Vegas was fun. Lost $$$, sisterly bonding, good times were had by all.

WHAT HAPPENS THERE...

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Okay, even I don't know what the title means.

Had a more low-key weekend compared to last weekend's flurry of activity. Saturday morning did a 13-mile run with Buddy and May Ling which was sooper awesome. I'd been feeling crappy since last week's slow run, so this was a good pick-me-up. (13 miles is a pick-me-up? That's so wrong....) Afterwards we went with Marc to Heidi's Pies where I had my usual Too Much Food breakfast. Mmm... so good. While there, I added another pie to my short Pies I've Eaten List. I think I'm up to 6: apple, cherry, pumpkin, strawberry, key lime, and now strawberry rhubarb. I was so full after that, I didn't eat for the rest of the day and I didn't feel hungry in the least. It could have been because I spent the greater part of the afternoon playing Katamari Damacy. Royal Rainbow!

Later that night I went bowling with Ryan, Camila, Don, and their buds. It was just further evidence that I am a very, very bad bowler. I think I got a 54 or something the second game. Granted I was pretty sleepy, but still. There go my dreams of bowling superstardom.

Sunday morning I got up a little later (after my Mom called me at 9:30 asking, "Are you LA? Oh wait. Is that in May?") and joined Yar and Kurtis for brunch at Stack's in Campbell. Had yummy Eggs Louis, which is basically eggs benedict with crab. Mmmmm... Afterwards I went to Brendan's house where he and Matt and I finished out season 3 of 24 with a marathon 6 episodes in a row. It was good, but depressing. To make ourselves feel better afterwards, Matt and I had dinner at Black Angus.

Since the weather has gotten nicer, I've been taking Enzo on long walks at night in the residential neighborhoods near where I live. It's a nice chance for me to mellow out at the end of the day, and just walk around and enjoy the California springtime. For all you local folks, I highly recommend taking nighttime walks. For everyone else: sorry you don't live in California.

Edit: This is useful for those of us who work with engineers: When a worker's odor affects the workplace.

• There are few things more annoying than a bitchy person pretending to be polite. This is often a behavior observed in middle-aged well-to-do women. I'd rather they just be up front with their bitchiness. Wrapping mean words in a smile doesn't make you nice, lady.



• I've started to say "For sure" a lot, and I'm not sure why. Example: "Well he's just doing what he thinks is right." "Oh, for sure." I know that I'm very succeptible to picking up other people's speech patterns, but as far as I know, nobody else I know says this.



• The lead engineer on my new team went on paternity leave today. As a coworker of mine said to me, "You're f*cked."



• I like this photo.



• I've started to have dreams again lately, which probably means that *gasp* I might actually be getting enough sleep.



• It should be common bathroom protocol that if you walk into the bathroom and there is already someone in the stall, you shouldn't pick any of the stalls on either side if you can help it. I appreciate the toilet buffer zone.



• You should read this: Gwenihana. You'll have to watch a brief ad to read it, but it's worth it, particularly the first paragraph. It's about Gwen Stefani and her harajuku girls.



• Wholphin!

Had an unusually active weekend. Saturday morning was full of chores -- cleaning the bathroom, laundry, etc. In the afternoon I dragged May Ling along for soccer, which was the first time I'd played in about 7 months. I made quite a fool of myself by falling a lot (that much hasn't changed since my childhood soccer days) but I had a lot of fun. In the middle, we were interrupted by some people from Red Bull, who gave us all free cans of Red Bull. We happily accepted (it was a cold beverage) but later regretted it as we came up with a new slogan for them: Red Bull -- it gives you nausea! Later Florence and Babs joined us for dinner, and I went to Babs' place afterwards to watch Blue Crush, which was awesomely bad, as expected.

Sunday morning May Ling, Babs, Buddy and I went for a 7-ish mile run on the Stevens Creek Trail. I set my alarm wrong so I woke up 8 minutes before I was supposed to meet everyone, but due to some highway acrobatics, I ended up being only about 25 minutes late. It was a somewhat disappointing run because I felt sluggish and tired the whole way through. I'm going to have to be better about my maintainence runs, or else I'm going to get totally out of shape! Afterwards I stopped by Fry's to get some new RAM for my computer (1.25 GB woo!), and joined Cheryl for a snack at Foster's Freeze.

Later I headed up to the city with Peter and Crystal for the Garbage concert. (Incidentally, what happened to the Garbage website?? I used to like to read Shirley Manson's online journal...) The opening band, The Dead 60s, was pretty good. I might check out their CD when it comes out. Garbage, as always, was great. Shirley Manson is an f-ing rockstar. She's my hero, even though I can only understand about 50% of what she says when she's talking.

In other news, some of you already know that I've been moved to a new team at work. I'm still going to be doing central tech work, but I'll instead be helping out on the system that does in-game cinematics. It should be cool, but it's strange because I had been working on the same tool since I was an intern. But it should be a good experience for me.

On an unrelated note, yesterday on our Want Ads list at work, someone was saying how they had a bad experience with a moving company. She wrote, "On Friday morning a truck arrived with 3 foreigners that barely spoke English..." I can't quite put my finger on it, but that sentence makes me very uncomfortable. I don't think she meant anything by it, but it definitely doesn't sit well with me.

• Ann Coulter thinks Canada sent troops to Vietnam. More Ann Coulter hilarity. That woman is f-ing nuts.



• Florida eyes allowing residents to open fire whenever they see threat. Yet another reason to not visit Florida.



• New Mexico requiring ignition locks for DWI offenders. And to think, we used to be #1.



• La Vida Robot. Four immigrant high schoolers beat the MIT team in the national underwater bot championship.

Twice now while driving up 101 on the way to work I've seen big pickup trucks with, how shall I put it delicately.....balls hanging from the underside of the pickup bed. I don't know if this is some new pickup accessory trend (a la the lady silhouettes on the mudflaps) but if you feel the need to not only drive a gigantic pickup truck, but also to decorate it with balls, could you perhaps be....compensating for something?

Just a thought.

I can't find my rice krispy treat. And I'm not sure if it's because I already ate it, or if I just misplaced it.

...I think I'm getting old.

For those of you who are observant, you might notice that in the game list over
<----- yonder, there is a lil' clue to a new addition to the Sha Shiny Gadget Family. And this one may be the shiniest of them all: the PSP. Those of you who know me know that I have a weakness for shiny things with buttons, so it was really only a matter of time until I got one for myself. In this case, "matter of time" turned out to be about 5 days. I ordered it from Walmart.com, which forced me to buy a bundle, but it ended up being not too crappy. It arrived on Friday, and like I've been telling my friends, during work on Friday I kept opening up the case to look at it....and then closing it. Anyway, it is pretty much everything I hoped for....AND MORE. Definitely very cool. But I think I already put a scratch on the screen.

Friday I also saw Sin City with Babs, Charlene, Buddy, and Marc. I enjoyed it quite a lot and it was very, very faithful to the comic books both in visual style and content. It's almost as if they just used the comic books as a storyboard for the film. I recommend it, though it's definitely not for the kiddies.

Saturday I went on a nice 5.5-mile run on the Bay Trail with Buddy, and then it was an afternoon of errand-running. I also took Enzo to the vet because he has a sore spot at the base of his tail that was getting infected. Yuck. In the evening I did my taxes, which was pretty straightforward. I ended up not getting any refund, which is good in the end, I suppose. Take that, government!

Yesterday Yar, Jan, Kurtis and I went to the San Francisco Zoo which was zoo-rrific. We saw the lions and tigers being fed, and decided that we never want to be attacked by a either one. I also decided that penguins are some of the dumbest creatures on earth. We were watching them being fed, and you could definitely tell that the zookeepers were annoyed at them. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I'll have to go again. If you want to join me some time, let me know.

• Great white shark released. I'm glad I saw it!



• Q: How many Northern Californians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
  
  A: Hella.



• I'm just leaving work. (This is, unfortunately, not an April Fool's joke.)



• This is my 400th post. Whee.