, to tell the world of this tale so that everyone will know, drink lots of water before you draw blood. or all you get is a free cookie.

waking up the ol blog

it occured to me just now that yesterday something funny happened before i went to bed that caused me some anxiety about surviving the night. there was a power outage or a fuse trip or something that made all the lights, my computers, the downstairs wireless transmitter, and the heat go out for a second. seriously, i didn't think charging my ipod would take up that much wattage. but for a moment i wondered if it would be a good idea to put my fire alarm back into its socket. because of my small kitchenette, i'm constantly unplugging it to cook, then replugging it on fear of a firey death in the middle of the night. so just in case i was tired enough to sleep through a fire, i plugged in my fire alarm and went to bed, wondering whether i'd wake up in blissful peace or blistered pieces. and today i'd completely forgotten about it. except now i wonder if it really was ok, or that one reincarnation of my self had died and my consciousness had transferred to another existence in some parallel universe.

so that's why i've decided to restart blogging. not because i'm not making progress at work.

damn you woot

not only does a wootoff occur during office hours, thus preventing me from being productive, it continues for two days counting, and sells crap. well, because of that last part i am getting work done. but ever since the last time i missed the bandolier of carrots (the good old BOC) i'm not too big of a woot addict. i only check once every 30 seconds.

but today woot is just doing funny things. as consumers eagerly bought their crap (like 5 logitech mice for $35...why would you need 5??), clicking refresh madly in anticipation of the ACTUAL bag of crap, this comes up:



like, Where's The Feet, man? not only is it not a worthless but irresistable electronics item, there's a button covering the BUY ONE NOW button (what do i click if it was a BOC?) that says WOOTOFF detour. like we really need someone else to tell us we should get out of this page for just one second and continue with our regular lives.

but some people are saying, is this the precursor to the finale, the bandolier of carrots? two wootoffs ago hey actually ended with a set of wine rack bags (five bags that hold like 6 bottles each that you can hang in an attic.) so maybe this is leading up to the end. maybe it'll be another disappointing wino finale. but i'll have to keep clicking...matlab, play nice in the background, i'm busy.

office gourmet

i have some stringent eating habits, especially when it comes to the daily grind. the workday lunch is a sacred routine that many partake in but few appreciate. for me, it's a ritual that starts either the night before or in the morning, if i have time, and continues to about 3:30 pm every day. some days, i pack a lunch, including various snacks that sustain a procrastinator during every phase of the work process. other days i decide it's worth the five bucks to buy some real food.

today, i've packed the usual - lean cuisine, because i was too lazy to make a sandwich - breakfast for the road so i can get in relatively early, and snacks - apples and peas in a container. but then eating the peas stirred some memories that had been buried, from i'm not sure when. maybe it was from days when i was experimenting with cooking technique in the humble kitchens of phi sig annex. maybe it was when i truly had nothing in my fridge except peas and ketchup. maybe it was even grade school days when your salisbury steak (with ketchup) dripped into your peas. but for some reason i decided to open one of those many ketchup packets i've taken from the cafeteria and never used, and it just made sense to eat the peas with it. something clicked. it just made sense.

usb drives

there should be some sort of nerdy webcomic episode about how usb drives are impossible to insert the right way the first time. because they look exactly the same and the only thing you can use to tell if it's oriented right is that little slot inside the otherwise symmetric tip. something in the style of an xkcd comic...



*i apologize profusely in advance, Randall Munroe.

amex

The Consumerist reported on a man who bought a harddrive from BestBuy but received a box of tiles, and was refused compensation. Later, he reported that his American Express credit card was able to get a refund from BestBuy, and that he was getting a credit.

Sounds a lot like what happened with my credit card and (andrew's) Wii.

And I had just written in to Consumerist to tell them my Amex card rocks and they gave me a refund for theft within one day. Plus, I get to use it at Costco and get savings. Why the heck aren't all cards like that?

Plus, Happy Halloween! A more interesting halloween post to come, if i have time.

october thoughts

it's been more than a month that i've been absent from writing. the exact reason for that is laziness. a secondary reason is that i now work at lincoln labs, and i manage to stay busy most of the day. sort of.

well, the past few days have been eventful enough to make me want to document life as it passes again. and besides, if i pay annually for this domain, why not make the best use of it?

first, october and the fall season must be my favorite boston season ever. and now that i have a backyard in a tree lined neighborhood, it's hard to resist admiring the inner-city greenscape, which has now quickly turned into a bright mosaic of orange and red. there are some trees whose leaves are so bright yellow that they look plastic.

but the beauty of nature comes hand in hand with its destructive power. in san diego, from the LA area all the way down to chula vista there have been some inconceivable fire disasters. from emails and facebook I can tell that it has already affected the lives of my friends, and i wonder what life would be like if i was still in california. strange, huh? disasters are no fun, i slept through hurricane katrina to wake up to a jumble of pine trees and smashed houses. but this fire has been going on for days, and the damage is just as devastating. it's hard to imagine, but the relatively wealthy, peaceful, luxurious beach communities i used to know may no longer be the same anymore.

all of this makes the crimes of man seem petty. but it still makes you want to take a baseball bat to whoever broke into river st and stole andrew's ps3, wii, and laptop, and erica's laptop and jewelry. i was also one thought away from losing my computer, which had all of my financial information, but i had taken it home the night before. theft never seems scary until you realize someone's been through your house and taken all your valuables. but at least it's not a wildfire, huh?

anyway life is settling down, and soon i will have directv for my home entertainment system. however, studies have shown that happiness is never permanent and that having material things will provide only short term satisfaction. maybe that's why, once in a while, reality hits you in the face with a theft or natural disaster (or even a case of stabbing at an MIT dorm) and you understand that just being able to see the autumn leaves in october is good.

stock market rising

i could hear a sigh of relief from everyone (or maybe it was a shout of joy?) when the stock market went back up following a 0.5% drop in federal interest rates. so i don't know anything about finance but apparently that's a really large drop and pretty unprecedented. so now even my mutual funds are going back up...back into the green. i kept thinking about how i should have listened to my own advice, bought back in when it was in the slump, and waited for this upturn to bring me more money. but i can't drop the feeling that the government is bailing out rich people from what should have been a real correction of the markets, and now we've continued on a previously inflated sense of bullishness. so should i keep my money in? when i saw -10% returns i wished i had sold everything when i was at like +2%, but now i'm at +2% and now i think i should stay in until +10%. I don't know. at least it's my retirement account, and i won't be accessing this money for real for like 50 years, so maybe i don't have to worry about it.

more time wasters

what's with fuzzy mascots and violence? nothing but hilarity!

http://arbroath.blogspot.com/2007/09/duck-suspended-for-next-home-football.html

http://arbroath.blogspot.com/2007/09/trouble-for-pluto-at-disneyland.html

via nothing to do with arbroath

immaturity

i've been browsing online comics again. i like dinosaur comics:



and now i have a new favorite emoticon. OGC

an unfortunate incident involving peppers

today one of the guys at work brought in some home grown veggies - a huge bag of delicious cherry tomatoes and a bag of hot chili peppers. because i had forgotten my lunch i went and grabbed a handful of tomatoes, which went very well with my old bagel, orange, and bottled water. however, as the end of the day was nearing and i became more munchie desiring, i started to nibble at the red pepper, which turned out to be sweet and mild. at the tip, at least.

as i coded i slowly bit off bits and pieces of the pepper, which crunched sweetly. i hit a few seeds, which weren't hot, and that's usually where the heat is contained. just in case, i threw out all the seeds in the next section, then proceeded to stuff the whole thing in my mouth.

just as i started chewing i felt a kick on my tongue, and realized this was a pepper that wasn't uniformly hot. well, i could use a bit of spice anyways, so i went ahead and chewed. but the burning sensation started to expand exponentially, and i forced myself to swallow the half chewed mass just as my eyes started to tear up.

hot peppers have a sort of delayed heat effect. and these particular peppers had a very prolonged heat effect. and what's worse is that these peppers take barely a touch against skin before the burning spreads. from the time i swallowed the rest of the peppers (i wonder if my stomach will be upset later) to now (about an hour later) i went through the following ritual of trying to ease the pain.

when my lips first started burning, it was toward the inside, near where my teeth had crushed the pulp and released the pepper oils. i thought it would be ok - i had some water and it was relatively cold. but i also needed something sweet so i ate one of the corn muffins i was saving as a breakfast. but that delayed effect kicked in, and when my water ran out, my lips only burned more because they were no longer being showered in cool liquids.

i walked calmly to the bathroom so no one would notice my folly. the water fountain is a wonderful, icy cool spout of relief, and i rinsed out my mouth there and refilled my bottle. on the way back it seemed that i might have a few minutes to recover before the lips started hurting again just due to the ambient warm air temperature.

a few minutes later my water was gone again, and i walked a bit more briskly to the bathroom. this time i decided to wash out my lips. i'm not sure if it was before or after - maybe it was due to using the bottle to have water cover my mouth (without drinking it), but the oils had spread and now there was the slightest tingle of pain around the edges of the lips. i started rinsing my mouth out under the cold water in the bathroom, which wasn't as good as the waterfountain. but using a paper towel to keep my face wet helped.

i think it was the second time i had to run to the bathroom that i started spitting red flecks, of pepper or flesh, i don't know. this time i arrived in front of the mirror and there was a circle of red swelling around my lips, and my eyes were all teary. i tried to use soap to wash out the stuff, and grabbed a new paper towel, which i now held over my mouth while walking around because it was the only way to feel like you're not being irradiated by atomic particles. that's when i ran into chris, and we started discussing code. i thought that maybe it would be ok and i could make it through, now that the lips were feeling a bit better.

half way through the discussion my eyes were watering and i reached up to dab at my right eye. mistake. whatever minute amount of pepper oil that had gotten from my lips, to the paper towel, to my fingers, was now on the tip of my nose and my eye. i almost couldn't type because one hand was holding my mouth in pain. i went to the bathroom once, rinsed out with some soap, came back, talked a bit about code, and decided that we couldn't continue and be productive. chris suggested i get some diary product.

with wet paper towel in hand i made it down to the kitchen, but realized that it closed at like 2. i ran to the bathroom (to actually use the bathroom this time), thinking "i should be careful with my hands..." well i wasn't careful enough and there's still a bit of remaining pain to this moment. as i walked back to the office wondering why no place was selling anything anymore, i made a godsent discovery...there had been an ice cream party from 2-4. and there were tubs of ice cream just sitting around.

so happily this incident ended with me stuffing my face with strawberry icecream with strawberries in syrup. i DID use some of it to actually neutralize the pepper oils around my face, but i ate the rest. of course for a moment i did consider using the ice cream to ease the pain in my other afflicted spots. but i didn't see how i would be able to apply it without a huge mess, so i just brought some desert back to my office.

**

and just now i scratched my OTHER eye, and immediately it's hurting. this oil is POTENT.

harsh realities

today i received a wakeup call about getting your shit together. this whole time i've been procrastinating about getting things done, such as transfering my car registration and insurance, etc. basically between work, taekwondo and apartment stuff i've had no time to really get anything settled. well, this morning my car window was smashed in because i had left my gps system on the dashboard. i guess my neighborhood isn't all dandy after all.

fortunately, when i opened the door to clean out the glass, i found a funny thing - the actual GPS was sitting under the car seat. so whoever smashed in my windows got away clean with my cigarette lighter adapter and the GPS mount, but left the actual box with enough battery power to get me to work. huh, i guess they found a better deal on woot.

but the lesson is to get your shit together. such as, registering your car, buying insurance, etc etc.

summer in boston

the weather's been so nice that i can hardly believe it's going to get cold eventually. i feel like a hawaiian freshman only without the homesickness. aside from some humidity it's been great weather, sunny, warm but with breezy evenings, the occasional rain that leaves a layer of water on car windows that you only see when you get into the car because it's so sunny outside you dont think it could ever rain.

home sweet home

i have finally moved all my stuff into my apartment. it's sitting in a huge pile in the middle of the room. and the more i look at it, the more i like the place i got. since it's just a large studio with lots of windows, it looks larger (to me) when there's furniture in it because then you get a perspective of just how big it is. otherwise if it's all empty, the size of the room is lost because there's no furniture to use as a scale.

the past few days have been moving madness. it's as if all of boston were participating in what we used to do at phi sig on moving day. on aug 31, everyone is finalizing their packing and throwing everything out, so there are tons of free stuff listings on craigslist. i tried to get something...it wasn't fruitful. then on sept 1, every street has a uhaul or moving van parked halfway up the curb, and either large groups of students or smaller groups of movers are unloading furniture into houses like a stream of ants.

i helped nathan and rdc pack and load their truck on friday. it took a bunch of us, almost working in shifts, about most of the day. then that night i went to visit my house, and it turns out the keys that the landlord had given me weren't the right keys. they also didn't give me a set of front door keys, and we stood there at midnight ringing doorbells trying to see if the second floor people were in. they came only as we were about to give up and leave. carla stumbled out of a cab from a night of drinking and we ran to her at the door, and she happily met and gave two complete strangers her extra door keys. hah.

so saturday morning the movers came to drop off my stuff. i got a call while buying gatorade at starmarket that they were there, and headed back almost immediately. by the time i got there (30 mins later?) they were almost done packing. lesson of the weekend: if you're not a student, pay for movers. it's worth the money.

the family in nc and boston

i am visiting my parents in north carolina. it's sort of the same old feeling i usually get when i go home, except this time it's really more brief. and there's no longer large waves of nostalgia hitting me. probably because the smells, sights, and locations are all different from my actual childhood home. but the dogs are still there, and we went surfing at the beach. yes, we went to carolina beach, about 30 mins from myrtle beach on the NC/SC border. i didnt actually rent a board because the waves were really small and shortlived, but i managed to bodysurf the most i've ever done on the smallish 2-3 ft waves that come crashing down pretty quickly. the water was warm and the sand was soft, almost reminding me of san diego.

about my other family members in boston, soon i will be meeting up with a large number of them. i've never felt that i had any extended family in the US, but it seems that now my generation is coming into our own and actually being able to visit each other. Asia is going to get some sort of job training in boston for a week in september, and now Samuel is living in boston, at sid pac no less, going to mit for his PHD. wtf. of course there's always my young uncle sisi who is working in boston, and another cousin, yang, who's a freshman at yale. so it seems the bobby ren mafia is slowly taking form.

phi sig 2011

for the past two days i have found myself back at 487 commonwealth avenue again, in that great house where i discovered what it means to be a social animal. same old sights, sounds and smells, new occupants. i couldn't believe that the 08's were now seniors because they would always be the freshmen i had rushed in my senior year. (is it so long ago already?)

i went for work week, where we clean up the house and touch up things before rush. the familiar smell of paint, the dusty floors, the clutter of tools and random pieces of wood lying around 1st hall, they're still there. it's a never ending cycle: trash the house during summer, clean it up for rush, let it slide during the year, clean it up again, then summer comes and it repeats. that's phi sig for you.

i met some of the class of 2010 and decided they are great guys. just like every class i've met since joining phi sig. but oh i miss the hawaiian air that used to pervade the house, and is now only an idea. maybe we'll get some more during rush? who knows what the class of 2011 will be like. yes, the next class will be the class of 2011, born in 1989, when i was already 6 and immigrated to the US.

apartment found

my new address:

456 putnam ave
cambridge, ma 02139

I'm living in cambridgeport which is close to central square and MIT, and basically along the river. It's pretty nice.

here are some images:


bathroom
on your left
on your right/kitchen
on your left/kitchen

there's also a back yard that potentially could support a garden as well as summer barbeques. nearby is a whole foods and trader joes, which will satisfy my craving for organic food and cheap wine and milk.

the best farmer's market ever

I went back to haymarket today because I finally had my apartment and didn't have to do any more searches.

For those who don't know, haymarket is da bomb market for fresh, cheap foods. And i realized that I still had my "grocery store" eyes for pricing because I saw something like 2 lbs tomatoes for $1 and was like holy crap that's a great deal but then I remembered...you have to walk once through the whole market first because otherwise, the moment you buy something you'll see the next stand selling BETTER fruit for HALF the price.

Haymarket is somewhere where the unit of exchange is the dollar bill. So the larger the number, the better the deal. But sometimes you might be tempted by 8 oranges for a buck, but you realize those are the smallest oranges you've ever seen.

There's a stand with an old farmer couple that I always like to shop because their prices are kind of ridiculous (Something like 5 lbs of greenbeans for $1 and 8 cucumbers for $1.) No one ever has use for 5 lbs of green beans or 8 cucumbers before they go bad. But they're willing to let you mix and match so I got 3 green peppers and two cucumbers for $1. as paul would say (in a fobby voice) "you got a great deal!"

boston in august

it is beautiful in cambridge. the weather's just slightly muggier than it was in san diego (more humid, not much hotter) and it just makes you appreciate any breeze more. i went to breakfast at andala cafe. my goal is to try every independent restaurant i the area on lincoln's tab. and there i had a chocolate croissant and an iced coffee. the cafe is located on the corner of river street and some small street near central square. it is raised up to the second level and i sat at an open window overlooking the outside patio seating. i could see myself bringing my laptop to do whatever it is we internet cafe people do at a cafe with internet. the food was pretty tasty and i wanted another chocolate croissant but didnt order it.

today is probably going to be ridiculously busy. i'm meeting with three realtors, one at 11, one at 1, one at 3. hopefully they can show me their listings in the two hours i slotted for each one. where's my camera?

there, and back again

august 14th i am back in boston again, good old massachusetts on the east coast. the weather was nice (70) so that I would feel comfortable and only have to ease into the summer. it doesn't really seem real that i'm away from la jolla. i can still hear paul saying "oh man" or sei doing his machismo dance. instead of convoy, gilman, I-5, there's mass ave, storrow drive, I-93. none of which i know how to traverse in my car.

speaking of which, this is the rental car i have:



yes, i drove around today with the top off, cruising around cambridge apartment hunting. with r-kelly and usher's Same Girl blasting (as much as two male hiphop tenors can) on the radio. it was at once liberating and vindicating to drive a muscle sports car that was so impractical. my suitcase didn't fit in the trunk.

i am jumping into the apartment hunt. and the weather's slowly getting muggy so i will definitely be looking for central air or utilities included rentals.

road rage stories

Ah, it's justice for the little guy. Although the story is a bit one sided and you might wonder what actually caused the rager to get all pissy.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/van/366721693.html

And if there's ever a way to get over an encounter with someone that leaves you shaking in your boots, it's to post to craigslist. Or to rant on a blog. But man, I have to say, why do people get angry? It's not good for anyone.

surf paraphanelia packrat

I'm selling off my boards...well, just my old surfboard "big kahuna" which was basically a raft. But now that I have a buyer, I'm getting cold feet. One, it's a really cool looking old board that would be cool turned into many things non-surf, such as a bench, a raft (attach a sail), or just wall decoration. But also, I can't stop wondering if it might be some sort of long lost classic worth $1000, and here I'm giving it away for $20. And I want to save the fins too, which are still useless to me. Maybe to put on my wall? Turn into coasters? Turn into a bookend? Whatevs. Time to sell it, and if it turns out to be a valuable board, good for the guy who is out browsing craigslist and garage sales.

I am, of course, keeping Sharapova. I am returning ryan's board, though I have been surfing with it recently, ever since my skills got above the threshold needed to stand up on a shortboard. But it was broken and fixed, and I really have no use for two boards. But you can see why I want to pack everything until i have a garage full of useless surf paraphenelia.

cost and benefits of texting

I've always debated whether I should get the $5/month text message plan. I know I personally don't really text but many people, especially here in California, love to send text messages. And when the price went up from $.10 to $.15 (gasp!) it's like, the cost increased 150%. That's the same as if you're buying trader joe's two buck chuck in the east coast for $3. wtf?

But the costs don't come without benefits, of course. For one, people are sometimes socially lazy or shy, and it's so much easier to just send a message rather than having to go through the long sequence of a voice conversation. For example, if you're confirming some party details:

(Incoming msg from paul:)

bbq at my place 7 pm

It's much simpler to reply:

k cu there, ill bring beer

Than to say:

"hello, paul?"
"whats up"
"it's bobby. got your message."
and then you feel the need to make small talk.
"how was practice on saturday?"
"pretty good. i had to spar some big dude."
"that's cool. blah blah blah. anyways i'll bring beer."
"ok, see you at 7."

For this month, though, the $5 plan wouldn't have been worth it. I don't think I actually ever go over that from pure texting. So each message is definitely worth my 15 cents right. Just, for all u koreans out there, stop replying to my simple message with "kk~" or "^_^". there's no need for that. (hint, it costs 5 cents per letter that way!)

aging

I guess I'm coming to the period where you lose track of your age. Or maybe it's an early onset of a mentally debilitating disease. But the twenties are where the years merge, and really, there are no more milestones until you're thirty. And nothing between twenty one and thirty really matter.

My friends are aging, as well. My generation. Sometimes it's striking, scary even, to see someone you used to know because inevitably, they've changed so much. And you realize that people's lives go on after you have taken different roads, and everyone continues to evolve. And the people you remember from way back when are no longer the same. You see it in their eyes that they are the same person, and if I close my eyes I can remember from ~7 years ago, what they were like, and what I was like. But that was so, so long ago.

saying goodbye to the surf

My greatest memory of San Diego will be the surfing, I believe. Well, actually, the second greatest, because taekwondo was still such a huge part of my life here that it will be the defining factor. But the most memorable and defining NEW thing I did at San Diego would be the surf.

I've become a beach bum, and the horrible surf tan lines show it. And as I desperately surf as much as I can before I leave, I discover things daily about the sea, about myself. Old sailor's metaphors about the sea being a woman that you fall in love with are true, and now to say goodbye the only way is to spend as much time as possible with her.

I feel that in a mere year I've become more familiar with surfing than many beachgoers. Of course not everyone surfs so much, or get into a sport as intensely.

These days I'm still conflicted about which surfboard to bring back - my 9 footer (Sharapova) or the shortboard that is actually Ryan's. But the past two days I discovered that I can do some serious ripping on it. (well, some serious attempts at ripping.) So I'm reluctant to give that board up too. Maybe I just don't want to give up the surf.

currency of life

I've realized that money means nothing. Coming from a relatively poor chinese family, I've always learned that saving is important, and that reckless spending, even nonreckless spending, is hard to justify. Even up until college I was frugal. There are two distinct monetary moments I remember. When I started regularly paying off credit card bills when living at phi sig, there was a day when I realized my bills were consistently $200-300 or more, and I thought then that I was definitely moving up in society, because my bills were SO high. (now I think my bills are about $1000 per month.) Another time, I had gone to Tanglewood with some friends, when I realized the ticket to get in was $18 at the door. Of course I couldn't back out or make my friends leave, and I wasn't going to sit outside and wait for them to finish the concert. I paid the $20 ever so reluctantly and it literally felt like i was wrenching a body part from my wallet. But after the concert it was almost a release to have paid that money.

Money. I believe that once one has fulfilled a (relatively high) goal of achieving some small measure of wealth, there is no need to make further money - any more is limited by diminishing returns. I think that once your personal value goes beyond a certain number, say $100000, the numbers really don't mean anything anymore. But no one is every really rich if, socially, they are deprived of experiences that human beings really need to thrive. And often, it is the poorer people that actually are wealthy in social capital, because they are freer to experience the world as it should be. But I have no illusions that money isn't everything and that it is possible to be happy without it.

Over a lifetime, one will inevitably go from spending $3 average on a big mac as a kid and thinking "mcdonalds prices are going up, uh oh" to spending an average of $15 per person and thinking that it is a "great deal". In the end it all comes down to dollar signs and symbols that only abstractly represent some sort of wealth. Originally, after the barter system was replaced with a coinage system, money represented tangible assets such as heads of cattle, but now I feel that society has lost the true meaning of the dollar. For the rich or rich wannabe, a tiny cocktail that costs $15 is no surprise. Money has become dispensible. But the wealth that it buys is now invaluable - social capital.

And that's what I really seek. To be rich in social capital makes all other concerns pointless.

It's funny that surfing, eating, being at the beach, and everything I do all the time seems so much better when friends are with you. Sometimes I wish that I could have Boston during the week and San Diego during the weekends. At least, weekends once a month or something like that..kind of like a vacation.

Actually I've decided that I will really miss California. Maybe it's one of those situations where you're always longing for the thing you don't have, but soon I think San Diego will be just a memory that I'll miss. And it's not necessarily that I liked the weather that much, or that downtown or the suburbs themselves were any special, or even the fact that there is surf here. But I think that any place or experience ultimately gets defined by the people you end up knowing during that time.

If I were to stay in San Diego, I think I would be very happy with the way I get to see my friends. I am perfectly fine driving up to LA once in a while. The distance makes each visit to Costa Mesa, then to Inglewood, and now up to Culver City, a more worthwhile and meaningful trip. Now that Hyon is living in LA, there would be a network of Phi Sigs, going from San Diego all the way up to the UCLA area. Anyone could make a roadtrip through SoCal and have a place to crash every night.

And that's exactly what Beeg did this weekend, basically roadtripping over most of California with Tiff, Susan, and Patricio. We celebrated Hyon's birthday Friday, complete with a 5 am trip to BCD Tofu house. And that's when I realized that my understanding of California has begun to solidify. I am able to take people to good places to eat, sleep, party because I have experienced enough of California to start to play host to a very very small fraction of it.

On the way home was an interesting mental game of communication as cars. I was following Tiff as she drove down to SD, and later I went ahead to lead them to Sei's. But during that time in my mind I amuzed myself by thinking of how to communicate to them purely by responding to a lead (for example, changing lanes) and using the blinkers and high beams to signal things. And I realized that I'm one of those people that would imagine and overanalyze any such signal, much like people read into nuances over AIM a bit too much. For example I'd think of a complex way to indicate that we should change lanes (when I was in the back) then I'd also think of ways to tell them that I was going to change lanes to get ahead of them, but that they shouldn't do it too. Of course, the other car probably didn't notice anything.

This morning we made it to La Jolla Shores beach. Beeg and I were both amazed at the surf today. La Jolla Shores' turquoise waters were clear enough to see the shadow of the surf board five feet deep. Then we played at the Cove while waiting for the rest of the group to return from lunch. I think I have some prescient ability to find members of a part that are separated, because we randomly parked after not being able to call them on the phone, and there was the other car parked right across the street. So now I have gained the dangerous trust in my ability, if planning doesn't go well and a party gets separated, to find them and reunite the lost.

After thoroughly enjoying the food offered by Convoy ktown restaurants, we said goodbye over bags of spicy chicken. It's back to life as usual, I guess, Your usual week of labor so that weekends like the last could happen.

the west coast chill factor

Maybe it's also a korean chill factor, although hyon's roommate proved that not all koreans are like that. But I've definitely come to appreciate truly chill people.

I've always been an intense person, sometimes in an up and down way, but I like feeling so pumped up or dedicated to something that it's almost scary. Like cutting weight. Or getting road rage. But then sometimes I wish I could just let it all go and honestly be able to chill, because I reall respect those types of people, who can give to friends freely, forgive mistakes, and always be down for anything.

and whats with those surfers who are so antagonistic? chill, bra. not everyone is as good as you so give me some fuckin slack. its sad to say that surfers who ask if youre ok first if you crash, they are the exception, not the norm.

is it the weekend yet?

No fool, it's thursday. And you skipped taekwondo to go to sushi deli. Which was delicious, and cheap. But who could resist starting the weekend early? Not the AT&T salesperson, who, as I strolled in the door at 7:55, was so eager to close shop that he simply replaced my burned cellphone charger with one they had in the back shelves. That's why you stroll in at 7:55.

So tonight at 11:59 it's going to be the Simpsons movie at edwards mira mesa! I'm excited and not at the same time. They've been advertising it so much, with 7-11s turning into kwikimarts all over california, it's hard not to want to see it. But then somehow I feel that it's going to be two hours of the Simpsons. The movie had better be damn good, because you could sit through hours of the Simpsons just watching reruns and it would be still hella entertaining. Yes I said hella, damn you Paul.

On the other hand, I think HogWild said it the best:

"The Simpsons has outlasted the popularity of beepers, Arsenio Hall, Milli Vanilli, and the Commodore 64 computer."

But even with the late beginning to my Friday (I'll probably roll in around 11 am tomorrow) I'm going to have to make like a bush and get the hell out of the office early. (wow that works on two levels!) Because I give myself about 4 hours to make it through LA traffic, so I can get up to Irvine, pick up Ed Song, go to LA, meet up with Hyon Lee who is now living in LA for the next year, bringing the grand total of Socal Phi Sigs briefly up to 4. Also, Beeg is coming down after an 8 hour drive from SanFran, with his board, and we'll hit up some bars friday night and the beach saturday. That why I can't wait for the weekend because it's going to be HELLA sweet. (I hate you Paul)

political punditry, stewart style

There is a light in today's political darkness. It airs daily on the Comedy Central and is hosted by "either the most intelligent funny man on TV or the most funny intelligent man on tv", Jon Stewart.

Yes, I'm talking about the Daily Show, the people's source for trustworthy and entertaining news in this time of political and media incompetence.

Because I have no cable at home (though we get two channels, but I'm not big on TV) or newspapers my news sources are NPR on the way to work, digg (which is mostly geeky timewasters), and lately, the Daily Show through the Comedy Central dot com.

Sure, you might say, "That's an awfully skewed source of news. digg and comedy central can't really even be considered news. And it's probably leftist just based on the medium." But you know what? When I watch Jon Stewart I'm hearing all the same headlines I get from the radio, but now, with the help of vastly out of context video clips, is suddenly funny and surprisingly relevant. That's right kids, politics is fun!

But despite Jon being a comedian, I feel that he truly believes in the responsibility of the media to inform and help the people. And by making fun of it, I think the Comedy Central is actually working out better as a media outlet than, oh, say CNN. (but the most notorious, according to digg users, must be FOX.)

Well you can decide for yourself. Comedian Jon Stewart is the only one NOT a clown on crossfire:



"If you want to compare your show to a comedy show, you're more than welcome! ... You're on CNN! The show leading into mine is puppets making crank phone calls!"

so basically I'm addicted to the daily show now. i can't get enough of jon stewart's horrible impersonations. Click here to get your Daily news.

best fight scene ever

from cracked.com:



it's one of the worst fight scenes ever, from strike of the panther. read the article first and then watch the movie with the sound off. maybe the sound on, but i'd think that would make it too painful to see all the way through. a fight clip hasnt made me laugh like this since the englishmen fight in bridget jones' diary. yes, i watched that movie. rene zellweger's a great actress.

and i just noticed that one of the people in that scene (the bridget jones scene) is gaius from BSG!

**

actually, the worst fight scene ever is undefeatable which I had seen on some other digg site earlier. the slomo in the beginning is awesome. and at one point you can see the guy grabbed the wrong part of the arm of his attacker, and they both spend about 5 seconds correcting it before he commences eye gouging.

i should put up my fight video filmed in the z center oh so many years ago.

comforts

There's something to be said about the excitement one has upon discovering that he has ice cream in the freezer. Yeah, because I never actually have ice cream or cookies, today when opened my fridge to look for food I was exceedingly happy to remember that I had bought french vanilla ice cream. Yet I still have no other food. If I had a whole fridge to myself, which I will soon, it will be a colossal waste of space.

The other thing that is nice to have are clean sheets. I figure that I might as well wash them before packing them, possibly for long term storage. Then I figured I might as well enjoy the cleanliness before I pack them, even though they won't be as pristine when I seal up the box. It's the same as washing your car or fixing it. Right before you decide to sell your car, it's time to get a tune up, wash it, fix the dents. But why not do it while you still own it, and can enjoy it? Just like a house. Before you sell it, you do some remodeling. Why not put in that extra fireplace while you're still living in it?

I guess humans are creatures of habit. And lazy. And once in a while, easily made happy by the discovery of a box of ice cream. I read a short work of nonfiction that described some psychology study about how we always misestimate the affect certain events will have on our happiness - the results showed that a good event will be "good" for less time and less intensely than we expect, but also that a bad event will make us unhappy for less time and less intensely than we expect. But I think sometimes events that you don't expect anything at all will make you happy.

It's almost August, and I've been trying to find a day that would motivate me enough to start blogging again. That day hasn't come. But I think the tidbits that have happened every day since BEFORE senior nationals have slowly accumulated into a story worth telling, and at the risk of losing a whole sunday afternoon during which I have had nothing else to do but air my sheets in the sun, here is in brief everything that has been.

Nationals

Nationals was as hectic as usual, and even more so because our crew was divided over two days. Maybe that made it a bit better in terms of not having to run around watching ten matches at the same time, but it made us have to deal with sparring, warming up, writing down brackets, etc. for two days instead of the usual one. Day two was delayed ridiculously. Most of our matches started at, maybe 6 pm, forcing Conor to have to debate whether he'd have to miss his airplane to actually spar. To quote Alicia, "It gives new meaning to fight or flight."




The day before, we all had a nice dinner at the Spaghetti factory that turned into a reunion of three sort of separate, sort of cohesive groups of people. During a tournament, spaghetti always tastes so good.

Alicia's visit to SD

Alicia visited me in San Diego afterwards, which was great because that trip had passed way too quickly. Unfortunately I had forgotten to bring our free Southwest drink coupons. Not that we wanted to put anything else in our stomachs after the usual post-tournament binging.

We had a good time winetasting at Orfila Vineyards, and bought a great bottle of Gewurztraminer. Their brandy infused port tasted just as good as it did last time i went.

We also went downtown, where I was, in a drunken stupor, amazed by the extremely low prices at Sushi Deli. It's great sushi, at ridiculously low prices. I am amazed. I will be going again next week, maybe more than once.

Surf addiction

Since taekwondo is somewhat on the backburner now, I've been able to find time to participate in my other love in sports: surfing. (tennis and racketball are kind of a given, not a love). And as I wonder how I'll be able to live without the rolling waves in Boston, I've taken every opportunity to go surf this past week.

Except I think I'm surfed out, at least for the time being. On friday I had some runins with a few dick surfers who actually yelled at me for running into them. Well, I feel bad for not being as good as them, but hey, the wave hit me by surprise, ok? I'm sorry I have a real job and aren't as good on the board.

So instead of sunning myself, I'm letting my blankets soak up the rays today. That way I will have nice sunny bedding on the way back to Boston.

buying happiness

people say you can't buy happiness, but i don't think that's true. definitely when i'm stressed the only thing that can make me feel better is shopping. yeah i sound like a woman but there have been times after tough exams at mit where i felt like i needed to waste the rest of the day at the galleria. actually during that time it was more that i went to petco to buy more aquarium supplies. i was a fishtank addict.

now my big goal i'm looking forward to is stocking up my new apartment. since i'm practically moving to a completely new place empty handed, i'm going to be buying a ton of things. mostly it's the kitchen that is going to need novation (renovation, but not re-). i also will be getting a couch and tv for the living room at some point...but those aren't as essential. so today i went to linens n things because they had a sale, and got a toaster oven and vacuum cleaner. these are things i've never owned in my life before...and it's exciting.

yes i know buying happiness is only a temporary thing, i'm under no illusions. it simply means i will be seeking out new things to buy in the near future. such as, a baby grand piano. maybe i SHOULD get that four room apartment, so i can make one of the rooms a piano room.

happy 4th...or is it?

it's fourth of july and i'm at work because i'm a nerdy workaholic and i have to finish some stuff before taking a vacation next week. but still i'd rather sit at my computer and blog about the state of our nation this 4th of july.

if you're like me and get your news from the internet and various blogs rather than networked news channels, you'll see that there's a lot of bullshit going on in washington, especially from our number 1 failure Dubya and his sidekick, or is cheney the real evil behind the scenes?



and there's been action for impeachment. yes, the american people are actually sick of bush and cheney, and congress might grow some balls and actually take action. but honestly i don't think there's any real point in doing it now. unless you get a real statement out, ie someone actually goes to jail, these calls for impeachment will end up just a handwaving gesture to appease the public until bush finishes his second term, happily retiring to his ranch much like paris hilton has happily retreated to hawaii after her sad excuse for a jail sentence.

i'm no political pundit so all i'm writing is purely a subjective, probably ill-informed opinion based on what i read and hear. after all, life for the average (relatively well off, middle class, white or as close to white as possible) american is just fine. but there's a gut feeling that the way the us is going probably won't be good for us in the near future, or for our children. what happens when the US becomes a surveillance state like britain has unknowingly become? what happens when our foreign relations are so down the drain that there's a large possibility of another real terrorist attack? in fact, just because of that fearful attitude, our lives have already been compromised. but we've been at it so long that americans are used to widespread id checks, long airport lines, internet surveillance.

so what do we have to celebrate for this 4th of july? i almost refused to celebrate today...partly because i shouldnt barbeque because i'm cutting weight, but also to complain about the US. why should i be patriotic? why should i salute our flag, which is being used to run illegal wars, abroad and at home? why should i be proud of a nation that originally voted this idiot into office, and still supports him to some degree?



but then i realized that to celebrate the fourth purely for our times is arrogant and unjustified. the 4th of july is symbolic of the history of the united states, and the original founding of a great nation that has only recently strayed from its path. this date represents the genius and foresight of our fathers - washington, jefferson, adams, madison, hamilton. it does not represent any sort of bush at all. i will salute their ideas that america was founded on the principle of freedom and democracy. jefferson was the original american advocate of small government and feared exactly what would happen today. his secretary of state and next president, james madison, stated that a president should be impeached if he is suspected of protecting anyone associated with him for a crime he had a hand in. just like libby. (from daily kos) so it looks like the fourth of july represents everything right about our nation...and everything wrong about today.

so celebrate the 4th like you mean it. drink the beer and eat the burgers, but remember what they are for. this nation needs it.


i swear allegiance...

july 1st

today i finished the manga "monster" by naoki urasawa. it is absolutely riveting. i couldn't put it down for the last week or so. at first i was able to read about one volume a day, but yesterday and today i went through four or five. and for a little while in the afternoon i was lost between reality and some strange mix of international espionage, murder mysteries, child psychology, and tidbits of moral lessons about family and normality. and for a while i couldnt distinguish between la jolla, ca, and frankfurt, dusseldorf, and other eastern european cities.

and then i was reading some articles about basic science questions and was once again shocked at the incompetence of basic american science knowledge. which means, i realized my own knowledge was sufficently deficient that i needed badly to get to a library, pronto. that's how i rediscovered the "public library", and got a library card to the san diego public library system.

at the la jolla library, i searched for the fundamentals. a post-mtv, blog generation internet addict like me has less of an attention span than a high schooler, so i decided the best way to approach my reeducation would be to search the children's section for science fundamentals books. and that's what i got...the thinner, more pictures available, rudimentary explainations, the better. of course i threw in a few history/social science books (the atlas of our presidents and their times!) and i wanted a book about all of america's wars, but they were only available at the downtown library.

so now i have my summer reading. i ended up reabsorbing some basic physics over a glass of whiskey at the pool. i'm hoping that between manga and science, i can eventually become a great doctor like monster's kenzo tenma. the moral of this story is: find the library. turn off that computer.