oh yeah and did i mention last week, i got my first ticket ever…
written up at 110 mph… *sigh* oops.. my days of speeding are done. i
am content. if i coulda just paid the fine up front for the awesome 7
years of speeding, i would have (easily less than 50 cents per minute
over 100mph) 

new beck album “guero” finally releases this tuesday, march 29 and is
supposed to totally kick ass.  featuring the dust brothers (fight
club etc..) and jack white… leaving that pansy ass sea change era
behind and returning to the awesome beck of odelay. 

also shirley manson is still freaking hot.

in other news..
——————————–

same ole stuff at work, except now i’m finding myself going back and
reading my organic chemistry book. i miss it.  it finally now
seems super important to me… wanna get into coatings and stuff…
material sciencish stuff…

went out to the desert last weekend for two nights of camping over an
hr from the nearest paved road, accesible only by 4×4 through a pretty
rugged road.  for those not cool enough to have such a place to
camp as the vast barren wilderness of southern ca.. yer missing
out.  we camped on this dry lakebed… but due to crazy rain
lately… it’s got a lotta bushes on it… but still… a few like
stretches a mile long that’s perfectly flat… so we brought a few
toys… several gocarts… that went like 30mph on this flat lakebed..
so we were having fun doing 360′s and wut not.  a nice rugged 3
wheeler that i went for miles exploring stuff with… and a totally
awesome 450cc motocross dirt bike… i was going like 90mph through
bushes and stuff.. totally awesome.. did this all day getting bugs in
my teeth and mud and wut not all over… then come night fall… we got
all drunk and did it all over again. something awesome about just
riding way out into the perfect darkness with tons of stars… drunk… truly awesome.  i seriously need to buy a dirt bike. that is
the way to cross that desert.. jumping over bushes and wut not… doing
wheelies.  then also a buncha shooting…

and now, something chris cheung will truly appreciate while playing his
air guitar… found a camp that had pulled up and left a buncha junk
behind… such rude bastards… so they left two big ass igloo ice
chests… i dragged them out in the middle of the lake bed… filled
then each with 8 gallons of gas… threw in a buncha duralogs… those
things are like wax candles supposedly and every lil fragment burns…
basically mixed with gas… made perfect napolm.  so i lit both
ice chests… a neat thing about gas is that it only burns with proper
air, therefore only the surface of a pool of it will burn… therefore
making 2  8 gallon gasoline candles which i placed about 30 feet
apart.  i then proceeded to shoot them repeatedly with my vintage
1914 riverside arms double barrel shotgun and i swear it was the most
awesome thing ever.  as the shot punctured lil holes through…
gas would spray out and ignite making a huge mushroom cloud fireball…
then the molten duralog material would scatter across the desert
leaving elabortate lil flicking flames that burned for like 20
minutes…  it was like 1000 candles in the middle of the
desert.  also shot a 1911 style .45 pistol… and a magnum .44…
both are rather monstorous guns… and basically… my ears are still
ringing… hearings been bad all week.  too much drunken target
practice with no ear plugs… awesome   tried out a new tent…
that was monstrous… 10′ x 15′ and 7 feet tall.  that’s like as
big as a room in an house out in the desert… unfortunately i think it
was too bad cuz sunday morning hte winds picked up and the thing would
like bend over flat.  anyway it was my totally awesome lil homage
to hunter s. thomson.  then blah blah blah back to work monday…

electing for a lazy weeked this past one… andy and some hs friends
came over and we had a bonfire in my backyard.  but for some
reason we’re jinxed… all the rain has made the wood extra
obnoxious… so we were working on getting it going, already a bit
drunk and herbally enhanced… when josh goes to douse the fire with
gas… and just like on tv… he does it too slow and it burns up the
stream into the can… so this big fireball goes up joshes arm and he
dives back into deep dry grass… luckily he sorta realizes it and
tosses the can back onto the concrete… but it’s a big ole flame now
too close to the grass.  so my sister takes the hose as i’m
turning it on and i say ‘don’t spray the fire directly!!!’ but girls
will be girls and she does… and it just poofs up more… but then gas
is floating on the water and burning… the flames are moving around
following the water currents… it was totally awesome…eventually we
got enough water out… and that was the end of that disaster
averted!!!

yesterday went out in the afternoon to sail a bit around dana point.
got my fill of sea air and sun. too much fast food this weekend
though…. *sigh* bleh….

is there any band today that dave grohl DOESN’T play drums for? jeeezzus… jeeezzus christ…

garbage new album “bleed like me” in stores april 12.

nin “with teeth” may 3.

for the last several years now i have related to a few select people
here and there  the sad story of my uncle rick.  while this
story is long, it is worth reading perhaps in the way that “house of
sand and fog” or “million dollar baby” are worth watching.  in
high school he was a popular guy, loved by everyone because he was so
genuinely friendly open and honest.  it was a kind of honesty and
gulibility that inspired trust.  naturally then, he became a
salesman because as he said , he had the “gift of gab.”  and the
end of high school though, he got tied down by the first woman who came
along.  she was a quiet, cold hands kind of girl who saw big $
signs over his head.  she also saw though, from the tutelage of
her mother, that men were evil and should be dominated, abused, and
belittled to keep them in line.  my parents relate how they once
had the sad experience of meeting her parents.  her father was one
of the nicest men ever, got along with everyone, funny and soulful. and
yet everywhere they went, his wife would sit at the other end of the
table telling everyone how worthless her husband was.  and so my
uncle rick’s wife grew to believe that was the way of the world. 

at the age of 17 she started doing his laundry, and cooking for
him.  but she also started taking his paychecks, and handling all
the finances.  rick never really learned how to live because his
wife did it for him.  still though, he was successful at work and
could pay the bills.  while such a relationship might seem cute at
first, they often tend to lead to a loss of respect.  when the
woman realizes her man is helpless on his own it’s hard to really be
attracted to him.  by the time they got around to having children,
she had kicked him out of the masterbedroom and banished him to a
distant room.  i visited their house perhaps only once when i was
young, but it was an eerie kind of place.  i remember at the time,
only being perhaps 8 years old, that there was something not quite
right in the air and i had this strong urge to get out fast. 

she dutifully raised the children to hate their father for no other
than reason than the fact that she somehow hated him.  and yet of
course it was a love hate relationship, because he paid the
bills.  she yelled at him to make more money, so he did.  but
soon, with a house full of children raised to hate their father and an
angry bitch of a wife it wasn’t the most friendly of places for him to
be.  in large part he was banished to his room, where he would sit
at nights watching a small 9″ black and white television, alone. 
he would eat tv dinners, and imagine what it would be like to have a
loving family.  he liked to think he had a loving family, but when
he went he left his room to go the bathroom, the children would stare
and leer.  as they got older, they learned how to cuss and would
call him a “worthless piece of shit” etc…  trying to find
something to pass the time in those miserable late 80′s, early 90′s..
rick went through police academy to become a part-time cop as a
supplement to his day job 1) because his wife always wanted more money
and 2)it gave him something to do at night besides sit in his room
alone.

rick had a lot of fun being a cop at night, and he liked to volunteer
for the worst neighborhoods for some reason.  everyone worried
that a big dopey white guy would be killed instantly in the mexican
barrio, but as it turned out he was simply too nice and too gulible,
kinda like barney fife, to ever be seen as much of a threat.  on
several occaisons, he had long friendly conversations with armed gunmen
on the run, after which he would let them go, never being the
wiser.  eventually the police department realized he was too nice
and gullible to be a cop, so they let him go.  when you are cop
these days, you purchase your own sidearm and it is registered to you
for life.  he kept it somewhere in his little room for many years
afterward.  meanwhile, his wife continued to pile on nonsensical
demeaning and hurtful rules.  for example, she kept him on a
strict allowance of 5 dollars a week.  he was not allowed any
discretionary income whatsoever.  if he wanted a cheeseburger, he
woudl have to think long and hard because it would be the only one of
the week.  also, though he worked close to home and could visit on
lunch breaks, he was barred from entering the house between 7am and
6pm.  personally, i suspect his wife must have been banging the
pool boy or something, but he dutifully obliged.  his wife of
course, never held a job in her life.  she was above
working.  but simaltaneously, rick never made enough money. 
he was making a 130k a year on only a hs degree, and yet she still
bitched they were poor.  of course, the kids all got new cars…
but the wife told rick that they were paying for their brand new 30k
cars on their part time jobs at starbucks.  hey, what can i say,
rick was gullible.  also, his wife frequently went on vacation to
the bahamas, the carribean etc… but of course rick was never
invited.  he was forbidden from family vacations.  the
children had everything, but rick had nothing.

as the kids grew older into their teens, they became even more abusive
and rick became even more depressed.  he came from a big family
with loving parents and siblings and so he just couldnt’ understand why
he couldn’t have it himself with his own wife.  eventually the
room became so lonely out of boredom he began to drink.  if i were
in his shoes, i woulda gone straight to black tar heroin.  but
nonetheless, he fell into a few beers at first.  then a six
pack.  afterall, there wasn’t much else for him in life. 
soon though his wife began to count the beer cans pile up, and it gave
her even more reason to hate him.  she called him in a worthless
drunk, so he checked himself into AA.  at least he had something
to do now, something besides work and his little room.  and so
things went for many years… weekly AA meetings.  he would come
to the numerous family events of ours, but of course his wife and kids
never came.  they were forbidden from seeing anyone on his side of
the family.  i never really knew my cousins, other than the fact
that they were a buncha worthless ungrateful mother fuckers. 
eventually as the 2000′s rolled around, rick began to realize that the
last 30 years of his life had been wasted.  he was 50 and had
nothing to show for it even though he had a good job and a wife and
kids.  it slowly began to build in him, until christmas 2004 he
confessed to my grandparents and i and the rest of our family that he
was miserable and should get a divorce.  we all told him, it was
about damn time, we all hated the bitch.  time went on and he
began to realize how truly miserable he was, but he still didn’t leave
the bitch.  he felt duty bound to be the provider, even though the
kids were grown now the oldest son 22, the daughter 20.  it took a
long time, but he slowly realized there was nothing there left for him.

this summer he decided he needed a new hobby, and had always dreamed of
finally learning to play golf.  afterall, it might help with his
job.  but he didn’t want to do it alone, so i  agreed to
share private lessons with him.  once a week all summer, we would
go out to our lesson.  after a few weeks of me telling him, he
might as well dump the bitch, he has nothing left… he began to refer
to her as his “ex-wife.”  i thought it was a big moment, and was
excited for him.  finally he could be free.  come fall, years
after any any normal man would have abandoned such a hell hole, he
finally moved out.  he got a nice apartment downtown, and a big
tv.  he marvelled at how nice a 27″ tv was in comparison to all
those years watching his 9″ black and white.  he started to meet
women at the gym, i was really happy for him.  his life was
starting over.  several women were crazy about him.  he felt
like a teenager again.  he found new joy in shopping, in getting
to eat what he wanted.  in being able to go out and go dancing and
the local club, he hadn’t danced since high school.  certainly his
wife never danced with him.

he took a new job working sales for a third rate korean flexible
circuit company but the pay was good.  they required him to have
an office somewhere, being the american rep, so he moved in to my
parents little building to take the extra office.  rick never
really stopped talking, so sometimes it got on my parents nerves. 
but still, he was my mom’s brother, and his drama was my parents drama
too.  it was like the weekly sitcom, ‘what’s new in rick’s
life’   the company was going under though, and it was hard
to sell their stuff.  they refused to send samples, they screwed
up orders, they never gave quotes.  that’s just not how business
works.    even in my job, i’m getting quotes all the
time.  that’s how business works.  but somehow, this korean
company was surprised that rick wasn’t instantly landing them big
deals.  somehow, he still made them money, but it wasn’t good
enough for them. he told them big deals took time.  so at
christmas, they fired him.  rick had always prided himself in
being a provider, it was the one thing he could be proud of.  but
then he had nothing.  most of our family though, thought it was a
good thing… with a divorce and wut not… maybe it would bring his
wife some humility to lose her golden goose.  but deep down rick
was embarassed and devestated.  he didn’t tell any of the girls he
was seeing…. kept it a secret.  he would come to “work” and sit
around all day.  make a few phone calls.

rick had always prided himself in being self sufficient, but when the
money stopped he had no where to turn. so he turned to his parents (my
grandparents) who have a lot of money and are supporting the entire
rest of my mom’s brothers (that’s like 6 of htem or something) 
earlier this week my grandparents had a conversation with him, telling
him that he couldn’t just go on supporting him, he’d have to find a
job.  he had offers of 80k plus commission, but he didn’t want to
take it. he was too proud and wanted a straight up 130k.  my
grandparents thought it was getting silly, and told him to
settle.  so what if his bitch wife got a little less money. 
his half would still be more than he had known for years.  they
also told him they were worried about him drinking again.

and so yesterday, it was a non-eventful day spinning around in his
chair at his office… he did tell my mom that he felt bad taking my
grandparents money, but my mother told him not to worry…their parents
(my grandparents) had plenty of money.  but so then he parted ways
with my parents at around 5pm, business as usual.  but when he
left work, he didn’t go home to his apartment.  instead he headed
a few miles south down by Angel’s stadium in anaheim and checked
himself into an embassay suites.

at 6pm he called the anaheim police department, ironically some police
buddies of his were on duty there.  he told them that he would be
killing himself and that they had better come and clean up the
body.   as the anaheim police sped towards the hotel, they
realized it was already too late.  calls were flooding in the from
the hotel about a gunshot.  the cops burst into the room, but he
was dead upon arival.  the police called my grandparents to inform
them, and they didn’t believe it.  they prayed somehow he must
have missed, this was after all old bumbling gullible rick who used to
stutter as a child.  my parents drove my grandparents down to the
anaheim coroner at which point they learned what had happened.

my sister returned home at 9pm from work to find an empty house with no
lights on.  then she recieved a call from my cousin who had just
heard.  she then called me.  i was sitting in a bar 30 miles
south, drunk with a buncha my coworkers. i was telling them the long
sad story of how i almost died from my heart thing.  i had just
gone outside for a cig and felt surprisingly dizzy, like the world was
collapsing down upon me. it was a weird feeling and i remember feeling
overwhelmed.  it was extra creepy because i felt just like the
time i ran down to see my horse.  i looked my horse in the eyes,
and he had the sadest look i have ever seen.  one that haunts me
today.  it was the last look he gave as he fell down and
died.  it was the look of death.  as i recall now, i felt
this yesterday as 6:15pm.   there was something strange in the
air, but i brushed it off.  i remember vividly this feeling last
night, but not knowing why, i’d had a 2 beers, but it was something
more…  i didn’t find out till much later though. in hindsight,
it’s creepy. what was it that i felt?  but anyway at 9pm  i
politely informed them that i must part ways and sped off. 
perhaps it was the booze in me, or perhaps it was that feeling that
maybe if i drove fast enough i would make it home to find him the
hospital still alive, uttering some last words.  i swerved through
lanes in the rain at 130mph crossing in and out of the carpool
lane.  cars flashed their highbeams at me.  i knew it was
retarded and that there was no point.  he was dead.  but i
also knew i had Z-rated rain tires and that i could pull it off. 
it’s pretty lame, but at a time like that, you just feel like you have
to do something. but there was nothing i could do, so i sped home. i
made it home in record time.  when i got home, my parents were
already home.  i hugged my mother and we cried.  i cried for
her though, not for him but i didn’t tell her that.  they had
already heard the whole story from the coroner.  they found with
him an envelop full of letters.  he had meticulously written out
notes to everyone he could think of. he detailed who he owed money to,
and who should be paid.  he must have been planning this for a
while now to have so many letters.  some were typed, some where
handwritten.  the rest though, i don’t know yet because they
letters have to stay overnight with the police since its’ a crime
scene.  afterward, my parents went back to the office to inspect
his office.  he had left his cell phone and laptop neatly arranged
on his desk.  he NEVER went anywhere without them. had they
entered his office that evening, they woudl have known… but it
woudln’t have mattered, they wouldn’t have known how to find him. 
on his desk spread out was a giant tree of his previous company. 
there was a box with his name in it with an arrow pointing up to head
of all sales.  for him, it was the pinnacle of his career. 
he was almost the number one salesman- at two, poised for one. 
but he never made it, instead of moving him up, they let him go. death
of a salesman.

(1) So I was driving home tonight, a mile from home, just doodling
along and then vrooommm this crazy ass on a motorcycle goes by me at
literally 150+mph in a 35mph zone on  through a red light with a
left green arrow nearly missing the front bumper of a left turning
truck.  so i’m like, uh oh this guys craaaazy suicidal, better
watch out…  he disappears waaay ahead of me… so then the road
splits a mile further with wall to go under a wide bridge/tunnel type
thing that curves in the middle so you can’t see ahead. 

soo i’m doodling down the road about 60mph down this blind turn… and
right at the worst point this guy reappears GOING THE WRONG WAY 100MPH
INTO TRAFFIC… as if to play chicken or something… thanks to divide
there’s no way he can get back anyway… me going 60, he going 100…
160mph there is essentially no time to react but i manage to yank the
wheel just a smidgeon and he passes instantaneously inches from driver
side mirror with a huge whoosh… holy jesus, that was some crazy
shit.  someone must have just watched matrix reloaded on meth or
something… cuz seriously that was some fucked up shit.

(2) I’m nearly done with “the elegant universe” though i checked it out
last month i only started reading it last week… i’ve managed to fit
in a lot of reading on lunch breaks/at the gym after work… and i’ve
plowed through it.  definitely a good book, no wonder they made a
12 part pbs special on it.  anyway, it’s reinstated my closet
theoretical physics freak because wow that’s some crazy stuff.  i
think what started it though was watching ‘what the *bleep* do we
know?’ last week which is rather vague and wishy washy borderline
science but just enough taste of the new paradigm of science that it
rekindled my interest. drove me to go find out the REAL stuff.   i
sorta had this streak in high school.. reading feynman’s “six easy
pieces,” einsteins stuff, the trite hawkings book etc… but so i think
i’ve finally reached a sort of critical mass where i’m gonna go gung ho
into it and try to get into the actual math of all these crazy
theories.  for a guy who hates math, that’s a bold proposition…
but i see no other way to advance myself… i’ve heard all the stories,
the theories etc… now it’s time to get down to the knitty gritty.

books on tape are also great. i’ve squeezed a lot into my morning
commute.  just finished anton chekov’s “the cherry orchard.” 
monday i also finally finished my 6 CD set of humorous short stories
from the new yorker.  i want to get a short story published in the
new yorker.  that’s like the highest place for short stories and
aspiring authors there is.  you know you’ve made it, or so they
say, if you get in the new yorker.

(3) Inaugural ball, whirlwind tour of baltimore was good times. 
good to see familiar faces.  thanks to everyone for coming
out.  made me really miss baltimore.

(4) steaming along at work, every day feel more and more like a “real
engineer,” god fresh outta college kids are so worthless.  though
personally i still barely know anything, i started training a new
engineer myself last week… showing him around etc… telling him what
to do.  sorta an interesting realization… talk about the blind
leading the blind, but actually it’s made me realize i know more than i
give myself credit for because i’m doing an alright job. he’s getting
up to speed much faster than i did since he has someone to show him
around (that being ME, which is i think more than i technically
got).  i’m learning to do a good impression of a good old fashion
american mechanical/manufacuring engineer… u know the people who
actually MAKE stuff as compared to those who just publish abstract
theories (i.e. college)

(5) a little creepy seeing the “hopkins crime problem” i.e. recent
student muder in the county paper way out here.  i think it was
probably like on AP, but it was an article on how hopkins has serious
crime problems, citing 2 murders in the past year etc… as much as i
laughed it off… its funny to realize how many people even that i knew
who got mugged or had car windows smashed in (erik) etc… so yeah,
even though hopkins is on the nicest side of town… it’s still pretty
freakin ghetto.  most people everywhere don’t experience crime
anywhere near as much as baltimore (and hopkins) people (except in the
movies.)

(6) co-workers and i booked a cabin in big bear for 10 or so for the
weekend of the 25th of this month to go snowboarding.  should be
interesting.  co-workers, you know yer old when your co-workers
have become your most immediate social circle.  makes sense though
you spend as much time with them as anyone.  i feel bad for the
married guys with kids… because seriously it weirds me out that i’m
spending 9,10 hrs a day with them while like their wife and kids see
them for only like 4 hrs a day before they go to bed.  there
certainly is something odd about the whole co-worker
relationship.  i’ve got waay too many other things i’d rather do
than work a 9 to 5.  jeesus i need to hurry up start my own
company get rich and retire already

The Chemical Brothers new album “Push the button” in stores January 18, 2005. 
I’m really liking their single they’ve been playing to death on the
radio “galvanize” so i can’t wait for the whole thing.  gooody
goody.

In other news, work is going alright.  Not great, but at least i’m
finally almost starting to feel like a real engineer.  Getting
through that crucial first experience, training and what not that
transforms a college grad into someone who can actually make money for
a company.  Got my friend an interview at my company, and for a
brief bit got really excited about maybe working together… but well
my company said no… they’ve got too many recent grads as is… 
recent grads don’t pay the bills. 

friday afternoon my grandmother had a mild heart attack and has been in
the hospital all weekend.  went to visit here and talked for hours
this afternoon.  she’ll be fine, ain’t no thang.  she told me
a funny story about her friends- a cal tech professor and his wife who
went off RVing in the desert and got lost.  they started blindly
driving based on their GPS… making turns and everything!!! i have to
admit.. they’re so acurate these days it’s almost tempting.. that’s why
a lot of them now make you agree everytime you turn it on to not look
at it while driving…  so anyway they were following what the gps
said was a road… but apparently the road building project had stopped
short and the road wasn’t complete.  so they hauled ass into a
giant sand dune and got their like half their rv buried in sand. 
then, they got out and were so mad at each other… “yer so dumb why
weren’t you looking at the road!”… “shut up i hate you!” kinda
discussion…. and they somehow then locked the keys in the RV. 
so then here they were stuck at night in the desert… totally
screwed…

but then they saw headlights and so they managed to wave down this
car… supposedly it was some total piece of junk car… and the wife
was like “no not them! they’ll rob and kill us!”  well it turned
out in the car were several cal tech students who were out on a camping
trip and were super nice… they helped pull their RV out of the sand
using their car AND somehow slim jim’d the RV door open, saving the
day.  so anyway, my grandmother’s moral of the story is… “you
can’t always judge people by what kind of beat of jalopy they
drive…”   … but not like … um don’t drive by GPS alone,
or don’t lock yourself outta yer RV in the desert….  yes, old
people are strange

finally made it to the library to pick up some books…  got a
book on accoustics, a theoretical physics one (see amazon below), one
of tom robbins newest, and a buncha books on tape (to try to not make
my long ass commute a total waste of my life… i’m excited about once
and all reclaiming that dead time… now i’m not “commuting”… i’m
“learning.”   got “the cherry orchard” by chekov staring the
voice of jennifer tilly she’s hot… they have lotsa good stuff…
maybe i’ll like learn a foreign language or something… hey they’res
time for all of it with a 2 hr a day commute)

i also went out and bought a tuxedo.  i figure if i just rent one
one more time i’m really gonna kick myself… cuz u can buy a cheap one
for as much as the rental…  so i got a pretty one.  i’ll be
wearing it the night of january 20th in washington DC for the
presidential inaugural ball.  yes, my first missed days of
work.  but hey, my aunt is still pissed at me for not going 4
years ago when i was in baltimore so i figured might as well go since
my uncle i now stepping down from politics and it’s my last chance for
special treatment i fly in tuesady night (jan 18) and leave saturday
morning (jan 22)… might make a brief trip up to bmore wed-thur
morning if anyone’s (paul g) interested…

i am happy… nine inch nails album halo 19 “with teeth” finally
done.  dave grohl plays drums on the album, and the perfect circle
bassist plays bass… supposedly in this new album he cuts out the
usual long silences and sound effects and puts in a lot more lyrics to
have a hard hitting more fast paced album intent on challenging the
popular music of the day.

last week my uncle, unbeknowst to the public, became the secretary of
homeland security replacing tom ridge. so he went bought a pack of
cigarettes (he doesn’t smoke) and sat in his office chain
smoking.  in 2 hours he had consumed the entire pack.  he
then came out of his office and gave bush his resignation.  no one
wants that job.  it’s a shitty job.  everyone will hate you
no matter what you do.  if condoleeza wasn’t there, he would have
been secretary of defense.  with her though, he’d have to be
second in command to her.  the net result is though, screw all
those jobs- cabinet pay is only $170k a year… most of those guys,
like my uncle, can make (and already do) at least half a mil a year easy in private
industry.  so that is exactly what he intends to do.

hmmm almost a month since last post…

week before thankgiving, i actually got andy woo to go to a club on friday night.  it was a huge all asian dance club in hollywood.  i got him absolutely smashed and he probably barely remembers.  but, i think it was good for him.  managed to see erik when he visited on his whirlwind tour with nicole (the 12 hr only sale) the following saturday night.  good times.  sunday afternoon i took my car to get smog checked (car wash the only place i could find open on sunday to do it) and while i was waiting, had an absolutely amazing conversation with an old man there… we basically swapped life stories… he told me about growing up in the midwest… the people there… coming out here with his brother.. working in aerospace on a rival to the blackbird… he had a lotta insights and observations though… pretty intellgent and thoughtful guy. notably though, just before my car was done, he kinda had a comment outta left field… and kinda wistfully, looking upward said “most people don’t make all that much..”  and well its true, though i’m aiming for the top… realisitically most people end up settling somewhere… and a lot really do just kinda scrape by… somehow it seemed extra profound coming from a nice old man sitting outside at the carwash watching the sun go down.

went out in newport beach the night before thanksgiving for some wednesday night partying… sharkee’s etc… newport beach kids are such yuppies… for some reason i decided if i had to make up a made up not cool sounding name to do them justice… i would call them all “fagotronic.”  goodtimes though, all things considered.

thanksgiving was alright… got to see the crazier side of my family i.e. the uncle who moved his whole family of home-schooled dyslexics to maui becuase “jesus told him to,” even though he couldn’t really aford it. 

went snowboarding with josh and cameron (his stripper girlfriend and her friends bailed) the following satuday.  had a lotta fun in the blue sky warm morning but by 2pm clouds full of rain started rolling in and the place went down to zero visibility with 33 degree rain.  we were among the last on the moutain but by 3pm we just had to go.  too miserable.  even though i haven’t managed to go much in the past years, i was still reasonably pleased to not suck.  other than falling over and down on top of a board edge (which left a bruise) while checking out some girls ass in the liftline, i barely fell at all.  (well okay i fell once more when i went over this big spine, caught some air only to see some little bastard was right in the landing i friggin hate when people think they can take a nap in the blind anding for a jump… so surprisingly i actually nailed the landing but ending up turning too hard/hazardoully to avoid killing the poor the little bastard… and i did this like cartwheel thing that i thought was a pretty cool way to avoid the kid but then i ended up kidna doing more like a roundoff and the board cracked right against the chest of some damn yuppy skier who exclaimed “hey watch it man” … no, you jackass… YOU don’t stand in the blind spot either.  so anyway, he had wut was comign to him. the kid well, so maybe the kid fell… but this dude was just standing there lollygaggin.)

on the way back, we were worried about if it started to snow and they blocked the road and we’d be trapped, so we hurried… except it was bumper to bumper 10 mph the whole way down and it took like 3hrs to get off the mountain.  finally got down to riverside on the way home and stopped off for a bit at Will’s place.  he was having some kinda jam session crap with some random fools (who were actually quite friendly) who play in a band called “the centerfolds,” http://www.thecenterfolds.i-p.com/bio.html , who apparently are kind of growing in popularity around so cal (managed to find some songs of theirs on kazaa/limewire)… so Will (who plays bass/sings) was playing with his roomate jay (amazing skilled/kickass drummer) with tim and chris of “the centerfolds.”  basically will needs to get back in a band after his last band, which was just starting to get radio play down here when they broke up.  so it was kinda this experimental thing where the guy chris from centerfolds wants to play this korg synthesizer and make some kinda industrial/punk hybrid.  it actually sounded somewhat cool, though will was yawning on his bass cuz he’s a hardcore punk rock purest.  fun to watch though, a free live concert. 

bought essentially a new computer midweek when my old one finally gave up.  in the autospy, i found literally 2 lbs of dirt in the power supply fan.  6 years!!! of chainsmoking bastards, rough college atmosphere etc… and i’d never bothered to blow the dust out… i think it was producing crappy voltage to the motherboard (which fried).  so i got an all new snazzy case (by Antec) with an airfilter and case fan that’s super awesomely silent. and an asus motherboard with an athlon 64 chip… a new video card (ati radeon something with 128mb) and a tuner card so i can record tv on my computer.  it’s nice to have a fully functional computer again. the old one had basically been slowly dying, losing one thing after another (usb finally went out the week before, which is made me realize it was serious… couldn’t use my printer etc..)

this past weekend (i.e. yesterday) friday night i found myself at yet another all asian club in hollywood, i swear it’s some kind of hollywood conspiracy or something… really posh place. ran into two hopkins kids i can’t remember… they said they were my year though and remember seeing me.  the girls name was stephanie, the guy said he was a film major who grew up in long island but had just moved to LA on his own for fun.  that is literally all i remember about them.  they seemed to have disappeared somewhere in the night, though i kept accusing random asian guys of being hopkins film major as i got drunk… cuz u know.. all asian people look alike when yer so wasted enough u can’t even open yer eyes… muhahha… apparently they were a friend of mine’s friend’s roomates friends   which sounds like a connection… but really is bordelining on absolutely nothing.  drank most of the $200 dollar bottle of jack for our table (yes isn’t that annoying to have to pay $200 dollars for regular old crappy jack just so u can have a place to rest yer tired ass), got a lapdance from some random drunk girl i didn’t know, came home and passed out in a pile of mexican food. 

woke up late and it was raining in so cal.  what gives. went down to a sports bar to watch the usc game with james cuz usc kids all seem to be fans for life i think… talked with one guy i hadn’t seen since high school (richard b.).  went to the gym to continue reading my tc boyle short stories… tc boyle is my favorite author of all time (for novembmer anyway) though i suppose sicne it’s been december for almost a week, i guess  it’s time to move on. finally ran the crack properly and installed cakewalk sonar 4.0 producer edition.  yay it has all kinds neat gizmos for producing music.  last night though, i sat home on my ass like a loser thanks to lovely combination of having only a few friends all with rather high bail to sit home on their ass rates.  slept in late again today… got all jealous my dad and sister got new cingular phones (the motorola v551 on tv) which has video recording… my worthless v501 looks identical but has camera but not video (though it plays video).  am i really so petty… *sigh* i was trying to trade.. but it’s not going too well. and well… that’s about…

work is work… same ole crap… everyday i’m reminded of how i should go back to grad school or something… cuz damn i’m gonna be reeeally jealous in a week or so when college folks get long winter breaks and i’ll be working… how do people work their whole goddamn lives? i’m just waaay too good at entertaining myself in my freetime i guess… i realize i think i define myself pretty much entirely by my hobbies/recreational life… and don’t feel like work should take up so much of my time! but that’s how it goes…

my big fat obnoxious boss is the greatest show ever.  why does anyone ever watch the apprentice. this version is so so much better.  and much more honest too i think.

that is all. over and out.