Giaka!

Today I forgot my umbrella in the metro. It's a little upsetting, but the thing only cost me $5 and I bought it 3 years ago. Also, it's not nearly half as nice as the umbrella I randomly found on the metro two years ago and now keep in my office for rainy afternoons. (In a slightly humorous story, it's exactly the same kind of umbrella that my co-worker lost on the metro the very same day. So he was kinda suspicious that it was his, but his name wasn't on it and I didn't give it to him.) Over all, I think I've gotten a good trade of the forgotten-umbrella culture.

Also today there was a beggar on the metro train yelling at the top of his lungs. "Anyone have 40 cents? 40 cents?" He just stood at the front of the train car yelling it. Some lady gave him some change and then the yell turned into "Anyone have 40 cent? This lady gave me 20. Anyone have 40 cent?" He also occasionally threw in a word that I don't think was English. It sounded like the Japanese word for Godzilla, "Giaka!" (note: looking at this later, Giaka apparently isn't the Japanese word for Godzilla at all. I just thought so from this scene in Rush Hour 2.) It was quite annoying. He yelled all the way from Shaw to L'Efant Plaza, when the train operator found out about it was said over the loudspeaker "Can someone please call out the transient on the train." I'm not sure what that meant, but the guy finally hopped off the train and we left him at L'efant.

(dan, in an email responding my question of which wii games he recommends)
Red steel was fun but i'd just wait for the second one (better control i'd assume) wario ware smooth moves is the perfect party game for the ladies (as well as big brain academy wii degree, you can see how stupid your lady friends are).

still more weddings

I spent a busy weekend out of town at Kate's brother's wedding. She thought that she was going to be busy and I was going to get bored sitting around, so I brought a bunch of movies to watch and my laptop to work on. But it turned out that I was pretty busy with things too. It was a fun time though. It's interesting to compare how she gets along with her extended family against how I get along with mine. Kate's mom thought I was a great dancer, though had Kate said that I had no rhythm only a few hours earlier. Truthfully, I'm probably closer to "no rhythm" than being a great dancer.

Today I've been looking through craigslist ads for a new apartment. I think this lack of a kitchen is finally starting to affect my health. And having laundry facilities nearby will be fun. My goodness, 1-bedroom apartments in dc are expensive right now. I wish we were college age again and all my friends weren't so committed to living alone. Anyone want to get an apartment?

This blog is the first google result for Banjolina Jolie. I am so popular... or maybe they're just unpopular.

(a user review, talking about submitting a faulty ASUS laptop for repair)
"They have variously promised to email and phone me about the status of getting the unit I purchased back to me. They have done neither. Calling their support phone lines brings no joy."

outage

My house fell within the power outage area this morning. I showered in the dark, and luckily the U street metro station fell just outside of the power outage so I had no issues there. I didn't notice the shaw metro being dark, but I had a book to read and wasn't paying much attention.

In other news NASA is feeling quite confident about everything, even though pieces are falling off their shuttle. Apparently that happens all the time. I'm probably not optimistic enough to be a NASA engineer.

(from a forum comparing Tekken Tag with Tekken 5: DR, lots of complaining about DR's over-reliance on juggles and wall-combos)
Watching DR matches is painful, after a [juggle] launch or getting backed into a wall it's like watching a dad beat up his 5 year-old son. You know unless the kid can crawl through his dad's legs to get away he's prolly gonna get KO'd.

Banjolina Jolie and Tom

I saw the first Banjolina Jolie performance at Rustico last night. I got dinner there with Rachel first. The fries were good, the burger was okay, and it was all totally overpriced at $13. I think it's gotten significantly more expensive than the last time I ate there, and yesterday will probably be the last time I ever eat there again. No more Iron City beer, overpriced food, that place is going down hill.

The band was pretty good. I was a little far away because Rachel didn't want to stand too close. They played from one side of the bar and I was close to the middle of the room, so I was at the further end of those who could hear the band (they didn't have any electronic speakers or mics). Mostly I could just hear Eric singing and a little of the more rhythmic instruments. I'm not a big fan of their Blink 182 cover, but I enjoyed their William Shatner cover. I haven't heard any of Shatner's cds, so it was interesting. Maybe i'll find some of that stuff. You can't beat the Shat.

Tom visited last weekend from NYC because Dave is leaving this Friday. We had a poker game and I came in second (though I still lost $20 because I rebought in). Tom won the game, collecting like $60-$80. And we went out drinking, but it wasn't as fun as it might have been because I ate way too much food for dinner. At the end of the night we also got called "faggots" repeatedly by an angry drunk guy outside of Bar Pilar. I was going to kick some ass but the other guys dragged me away while Eric yelled "I love men!"

(Tom got married a year or two ago. Rav asked him how the married life is going)
Tom: Oh, it's great. I'm living the dream. I have to come home right after work and clean the apartment, but that's just part of life. She only yells at me sometimes. You know, you have your good days and your bad days. I cook a lot, I clean a lot, I wash things that... I didn't even know could be washed. The last time I had sex was 6 months ago. What month is this, April?
Rav: Haha, it's May!
Tom: Oh, no, the last time I had sex was 2 months ago. The doctor had put my wife on some heavy medication...

movies!

Bored at work today so I went on a blu-ray buying spree. I got:
Enter the Dragon (somehow I don't have the dvd of this, and the amazon reviewers say this is the best picture transfer yet),
Troy (I have the dvd of this, but the blu-ray has the director's cut and I thought the movie had some great photography. It should be good in hd),
Underworld (one of my favorite Bill Nighy roles, this is some kind of extended version that I don't have also), and
The Patriot (this movie is cheap because it was one of those that you could get for free if you ordered a ps3 early so there're lots of unappreciated copies out there. It's super long and extended, and I remember enjoying the original).

I also go Virtua Fighter 5, because after playing Tekken for a while I've gotten tired of being juggled by everybody and his mother and not being able to do anything about it. Seriously, it's so realistic. I know every time I watch a UFC match on tv one fighter will uppercut the other fighter into the air and then wail on him with a 6-hit combo before he falls to the ground. Happens all the time.

I thought about getting GTA 4, but I don't have enough time these days for that kind of game.

Finally I got a rice cooker. I'm tired of paying $6 per lb at the lunch buffet (and $9 per lb at Wholefoods!!) when 3/4's of my meal is rice. This thing is going to pay for itself in less than a month. The only trick is going to be washing it. I only have a bathroom sink.. I guess I'll be stopping by Eric's occasionally to wash it out.

Lest she think it's unimportant to me, last weekend Kate came down to dc to visit and I had a great time taking a long weekend off work and hanging out with her. She has some friends in the area so I met some of them. They're all so young and cheerful. Yep, they're new to the dc area.

Tomorrow is Reynoldstock!

(a guy in a forum comparing the story of GTA: San Andreas with GTA 4)
I'll admit that the story and missions of San Andreas could leave you with a nasty taste in your mouth, but this stems from the fact that you were playing as a punk ass no-balls bitch who, if I remember correctly, was raped by an ass-ugly chick in the country at one point.

Yours For Now in NYC, running through a downpour, and computer issues

I went to NYC last weekend, from thursday through saturday. It was a good time, I saw a bunch of cousins and a bunch of my sisters friends whose names I didn't remember, and probably won't remember again next time. That's the problem with having only met people when you're drinking. My brother in law Doug and his friend and my two cousins Brian and Linda are in a rock band up there called Yours For Now. And they were really good. I was expecting more garage-band level stuff, but they were like standard indy-band quality like you'd hear in a paid-for concert. Maybe some day they'll be my claim to fame, since Eric's musical aspirations have apparently petered out (I'm still uncertain about Banjolina Jolie, but that might be just because it's not my style of music).

I got dinner with Dave Saturday and tried to go to Kate's birthday at Marvin aftwards. On the walk to the bar it started raining, brewing itself into an unbelievable downpour in like 5 minutes so that we were half-soaked by the time we had run to the bar. When we got there Jamie gave a disbelieving "Is that the line!?!" A good 20-30 people were waiting outside in the rain to get into the bar. It was pouring down super hard, and most of these people didn't have umbrellas. In retrospect maybe I should have stuck around for the wet t-shirt contest which was sure to follow. But instead I huddled for a few minutes under a tiny overhang around the block with Dave and Jamie, and then ran home and worked on my computer for the rest of the night. But I finally fixed it.

The computer was doing this thing where it'd get about 1/3 of the way through installing Windows and then power shut off. I unplugged everything, tried installing on different hard drives, tried with different Windows cds, reflashed the BIOS, but nothing worked. I was confused becsause the computer had been working fine until I uninstalled Windows, so it didn't seem likely that it was a motherboard issue. I was frustrated for a while. Finally, Saturday night, on a whim I took out the second RAM chip, leaving only the primary, and then it miraculously installed smoothly. Apparently this motherboard can't cope with dual-channel memory without special windows-level driver software installed (I had assumed it'd be in the BIOS), and it can't just ignore the second memory either. Anyway. Now I just need to find the right driver for this onboard network card. I love how foxconn doesn't collect, mirror, or even link to the drivers you may need for their motherboards, they instead tell you to go hunt it down from the manufacturer. I don't even know who manufactured this thing. I'll figure that out later.

Maybe I should start tagging some entries "nerdy" or "computer" when I talk about that kind of thing. I know you're all anxious to get my collected technical wisdom onto a single page.

(from a netflix user review of Dead Man Walking)
Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn are sensational in the lead roles. (Sarandon won an Oscar and Penn wuz robbed). By the end of the movie, when you look at Susan Sarandon you see a nun, which is an achievement in itself.

cousins weekend

This entry is a little discombobulated because I'm not working today. I'm just back from cousins weekend in California. It was a fun time. It was later in the spring this year than most years, and the days were like 65 degrees. Snowboarding when it's warm out is the only way to go snowboarding. I only went snowboarding for a half day but that was enough for me. I'm still sore from it.

Hmm, there was lots of drinking. I ended up losing the game of Kings and had to drink the bowl of beer. It was 2 or 3 beers worth, but at least it wasn't a mixture of different drinks. Sometimes the Kings players pour in from whatever foul whiskey or voda or light beer or dark beer until what you have left is a barely drinkable alcoholic concoction. The bowl I drank just had Coors Light in it so it wasn't too bad. I accidentally napped through the poker tournament. That was a little disappointing.

At one point, early in the weekend, I asked my cousin Peter which kids were his. This is something I should know, but a few of my cousins have had a bunch of kids recently and I've only met like half of them. When I asked, Peter waded out into the crowd of running kids and came back with one on each arm. "Say hi to your uncle Joseph," he told them (they call us uncles and aunties even though technically I'm a first cousin once removed). Yes, I am a bad relative.

I'm watching the Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut. I had to wait to watch it on blu-ray because I refuse to switch dvds mid-film (the directors cut is 2 dvds long). Such a great film, I don't know how people can dislike it. I think the only reasonable explanation is that some people just have bad taste in movies. It's definitely better than Almost Famous. Yes, it is.

me: yeah. well he was a little slow
whitney: ya, kinda retarded
me: wow so non-pc
me: africa has turned you vulgar
whitney: i know. what can i say?
joe: do you spit when you're walking around also?
joe: you don't need to feel bad, i'd start spitting if i lived in africa
whitney: ya, and i also pee anywhere i want.

Dave & Busters

Went to Dave & Busters with my cousin and his wife. I thought it was going to be a little awkward but it wasn't too bad. My cousin's wife is pretty funny- she likes star trek and video games. And my cousin is a priest, I think, but he likes playing the first person shooter arcade games.

First I rocked my cousin and his wife, and then some random dude and then the computer for a while at Tekken 4. I thought it was tekken 6, but it wasn't. Tekken 4 is the version I used to have for my ps2 and I won $75 playing in a tournament a few summers ago. My cousin's wife just wanted to play it when we got there, they didn't know I was good.. I think. After that I went on to figure out, much like that test in high school, what occupations I'd be good at and what I'd be bad at.

It turns out that I wouldn't make a good helicopter gunner. I wouldn't make a good motorcycle racer when the race track's path through the city is hard to discern (I ended up going the wrong direction more than a few times). I wouldn't make a very good navy battleship gunner. And I'm not a great sniper either. But it turns out I really missed my calling to be on a SWAT team. With a shotgun in my hands and kicking down doors and whatnot- I am unstoppable! Every terrorist who popped up got capped and the screen would say "Quick Shot!" for me. Because I am awesome. I totally rocked my cousin. And I accidentally shot a few hostages, but you can't bake a cake without breaking a few eggs. It's the price you (or in this case, the hostages) pay for these inhumanly fast reflexes. If only there was a SWAT team that was required to bust into places and shoot everything that moves. I'd be perfect for it.

This comic from penny-arcade is pretty funny. It's referring to a real court case.

(I'm not sure why, but this really cracks me up. Talking to Dan about combining dvd movies- it's a delicate art, not a science.)
me (3:40:24 PM): need some kind of umbrella menu so that the dvd player can figure out that there're 4 submenus
dan (3:41:14 PM): won't your x converter do that for you
me (3:41:29 PM): hopefully. i'm still installing it
dan (3:42:21 PM): watch your dvd player just spit the disc out and be like ah nigga please

catching up

Okay, I just down'd a cup of coffee so I'm all hyped up this afternoon. First some work stuff because I'm thinking about it: I think I'm gonna reject this case, but I know for a fact that the guy will appeal it if I do. So I have to balance how embarassing I'm willing to look infront of my supervisor against whether I'm technically correct for this case. My reference has a computer technican doing a bunch of the work and I'm not completely sure whether the reference works as a "diagnostic engine" without the technican helping it along. I know for a fact that the attorney is going to write into his appeal something snide to the effect of me trying to bring back slavery by including the person in this patented computer system. ("The examiner contends that the technician is part of the claimed computer system. Perhaps the examiner is expecting the technician to be black?" Hardy har har.)

Went to a party at Eric's on friday. It was a pretty good time. I was worried at first because it was just me, Eric and Jason. And Jason is the only one of Eric's friends who I absolutely dislike. But more people showed up and it was fun. Jamie gave me a nice lecture about how real men drive cars. (Unlike myself.) Other than that it was a quiet weekend of mostly playing videogames instead of doing the work I should be doing. Bad time management, but it was worth it! I got a sword of fire+3!!!! Haha, just kidding.

The weekend before last I went out to Colorado, and I meant to write about it but never got around to it last week. It was lots of fun though and the weather was very reasonable. Very reasonable in that it wasn't super freezing cold and snowing the entire time I was there. Kate and I saw the Spidewick Chronciles, which she thought was good but I was annoyed by the main kid actor. It's funny, I thought both the brother actors were about equally annoying, and then I read just now that it was one actor playing both brothers. Surprise. Annoying Brit kids... My second cousin's name is Brit, btw, and he is so much cooler than any of the real Brits. Nick Nolte was pretty good as the creepy, raggedy ogre-man.

Let's see, we also went to a hockey game. My first hockey game, and felt like I was about to fall down the bleachers anytime I stood up because we were so high up and the seating was so vertical. The local team (the avalanch?) got slaughtered, and all the local fans were kinda depressed, but I got a big plate of nachos and a pretty good hot dog. It was better than a baseball or basketball game, and about on par with a football game (there were more fights in the hockey game, but much more heckling at a Raiders game). As a side note: Kate's sister, who took us to the game, is really quite funny.

Finally, Kate helped me pick out a pair of jeans. I don't have any other jeans and haven't shopped for them in years because they never seem to fit correctly. Kate liked a pair that were tighter than any other pants I own, so I'm mostly only going to wear them around her I think. She's going to be upset when she reads that, but look I just said "mostly"! I might wear them around dc but, even if not, it was a purchase that will be very useful for Colorado. Last thing: airport security likes my shirts. I've gotten like 3 compliments now. Twice for Eeyore and now once for "I slept with Kirk". If only I was looking to pick up nerdy airport security girls.

Kate: Don't make fun of me.. I bought the exact same pair of shoes that I had before.
me: I did the exact same thing a little while ago!
Kate: Yeah, but my shoes are cute.

Sweeny Todd in the mountains

I had a very fun MLK weekend out in the mountains. It's freezing cold out there but pretty quiet, sort of like living in a ski resort town. And nobody up there has heard of the movie Tron. My shirt got blank look responses. Kids these days have no respect for history.

I saw Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It started a little slow, but then picked up speed about 20 minutes in. The unusual combination of Johnny Depp's cheerful song and the the montage of him systematically cutting people's throats and dropping the bodies down a shoot so they fall on their heads made the scene pretty funny in a morbid way. Kate was pretty disturbed and I probably wouldn't sit through it again, but we all thought it was very well done movie. I'm getting the soundtrack.

My new officemate's name is on the door. Grant Johnson. He sounds like a president... I guess it's a very caucasian name. He doesn't have a computer or supplies in here yet, so he probably won't show up until late this week. Maybe Friday. Then I'll have to be a role model. No more naps. I'm planning on laying out some ground rules as soon as we meet. I'll let you know how it goes. He works in GUIs, which sounds like a stupid thing to have a patent on, but whatever.

In other news, Eric got punched in the side of the face while walking to a party near Potomac Avenue metro this weekend. He told me about it last night. A bunch of guys were going to rob him or worse, but he managed to run away after getting hit. I'm not sure what factors are to blame, but generally I'd say don't walk around SE at night, don't walk around sketchy places while wearing your headphones listening to music, and keep an eye out. But any number of things, including bad luck, probably contributed to Eric's incident. My coworker Spittle would say this is why we all need to carry guns. He's a moron about some things.

(about the nicer local restaurants and their dress codes)
Kate: They're not really fancy. Just fancier than you can get into wearing your ringer.

Bad movies and a white elephant party

Watching the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It's alright, I guess. Not as good as the first two. I never thought I'd say this but Kiera Knightly is really getting on my nerves. There's something not right about playing the tough pirate girl when you're under 100 pounds. The first two had more a whimsical atmosphere; this one is all doom and gloom. And the voodoo lady with the bad teeth won't stop babbling prophecies in broken English. Can't understand a word she's saying.

Ugh, this movie is way too long.

Other than doing a fair amount of work, I went to a housewarming party at Noelle and Rob's last weekend. I drove down with Dave, Eric and Jamie, and first we got some Afghan food at a somewhat nice restaurant. I had just eaten a full cup of chili and cornbread from wholefoods that afternoon so the Afghan (or is the adjective "Afghani" as in "Afghanistanimation"? We discussed that in the car a bit) really stuffed me. Not a great state to be in for partying, but I did my best. It was a white elephant gift exchange party. I'd rather not say what I brought, because who knows who reads this thing, but I ended up getting a light that says "last call" and "happy hour" on it. Supposedly the light heats up super hot if you leave it on for more than 10 seconds. We'll see, I still haven't tried it out. Dave scored bigtime with a Hillary Clinton nutcracker.

Noelle and Rob's house is pretty cool. It's one of those moderately small 3-floor houses with an old stairway in the middle that sorta spirals up and is so steep at parts that you need to hold the rail. I think it had a whole lot of character and was very home-y. I'm still not sure about Baltimore in general though.

(Shoot, I had a great quote to put here that made Kate sound really mean and nasty, but now I can't remember it. Instead you get something from Whitney. Her blog, linked on the left, now finally has an entry or two on it.)
whitney: he doesnt care
whitney: he wasnt that into me
joe: of course he cared
whitney: no, he said he didnt feel more than my friend
whitney: except he liked to make out

Holidays

Apparently this blog is not as well-hidden as I once thought it was. Hello, to all you who found this page back when I had it linked from Facebook. Maybe I should get a tracker like Rachel and Puja have.

Hope all your holidays were mediocre, because then mine were better and I like feeling superior. (I'm not sure if being superior is actually required.) Christmas was quiet, though I was busy with a bunch of non-family things. New Year's was a lot of fun, though my date drank a little too much champagne and the only competition (of the advertised plural "competitions") turned out to be this completely skill-less game where you toss plastic pigs and hope they fall one on top of the other. At the end of the night Eric mixed up a special New Years drink that was a combination of all different kinds of regular alcohol, and some Bolivian Chicha mixed in. Probably the foulest stuff I'd ever smelled, and even though I was slightly drunk I didn't want to even try it. Kate was surprised that even though she was looking beautiful, I still got more compliments on my funny looking, informal tie than she did on her outfit. I had forgotten that this group of friends hadn't before seen my skinny tie in action.

This year I still don't have a resolution yet. Last year's was to be able to touch my toes... something I still can't do. Maybe this year I'll finish that program I've been sporadically working on. Or (and this is doubtful) maybe this year I'll accomplish both!

(2AM New Year's Day, an asian kid wearing a suit and tie crosses the street not far in front of us)
kate: Oh my God, he's going to puke!
(I look closer. The kid is walking kinda hunched over and doesn't look too well, but I'm optimistic by nature.)
me: Nah, he'll be fine. He's a trooper.
(In the middle of the street the kid stumbles and his pants fall down to his knees before he manages to catch them, yank them up, and keep walking)

untitled.

Today I'm staying home because I'm supposed to get 3 different package deliveries. It was some clever delivery coordinating on my part. And I'm doing work, but mostly looking out the window too frequently to make sure the fed-ex guy isn't sneaking up to my door to leave a "missed you" note before running away.

I went to a concert with Rachel last night. It was alright. I liked the first opening band the most, and Lemonheads fans are all so weird. They're old and they get really into the music and dance weird. The music is sort of between softrock and hardrock so the audience doesn't really know what to do. And some of the people are just plain weird. Anyway, it was a decent time. I didn't drink any alcohol, just had one extremely overpriced coke. And I think I managed to go the whole night without saying anything mean to Rachel.

Rachel: You're cornering the market on Kates from Colorado.

Gunshots

I'm feeling much more cheerful now, thanks for asking. My neighbor Whitney just knocked on my door to see if I was okay, "because of the gun shots." I was confused. What gunshots? You mean those fireworks? That's just kids being kids, and it wasn't even nearby. But no, she was certain it was guns and from just across the street, and she had already called 911.

Now (2 hours later) there's still a cop in a car sitting outside with the lights flashing. I'm not sure what he thinks he's doing there, maybe it's a show of force to deter any more violence. Maybe you'll read about my street in the paper tomorrow.

Quote pending.

Illness and a poem

I've been sick for a while. Since like thursday last week. But I managed to briefly get out for a turkey frying at Eric's (which was fun) and a Brand New concert out in Baltimore with Rachel and Eric (which was okay). Probably the last time I'll see Brand New, the just get more and more pretentious and showey and less substantial with each tour. They didn't play a single song off their first album, and the lights were set to flash right in the eyes of the audience. I think the lead singer must have been having a bad hair day or something because they didn't once use lights from overhead. Oh well.

I'm watching a youtube clip from South Park, where they explain evolution (probably the funniest explaination of evolution I've ever heard) and one of the brilliant youtube users wrote a nice little poem in his comment. Is it a explaination of evolution? Refutation of evolution? Who can say, he left no other hints. There's something admirable in the poem's simplicity and lack of proper grammer at its conclusion, as though to say, "You are retarded." Not sure if the first line is a typo or intentional so I'm leaving it.

Rabbits look similar to squirrles
Rhinos look like hippos
Man looks like monkey

Wedding Photos

http://synik.myvnc.com:8008/~schell/pujas_wedding/pujas_wedding.html

The page is about 16 megs.

I might have said some somewhat inflammatory things about people. Rachel, tell me if I need to do some editing before wedding people see it. We did have some weird pact about sharing photos, right?

Puja and Sunjeev's Wedding

Puja's wedding was lots of fun. I had kind of a lame thanksgiving where I went to work and then afterwards played videogames. The next morning I flew out to LAX. My first flight was delayed because one of the flight attendants was running late. Very late. We were supposed to leave at 10AM, but by 11:30 the guy still hadn't showed up and people were pissed. Eventually one of the workers got on a speaker and said "We've receieved confirmation that the flight attendent is in the airport, it shouldn't be long now!" Then like 30 minutes later a guy in the a flight attendent uniform comes strolling down the walkway. Everyone was watching him and a bunch of people were standing but there were no cheers, just lots and lots of angry faces. I was upset too. This asshole thinks he can just sleep in late, he should be billed for my time and every other person on that plane. We were already highly irritated and this man's casual stroll up to the gate was not helping anything. I was about to stand up on my chair and yell "Lynch the bastard!" when saw him display some fairly feminine mannerisms while talking to his coworkers. That stopped me. Far be it from me to incite a possible hate-crime. Later we found out that he wasn't the originally scheduled flight attendent anyway. The original flight attendent got in a car accident or something on the way to the airport and just never showed up so this guy was filling in.

From LAX I picked up a rental car, probably wisely went with the GPS option and then tried to drive to the hotel. But the GPS was fixated on the car rental as a destination, so I did a large loop back to Avis and it told me I had arrived. Finally I did get to the hotel, but everyone was at Puja's night-before dinner which was somewhere else (I didn't know where) so I went to Jack in the Box and watched tv in the hotel room. Fast food isn't as good as it used to be. People got back from the dinner at like 11:30 and I briefly said hello to Puja and talked a bit with Rachel, and then went to sleep.

Puja, without prior warning, called our room at 7AM to come have breakfast with her. It was a pretty good buffet spread, so we ate, then went to Target and bought a bunch of random stuff people needed. Hmmm, oh, then I drove around with Rachel looking for somewhere to get lunch. I thought we were driving toward Disneyland because I had passed it on the way to the hotel the evening before, but apparently I got all confused and totally drove the wrong way. Oh well. Rachel and I were wearing matching "I survived Puja and Sunjeev's wedding" shirts, on the back of which said "Just Married". And we got congradulated by some random people on our new marriage. Rachel quickly corrected them :)

The wedding itself was pretty interesting. Sunjeev road around the hotel on a horse. Rachel and the other bridesmaids (wearing Indian wraps) carried candles around and weren't allowed outside to see the horse because they were women on the bride's side. Then there was a long series of blessings and symbolic actions. The whole thing took a few hours. There was an open bar afterwards and a pretty good dinner and some dancing (which I actually participated in and was having an alright time, up until the bar closed toward the end of the night and I started sobering up).

There was an after-party at Puja and Mehrnaz's room, where we played cards. F*** The Dealer (where I somehow guessed cards amazingly well, and got the majority of the cards on the first try, and pretty much all the rest on the second try, only having to drink like twice), Kings (Puja's old coworkers have no skills in the "Questions" event), and Asshole (it took me two hands to make it to president and then I only stayed there for two hands before getting ousted. But we were playing without the President getting any tribute and I think I would have done well if we had been doing that.) We had a truely atrocious selection of liquor. No beer at all. I drank rum and coke (horrible, foul stuff) until the rum ran out and then I started drinking tequilla and coke, which was exponentially worse.

I didn't get much sleep at all, and the next morning my rental car's GPS decided to take me in a nice circle several times before finding a gas station. Then getting back to the rental place was impossible, I circled around for like 30 minutes because the stupid thing said "Avis Rental on the left" but there was nothing on the left. Finally I used the rental place's address and just hunted it down the old-fashiond way. I missed my flight but got a standby flight about an hour later. Then I was unable to board 2 standby flights in Chicago, and they wanted me to wait until 6am the next morning! So instead I got a flight to Dulles and got in at about 4am. My baggage went to Reagan but was easily picked up later.

Photos coming soon.

(Much to Dave's disappointment, at Tom's wedding all girls around college age were lesbians)
Dave: They shouldn't be allowed to have lesbian bridesmaids! That should be a rule!

Professional Bowler Right Here

Just looking at the old playstation game "Tactics Ogre" on Amazon. The game was released in 1995, but the cheapest used copy of the game for sale is $70. And the cheapest new copy.. $350. Rediculous. Well, I just sold my playstation 2 anyway, and I'm not getting a playstation 3 until the new Tekken comes out. In the mean time I guess I'll do something more productive than play strategy games.

I went bowling for Eric's birthday Saturday and I beat Eric, Dave, John Sawyko, and Jon Reiling. Usually Eric does a little better than me, but not this time. I think it's because the other guys have been dabbling in that bowling with the little mini-ball and pins and it's thrown off their game. I got like 135 the first game, and 160 the second game, which put me about 5 points ahead of Eric each time (Eric came in second on both games). Oh, there's another possibility. Eric threw a strike as the very first throw of the first game, but Jon had forgotten to hit the "start bowling" button so it didn't get counted. And Eric was pissed and had to re-throw and ended up getting like 7 for that frame. It was pretty humerous but nobody laughed too loudly because Eric felt robbed. That bad start might have thrown him off for the rest of the night.

Also last weekend there was a dinner at Dave's and he cooked up this stuff called "Leche de la tigre" (Tiger's milk). It's some drink with egg, milk, sugar, and rum, and was really good. Well, the first cup was good, after that it started to make me feel sick. After the dinner we went to a sort of pretentious party at Dave's neighbor's place, and I had some Coors to settle my stomach. Despite Liza's opinions otherwise, there were no hot girls at this party. Saturday there was a party at Val's place way out in northeast dc. It was a good time, though kinda quiet, as parties go. We ended up getting a rid back from some sketchy girls with Eric's friend Jason, who I detest but managed to not yell at through the whole car trip.

Did you know that if there was a hole through the center of the earth, from here to China, it'd take more than 21 hours of free-fall to reach the other side. That's if you're shooting through with your arms tucked to go as fast as possible. It could take more like 70 hours if you have your arms out to catch the wind. That movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is absolutely incorrect, and there's no way you could walk that far in your lifetime. These are the troubling things that occupy my thoughts at work on Monday. (Obviously the heat from the earth's core will probably burn you up before you make it though. And the reversal of gravity after you pass the center would mean you'd only make it a couple miles beyond the center before reversing direction and falling back toward the middle again. I'm not sure whether you'd be weightless or what when you're actually in the center there. You might feel 1/2 gravity in each direction, sort of tugging at all sides, which would be strange.)

(from a column by videogame writer Jeff Vogel)
I play a lot of World of Warcraft - like everyone else on the planet. The other week, for the first time, I bought some gold. That's right. I spent some of my real, actual money for imaginary gold. It felt so good.

"Nada Mucho"

This Thursday I have a test at work, and I was supposed to study last weekend but I totally forgot. Having a test at work sounds kinda weird, but we don't do it often. It's only for the employees that management suspects are a little too slow for this job. Ha, not really. I don't think my supervisor suspects that yet.

Went to a post-halloween party in Columbia Heights last Saturday. I was a goth "blind date from hell", complete with a wilted flower. Liza helped me spike my hair using blue hair gel, and it came out surprisingly well. Dave said I should consider it as my permenant hair style. I don't think I'm going to do that just now though, maybe later.

I'm listening to Manowar. They're a heavy metal group, and so, so much better than Metallica or whatever else you'd consider trashy heavy metal. I don't really understand their fetish for illustrations of heavily muscled mostly-naked dudes, nor am I generally impressed with Norse mythology, but some of their songs are really great. You have to sift through a lot of drool overly-dramatic crap to find it, but when you do it's like striking gold. They have maybe 10 albums. I went through them all, and sorted out maybe 45 minutes of glorious rock anthems. Well worth the trouble too, if they only played these songs in concert it would be the best concert since Andrew WK's first album. Unfortunately the concerts are probably filled with barely clothed bodybuilder guys with long hair and dripping sweat. Possibly the least attractive mosh pit ever. And they only tour in Europe, so there you go. All that and BO to boot. I'll stick with the albums.

(we may have new rules in the office soon that limit a client's number of RCEs)
Spittle: They told me they're not allowed to RCE because of the new rules.
me: The new rules aren't going into effect yet.
Spittle: Yeah but they're worried that it might go into effect retro-actively and they don't want to bust their nut early by using one up.
me: Umm. You probably shouldn't use that phrase around the office.
Spittle: Hey, that's what the lawyer just told me on the phone. He said "We don't want to bust a nut too early."

Weakerthans, Dual Monitors, and Apple Fritters

Saw the Weakerthans yesterday. It was a really early show, and its kinda soft music. Plus I couldn't drink too much because I had to get into work early today. But I was still decent. The drinking with Dave and Eric beforehand was probably a little more fun.

Today I disabled my dual monitors at work. 2 monitors isn't really conducive to productivity with this job. I remember when I was programming at home, you can look at the source code and the program results and do a cross-analysis to debug your program code. But here I end up using one monitor for work and the other monitor to read the news or videogame reviews and the two monitors together tire my eyes out 5 times as quickly. This will be better. Maybe I'll read fewer useless reviews.

Why do Apple Fritters have to be so big? The tastiest part is the edges, where it's not so apple-tasting. The middle tastes moderately disgusting, they should just make them normal sized. I don't need a 5 pound donut in the morning. My supervisor saw it sitting on my desk and told me "Stay healthy, Joe."

(from a Eragon movie review)
"Unfortunately, the dragon suddenly hits puberty and becomes a woman in about three seconds, and returns fully grown and able to talk psychically to Eragon in perfect English. So perfect, it has an English accent and sounds a lot like Rachel Weisz. She tells Eragon her name is Saphira, and that he is her rider. I guess he will be made a man, if beastiality counts! "