Last weekend Kate and I went to the national zoo. It was pretty warm, like 85 degrees, and the zoo was packed with people. We saw some funny looking birds, a panda lying on its back feasting on a pile of bamboo it had collected onto its stomach and a gigantic komodo dragon. I think Eric, Dave and I went to the zoo freshman year and it wasn't nearly as lively. On that visit it was pretty much empty and the animals seemed pretty miserable.

We also went to El Tamarindo last weekend (thought not that same day, because the zoo was exhausting). I wish I could make mojitos like they do at there. We've tried the mango, strawberry, and peach mojitos and they've all been excellent. Don't get the "regular" flavor, that one's no good. But somehow the fruity ones are delicious and pretty well spiked. And the half-pitcher (which is like 4 glasses) is still just about $7. The food on that visit was just okay. I wish I could remember what I ordered the first time I ate there. I have a good feeling about the place, as though my first meal there was great.

Today was 89 degrees. And tomorrow's high is 65 degrees. Surprisingly, the temperature high for tomorrow is at 6am. It's going to get colder and colder through the day. And it's going to rain. I bought groceries today so maybe I won't go outside at all.

I wanted to watch Pulp Fiction today, but after looking through a lot of boxes it seem that I left that DVD at my parents house. Bummer.

(about Mysteries of Westgate being released with a 3-install limiting DRM with remote activation)
Raygereio: Sorry Ossian Studios; I really liked what I saw in the previews, but in a couple of years from now I still would like to be able to install and play your adventure pack without having to sacrifice a couple of chickens to Asmodeus so that he'll make sure Atari keeps the servers needed for online activation going for an indefinite amount of time

At a party last weekend someone said that Nicholas Cage has never been in a good movie. I kept quiet because it's definitely a matter of personal opinion, but I disagree. Here are the 10 best movies with Nicholas Cage, as determined by me, in chronological order I think. If you think otherwise, you're wrong.

Peggy Sue Got Married
Raising Arizona
Moonstruck
Valley Girl
Guarding Tess
Trapped in Paradise
Leaving Las Vegas
The Family Man
Adaptation
The Weather Man

The girl who defended Nicholas Cage thought his good movies were National Treasure and the Rock. She was so very wrong. The Rock was good the first time I saw it, but National Treasure somehow rubs me the wrong way.

Also last weekend, I was standing in the kitchen with Kate and she started sniffing the air. "I think you have food going bad in here," she announced and started checking under my sink and looking through my fridge. Finally, after not finding any moldy food, she bent toward an old mousetrap near the back of my fridge on the ground and said "Ugh. I think you have a dead mouse in that mousetrap." These traps have been in the kitchen since I moved in, and I've never had any indications of mice running around in the kitchen, so I never bothered touching them. Neither of us knew how to open the trap and check whether there was really a mouse in there, but Kate picked it up and said "it feels heavy" so we put it in a plastic bag. At some point a little later she decided that maybe there wasn't a mouse in there, so I just left the trap in the plastic bag on my floor. Later that evening I was stretching my arms and noticed that they were slightly smelly from an inactive day without deoderant. I said "You know, I think I might have forgotten to put on deoderant this morning." Kate said "Let me smell." She stuck her face up to my armpit, and immediately let out a very loud "ACK!! GAAH!!" I didn't think my pits had that strong an odor, but apparently it it's a similar smell to a dead mouse.

(from a messageboard about Citigroup stocks)
vic00...@gmail.com: C is like my wife... Unpredictable!!!

I saw the watchmen last night with Rachel. I enjoyed it, despite the long length, slow dialogue and male nudity. I think eric disliked the music, but I liked it. The old lady (whose name I don't remember because they introduced way too many characters) had a prosthetic face that looked pretty terrible. The action scenes were similar to 300, and I'm not sure that's a good thing, though I liked all the scenes with Rorshach. I'd rather watch a whole movie about him than about Wolverine's origins. I'll probably skip that one when it comes out. I'm surprised these heroes were so quick to accept that the ends can justify the means. Usually being a hero means you believe in something. Anyway, well done, pretty interesting, very long.

Monday's basketball game was interesting too. Have basketball rules changed recently? There's 30 seconds left in the game, the leading team has the ball, why doesn't the defending team foul to try to get the ball back? From what I could tell, neither team was doing very well with their freethrows. But instead the losing team just played regular defense with a full court press. Maybe that old end-game strategy is considered dishonorable these days. In the end, the Wizards lost because at 3 seconds before the end of the game they just let a guard take a 3-point shot from the top of the key. Nobody even ran toward him or anything. Disappointing.

ShieldWolf: You can't get that kind of rich without being a crook, and every one of them are.
Alpha803: Care to tell us who JK Rowling stole from? How about David Beckham? George Lucas has done OK, who did he rip off?
IceFox: He ripped off my childhood!

For some reason the ice coffee in my fridge froze. I've never had anything freeze in there before, maybe the fridge is getting more efficient over time?

At Giant on Friday, Kate and I took the little blood pressure test that they have by the pharmacy. It said I have high blood pressure! As if! I'm far too relaxed for that. My mom likes to remind me that I have a genetic predisposition for high blood pressure, but I never really took much notice of it until now. I was always banking on my being secretly adopted. These people couldn't really be from the same genepool as me! Now I'm reading food labels for sodium content. It's a sad day. Tonight I'm going to a basketball game with some of Kate's friends. My first professional basketball game ever.

(joe gets out-saracasm'd on gchat)
me: i just like to keep things in my calendar
me: the night you're leaving is the same night of the thermals concert, btw
kate: lol
kate: oh good
kate: I was worried about that thermals concert
me: worried? why?
kate: no
kate: I don't even know what you are talking about

Haven't posted here in a while. I'm a lazy blogger.

Been busy the past few weeks. There was an end of the quarter crunch that was worse than I've ever done before. I think my supervisor probably isn't happy about it so I'm trying not to fall behind before the mid-year review. Then when he's like "Joe, this end loading has got to stop." I'll be able to say "Oh, I've learned my lesson, look, this quarter I'm totally caught up!" I sorta have learned my lesson too. Feeling like you're part of a science experiment on the effects of sleep deprivation isn't very fun. I went out to dinner with Kate's visiting siblings, and went to Eric's going away party, and both events are kind of a blur. I don't think I held my own in a conversation about FPGAs with Chris Toombs, and then some guy at the party thought it was funny to ask me if he could get my a roofie. I wasn't sure if that was some sort of pickup line, or if he was just joking around for his buddy or what. Eric has some of the weirdest friends. Just goes to show that a friend-of-a-friend is not at all close to being a friend. It's really only a tiny step (tiny, tiny step, depending on the friend in common) better than being a complete stranger. Maybe the situation would have been funnier if I had been more awake but I suspect not.

Today I again considered getting myself some Star Trek dvds as an end of the quarter present, but again I couldn't bring myself to do it. Too many discs, too many hours of video, and too much money. Someday I'll work up the guts to just buy it and damn the costs/time/non-nerd image.

Kate and I saw "I Love you, Man" and it was okay. I thought the parts with Jon Favreau were hilarious, but Jason Segel's character was annoying and Paul Rudd was kinda boring. Making new guy friends is a hard task to rush, but I still would have been out of there as soon as Jason Segel tried to get honest about his or my sex life. I don't ask my friends about those things, but it isn't because I'm feeling constrained by societal norms and I secretly wish that I could. Kate didn't like the fiance, but I thought she was alright. She's kinda cute in a "the office" sort of way.

Last night I watched about 15 minutes of "His Girl Friday". It was a little interesting, but also exhausting. One of the netflix reviews says "Cary Grant plays Cary Grant" and it's true. Though it's not his fault that he doesn't really have time for much acting because the dialogue moves at such a frantic pace. They probably went through a normal movie's worth of dialogue in that 15 minutes that I watched. I don't think I could date a girl who talks that quickly and intensely all the time. Though I'm not a great listener (as Kate could tell you), but if she talked that much I'd probably start to worry about missing something important.

Next week I think I'm going to see the Watchmen. Anyone want to go?

(user comment to a washington post article about the $825 Billion stimulus bill. I like the Demowussy part)
Tom333: You want to stimulate the economy, Obama? Stop the embargo on UFO techology. We already have the technology for zero point energy and space warp drive. We back-engineered it from crashed UFOs. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton both promised to end the UFO secrecy but they wussed out. Don't be a Demowussy, Obama. Disclose the UFO secrets. Before some other coutry beats you to it. England is already disclosing UFO files. We had a shooting war with UFOs in the 1950s. Full Disclosure. NOW.