Story Archive - August 2005

Cook with Fire - Good (08/29/2005)

Sodding, blimey, shagging, knickers, bollocks, oh God! I'm English! - Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Friday was quiet. I swung by the grocery store because we were out of soda, only to be inspired to buy a lot more than I had originally planned. Dining out Friday night quickly became a cook-at-home plan.

Gumdrop arrived at around seven, exhausted from too much work. She left the office with "just one more email to go." I sent her down to get her laptop so she could finish working and I started cooking dinner. She puts more blood and sweat into her work than I do, and I don't see that often in people. I like the drive. It's inspiring, though perhaps sometimes a bit misplaced. I remember days in my past where I was working eighty-hours weeks purely for the love of what I was doing.

I have tried a few times in the past to time dinner to be ready the moment she arrived, but my timing is always off. Her estimations are blue-sky more than actuals. It's something to strive for, and that's never a bad thing. Whenever I try to guess the actuals I generally end up with fugacious things finished far too early and by the time she walks in the door, very far from perfect. My ultra-tender stir fry has a short pan-life before it becomes jerky-like. I need to learn secrets of preserving food at the peak of edibleness.

I BBQ'ed up some filet mignon, made some simple rice and a few corns (organic of course) and it all came together just at the right time. Sometimes I impress myself. We watched Firefly. It tickles me pink that she likes good SciFi and Joss Whedon stuff and musicals and all the important things in life.

Plays and Houses (08/27/2005)

No need to tough it when you can sluff it off as I do. Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters. It's just life. - Fiyero (Wicked)

I went to bed fairly late on Friday with no roommate to be seen. I woke up pretty early on Saturday with no roommate to be seen. I did notice a laptop buzzing along happily on the living-room table, a sure sign of his return at some point.

Gumdrop showed up and we were off to the city. We met my mother, their first "official" meeting. We tried to go to a little cafe recommended to us called Dottie's, but the line went out the door so we ended up a diner where you could get such treats as pancakes and egg-rolls. Yum! Then off to Wicked. We three are all good connoisseurs of the musical arts. I've had the soundtrack to Wicked for a bit now, so I can sing along with all the wonderfulness. The songs are great. The story is a bit weaker as there seemed to be a need to come up with an origin story for every single plot element in the actual Wizard of Oz.

That night we went over to my friend Tony's for a house warming party and I was much impressed by his bachelor pad. It is far nicer than any setup I have had before. I especially enjoyed his large glass display case with anime statues, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars paraphernalia.

Restrooms (08/27/2005)

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale. - Arthur C. Clarke

Adzar: I need to to use the restoom. Damn, Jizneff is in mine.

Jiznordanzar: You could use mine.

Adzar: Really? I've never used yours before.

Jiznordanzar: We've been here nearly eight months and you've never used it? Weird.

Riznoss: I've used it. It's everything you hope it will be.

...

Jiznordanzar: Was it everything you hoped for?

Adzar: A working toilet, a working sink and towel. It was all I had dreamed.

Hipsters (08/26/2005)

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch. - Orson Welles

For lunch on Thursday I had a bowl of cereal and cup of noodles. For lunch on Friday I had a bowl of cereal, bacon and a bagel. That's not bad is it?

Thursday night I went down to Santana Row. The drive from Redwood City to Santana Row was packed with traffic and I couldn't help looking over at the nearly empty carpool lane and thinking, "soon, Very soon."

I'd never been to Santana Row before and I was aghast. I think, somehow, some evil genius took all the hipster exaggerated establishments scattered through San Francisco, compacted them into a four block area and then transplanted it all to the middle of San Jose.

We went to a restaurant called Straits. It played extremely loud club music and was jam-packed with people who had to yell to be able to speak to one another over the noise. We were luckily seated outside, far away from the commotion, where we only needed to speak very loudly to hear each other. My friend kept recognizing passing people. She has based the next few years of her life on being a hipster in Santana Row. It seems to be off to a good start.

On my way out I passed the sushi restaurant. It had anime projected on the wall. I paused for a little bit, but couldn't recognize it. I had this feeling that the customers thought the film made the place more authentic.

I was happy to leave and go back to my hood where I could park my Prius at the coffee house and sip an organic fair-trade latte while browsing the web on the free WiFi using my 17" Apple Power Book and write a web entry about those pretentious Santana Row people. I am glad I am so down to earth.

Getting Older (08/23/2005)

The older one grows, the more one likes indecency. - Virginia Woolf

Back-dated entries are naughty things. I do them. I do them because I start to write entries and then I save them for a certain date and I'm usually waiting for some trailing bit of information that doesn't always come. Last weekend I was out with the girl's family for her birthday. I was waiting to get back some pictures to throw inline, but I'm done waiting.

She is older than me. After I got over dating the really young girls in high school (you know who you are) I have a fairly standard track record of only dating girls older than me--though I will admit that I still very much enjoy Oingo Boingo's song, "Little Girls." She is a giant month and a half older. I know: ancient.

We went to a great little greek restaurant in downtown Palo Alto. Good food. Good wine. The greek coffee was mediocre. The first half tasted pretty good, but the bottom, where all the layers of sediment had collected was undrinkable and was somewhere between sand and mud.

Afterward we went to a see a musical. The girl likes musicals as much as I do, and that is a rare thing. We saw "Harold and Maude" which is all about a young boy who falls in love with and older lady. A little to ironic, and yeah I really do think. Full of themes of love, death and suicide. I'll admit that I misted at one point. I've been fairly blesses not to have lost many people close to me, but there are one or two that I get reminded of from time to time that cause some reaction.

This next weekend I'm going to see Wicked! It will be the bomb.

FasTrak Quest (08/23/2005)

I've been told that I have a lot of energy. The secret is that I use renewable resources. Some days I'm solar powered. Some days I'm wind powered. And some people in this room might think I'm hybrid gas-powered. You'll just have to guess which it is today. - Bill Richardson

Forty-five minutes from Palo Alto to the FasTrak office in San Francisco. Fifteen minutes at the office getting my new hybrid transponder. While I was there, there were four other people and three of them were also getting their hybrid transponders. I mailed in my DMV application as soon as I got home and now I await the sticker.

My father called me later to poo-poo hybrids.

Father: "I hear that batteries cost you around a gazillion dollars to replace and you'll lose far more money on batteries than you save on fuel."

Seriously, if you're doing it for cost, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. The average hybrid is $3k more expensive. I save about three cents per mile. So over the course of 100,000 miles I will save roughly $3k and come out even. I own a hybrid because the last time I talked with God, He told me it increases my chances to get into heaven.

The one person at the FasTrak station who wasn't there about a hybrid was dealing with an issue because he and his wife both lived at the same address, had the same last name, had different accounts and FasTrak kept screwing up the billing somehow. I heard the FasTrak person castigating the customer that they should really be on the same account and the customer explaining that FasTrak was completely incompetent if they couldn't keep these accounts seperate since the transponders and the vehicles were different. I side with the customer on this one.

Love That Q (08/19/2005)

Let me tell you something, folks. Forget about cocaine and heroine. All you need is NyQuil and Sudafed. - Denis Leary

It was a slow week for me. I think I've been needing one of those for a bit now, but the cloud in my head forced it happen. All week I rolled into work around half-an-hour later than usual and when I got home at night I curled up in bed and read and then collapsed without talking to my coworkers on the other side of the globe. My girl had a peaceful week as well and didn't stop by much, but I still managed to get in a quick check each night, and it was those goodnight wishes along with some NyQuil just made me warm inside as I fell asleep.

Now that the week is finished up I've finished the new Potter book and I've gotten a whole lot of sleep. My goal for tomorrow is to take a field-trip to the city and get myself the new FasTrak Hybrid Transponder. After I get that, I will be able to get the Hybrid Carpool sticker. While there is less than a mile of HOV on my commute to work, I am going to do my best to get into it and feel a sense of righteous superiority passing all those SUV drivers stuck in traffic.

My Brain Hurts (08/15/2005)

Gloves ... glasses... moustache... handkerchief... I'm going to operate!! - T. F. Gumby

You'd think I'd be desensitized to the contagions of Chicago by now, but it appears I'm not. After a few days out there at the start of last week I found myself sick. Sick sick sick! I watched the whole weekend roll past me in a hazy blur. The amount of sleep I got was downright maddening. It probably neared twelve to fifteen hours a day. Too much!

On top of the general congestion, the headaches hit. Oif! The cluster headaches feel like someone is just squeezing on my eyeballs. It makes it hard to work. It makes it hard to think. It makes it hard to sleep. The painkillers, like the goggles, they do nothing!

So I get through the weekend the easy way. I read a lot of the Potter book (40% done, wahoo!) and I watched Neverending Story and a whole bunch of bootlegged Star Trek episodes on loan to me. Here's an interesting question. If someone else acquired bootlegged videos and then loans them to me, have I don't something wrong?

My girl continues to amaze and spoil me at every turn. While I'm sick she keeps me fed and happy. We went out to Shakespeare in the Park, my one escape from the sickly home over the weekend. "Much Ado" was on stage and she kept whispering, "that's Keanu" or "that's Billy" (which really should have been Michael, but I wasn't in a clear enough head to remember quite right).

I think it's time for bed again, I can hear the whisper of "tulug na."

Books to Endure (08/13/2005)

Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth. - Valentine (Ender's Game)

I just acquired the sixth book in the Harry Potter series. The series is in my "must endure" pile of books. They are the ones I am not particular fond of reading but for various reasons I'm ready to make the commitment to read through them. For the Potter books, I enjoy the movies. If I am going to continue to preach the "read it before you watch" mantra for Lord of the Rings and the soon to be released Narnia, then it's my duty to read through the Potter books too.

As I was fumbling around the bookstore, I ran across another book that needs to go into my "must endure" pile: Shadow of the Giant, the last book in the Shadow series of Card is fresh off the press. I loved the Ender's Game series. I even liked the crazy Xenocide and Children of the Mind books in that series. So, as part of my debt to Card, I endure through the Shadow series as well so that if I accidentally happen to become his best friend at some future point, I will be able to discuss the series with him and tell him where he went astray.

A Tremor in the Force (08/07/2005)

If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right. - Bill Cosby

The downstairs neighbor is preparing to move out. As I passed by his door I could feel the warmth being sucked from my bones. I sensed something, a presence I've not felt since...

My brother will remember the book well. It is forever burned into our consciousness and we cannot escape. I can't put my finger on the exact point of my life, but the memories are in my father's East Ranch home, and that means it occurred sometime during high school. So I suspect it would be during freshman year of high school when my father, bless his heart, decided he wanted to read to his children.

At this point, I think the last book my brother had willingly read was when I had lent him Ender's Game a few years back and I was plowing along through the Dragonlance series like a bullets through butter. It seems like picking something in the space sci-fi genre would have been a natural choice, but my father picked a nice family oriented book. It was in the days before Dr. Laura, so who knows where the idea came from.

He tried to pull us away from the TV and the computer and the phone for an hour each night so we could read this Bill Cosby book as a family. My brother and I did what any good young teenage boys would do when faced with this situation. We whined incessantly. We hid the book. We went on bike rides that lasted hours longer than they should. When the opening obstacles were overcome and he was actually reading, there was no end to snide remarks, urges to use the restroom and possessions by the devil.

At some point, the family time spent reading Fatherhood was replaced by family time spent watching Beavis and Butthead, and we were all much happier that way. I also suspect we learned better values from it.

Mochi or Bubu (08/06/2005)

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way. - Mark Twain

A friend of a friend is currently on vacation in Europe. We were asked by the friend if we would cat-sit for a little while why his friend was on vacation. My mother and brother are allergic to cats, so I have wanted one my entire life. I agreed! I agreed without hesitation. Though, I'll admit, I was a little hoodwinked in the situation. The European vacation lasts all summer, not the standard two week afair I had visualized.

We've had the cat for a couple months now, and I think that I have demonstrated great restraint by not doing this before this point. Without further ado, cute cat pictures!

I would have put cute pictures of Mochi doing something, but Mochi doesn't do anything. She is always in the most somnolent state I have ever seen a creature, sleeping around twenty hours a day. She especially likes to spend those hours under the bed, in the linen closet or under the toilet. She likes to stay as far away from people as she can. If I walk within about two feet of her, she will jump and run, clearly assuming I am going to tormet her.

Sometimes she'll get a desire for attension and will walk up to a distance of about three feet and start whining, forcing you to exert effort to pet her. She is a weird cat.

Of course, no posting with cat pictures would be complete without some poorly written overly sad teenage poetry to accompany it. Digging through the archives of my notebook, I find this gem circa 1994:

From me teardrops flowed so bittersweet
 A face that longs for your delight,
  for thoughts that we will never meet,
Though oft we've met throughout my restless night.
 You're but a visage out of sight.
Remorse. I feel a single lonely heart.
 Though day and night keep us apart.
Have you seen me in your waking dreams?
Without you, I shall always be, it seems.

The sky, the sun, they gave me no relief.
 So through our chambers I will walk.
  Trapped always in a state of grief.
And if you came upon me, would you mock?
 Without your words, you still could talk.
Yet always this would be our sacred home.
 Where wandering hearts and minds would roam.
I follow where the compass always shows.
Strait into the far familiar rose.

Parties (08/01/2005)

Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock-n-roll. - Shigeru Miyamoto

I've been assigned the role of party organizer lately. I'm not hosting the parties, but I'm sending out the invites and badgering people to attend. This past weekend was one of my old high school friends twenty-eighth birthday or something like that. I don't really pay attention to people's ages any more; I'm getting too old for it.

I brought my DDR pads, but the projection TV had some weird syncing issue that made things off from what you would expect and DDR was flopping. Then someone came up with a brilliant idea: DDR-Tekken. That's right, use the DDR pads for the controllers but play a combat game with them. Even the girls played Tekken, but they weren't ready for the DDR-style of the game.

In addition to brilliant DDR games, we also had the giant Battlemasters map out on the floor. It's something the board is HUGE! It is ridiculously large and there are billions of pieces to put together.

We all hid inside, because I'm fairly confident that it was slightly over the temperature where humans spontaneously combust.

The karaoke was there, but not one was brave enough to plug it in. Surprising consider that we have a rock star in our midst. Also surprising considering the level of alcohol present.