hello people,

just a quick note since i'd just gotten into work. carlin has put up his pictures of our holiday party. all i have to say is i need to start getting back into shape. i have no jaw line on the sides of my face. what's going on? anyway, here's the link if you're so inclined, click here.

i was flipping through the channels last night and abc was showing, "the sound of music." i think that's my favorite musical of all time. awesome songs, beautiful scenery, incredible cinematography and just an overall wonderful story. not to mention that julie andrews was pretty hot in the day. so to continue, i caught the scene where the captain, played by christopher plummer, was playing "edelweiss" for his children, the evil baroness, max detweiler, and of course, the lovely maria. i really like that song, probably second only to, "the sound of music." i think one of the reasons why i really like this movie is because, and i'm almost afraid to say it, but there's a scene in the movie which always make me teary-eyed. it starts with the captain coming back from his vacation with the baroness only to see his children climbing up trees and traipsing around town in their lime-green coloured play clothes. he confronts maria and an argument ensues, whereupon he tells her to pack her things and go back to the abbey. all of a sudden, he hears singing and questions maria about it. she says that it was the children; she had taught them to sing for the baroness. the captain rushes back into the house and stops right in front of the the room, and slowly recognizes the song (wonderfully played by plummer here). he then walks into the room and with his wonderful voice, sings, "i... go to the hills, when my heart is lonely. i know i will hear, what i've heard before. the hills fill my heart with the sound of music, and i'll sing once more." MAN, if that doesn't get you emotional, i don't know what will. (cry you damn robot!)

several things that i should change for the new year:

1. i need to go to sleep at a decent hour. i'm beginning to keep "carlin hours" except it's worse cuz i don't have the luxury of waking up at 11:30am or 12:00pm. for example, i don't know why, but i was up til 4:30am last night and woke up at 10:00am this morning. there's really no logical reasons for doing that. i was just up, wasting valuable time that could have been used for sleep. so for the new year, i will go to bed early, like say... 1:30am or 2:00am. and it shouldn't be that hard since i'm going to be getting my new bed in seven days. let the countdown begin.

2. i need to start hitting the gym again. that's the one bad thing about gyms; if you stop going, even for like a week or two, you just stop going. you have to keep up the routine and keep it going no matter what. i was in pretty good shape last year with all the running, the weight lifting, and the healthy eating. now i eat food that are bad for me, i don't workout, and what's running again? i joined a marathon training group when i was last with christina, and it was pretty fun. well maybe except for the fact that the run started at 6:00am on saturday mornings. but somehow, i always get this incredible feeling when i do do it. there's just something about running at 6am in the morning, with the cool brisk air, the vast, dark ocean next to you, and the sun barely peaking out of the somber sky. it's almost magical, and i should get into that again.

3. i need to stop being so damn anal. i swear to god, i was really good about not being anal for the past 25.5 years that i've been living on earth. but the last couple of months been like, "ANAL FEST 2002." at this point, i'm so easily annoyed by people, especially a couple of my friends. and i keep telling carlin that he should just take back his "anality" because i don't want it anymore. what's going on with me? damn, just knowing that i'm becoming more anal, is pissing me off even more. this just shows that i'm anal about my "anality" and it's just a cyclical thing. blimey!

4. i need to re-evaluate my life. along with the aforementioned anality, i've noticed lately that i've become very impassive and torpid about things that concern my well-being. it's like i don't care about anything anymore. i know that completely contradicts point 3 because in order to be anal, you have to care. but i'm talking about like life in general, and not having a short-leash with people. several things that are beginning to bother/worry me: that i'm not trying hard to find a career, i should be thinking about a major to study in graduate school and i don't care if ever date again. the latter is kinda scary, cuz i don't want to die an old, lonely man. i want to have a big family with tons of grandkids, etc. right now, all i do is wake up, drive 20 miles to a job that doesn't interest me, and then go home and sit in front of the television. i really need to do something... maybe take a class over at smc to resuscitate the passion i once had for life.

that's it. i should go get some lunch right now, but no one is here at work. everyone else is gone and i'm not sure what to do. i'm kinda hungry and i really don't want to leave the office unattended. crap! oh and what's up with the freaking gay hobbits in "lord of the rings?" take for example, towards the end of the movie when frodo and samwise were walking in the woods. sam started babbling about if people will talk about frodo and the magic ring in the future (clearly trying to talk up frodo). then frodo pretends that he doesn't know what sam is getting at (clearly trying to play hard to get), and says something about sam being an important part of the story. and it gets even worse. seconds later, frodo finally decides to be the male dyke of the relationship, and says, "you're my sam," and turns around with a smile that suggests that sam's going to have a very sore anus tomorrow morning. anyway, i think peter jackson should have made the film with the hobbits a little less gay. i mean there's always been and always will be friendship and camaraderie between guys, but frodo and sam takes it to a "hole" new level.

song/album of the day: "rain king" by the counting crows

time stuck in traffic: about 10 minutes. not too bad.
posted by your arse at 2:43 PM

hello all,

it's been a rather hectic two weeks with x-mas events and the coming of the new year. work's been slow, though i'm sure there are urgent things to be done. there are many exciting things that occurred in the past two weeks. let's see where we left off last...

[i'm having writer's block. nothing that i've typed in the last 20 minutes sounds right. so i'm just going to right whatever comes to my mind.]

i can't do it... i've deleted far more than i have written here. it's driving me insane. maybe it's the music i have on the background. oingo boingo. they are driving me mad!

i've noticed recently that i have this problem with impulse buying and having to return the goods later on. three things: 1. i could actually be better with managing money, 2. i could be having money problems, or 3. i could be a shop-a-holic. anyway, today i returned a scarf i got at the gap. here's the story. i went with jenny to the century city shopping center to get mike his x-mas gift. it's been cold lately (colder than the normal california winter), so i decided that i need a scarf. so i went to banana republic and got one. as we were walking around the mall, we went into the gap, and i decided that i needed another scarf. it's so silly. to think that i would actually need two scarf. maybe if i lived in canada or somewhere that's cold like all the time. so i returned it today and got my money back.

i feel like i've been doing a great deal of impulse buying lately. it's ridiculous. i have a trenchcoat. a bloody TRENCHCOAT! i live in los angeles, where it rains like 3 times a year. why in the world would i need a trenchcoat? impulse buy, i'm telling you. i didn't return that though, i got it at camarillo and i wasn't about to drive my ass back up there to get a refund. anyway, carlin has the receipt so it would be way too much trouble. so far, i've returned a vacuum, an electric heater, several cds, and some clothes. it's such a hassle, i rather not be buying things.

i saw a pretty funny shirt today at the santa anita mall. it's not like rolling down the hill in shorts funny. but it's quite charming. it's a black t-shirt with white lettering. the phase escapes my memory right now. but it was pretty funny. yeah, i know... that was totally worthless.

so what did i do during christmas? well the sunday before, i celebrated christmas with mark and his extended family. his aunts and uncle, his cousins, and of course his parents and siblings. it was more entertaining this year than the one i went to two or three years ago. there was definitely a lot more people this year. [oh, btw, before i forget, never, EVER put sushi in the fridge. it's just not right.] okay, so the event started at 2pm. basically, there was food and there was the tv. i didn't really talked to anyone, didn't feel like socializing. so at around 5pm, the traditional singing of the christmas carols and the wrapping paper war commenced. i sat next to cherena, mark's cousin, who is this really tall, and nicely put together, white chick. she seemed very nice, but i was completely intimidated by her. i don't know why. i wasn't attracted to her, even though she's got everything in the right places. i spent half the time laughing during the vocal festivities because mark's brother, kurt, was making funny faces and doing silly things to various songs. when it came time to pass out the presents, aunt kathy got kinda ticked off cuz people were throwing wrapping paper balls at each other and probably not paying much attention to her. the highlight of the night came when all the gifts were handed out and mark's uncle, ed, wife to kathy, and father to cherena, chucked this gigantic wrapping paper ball (size larger than a softball, completely solid) at me. but unfortunately, he miscalculated the trajectory or did not have the arm strength cuz the ball hit one of the lightbulb covers over the dining room table. it was hilarious. glass everywhere, in my cup of water, on my lap. funniest shit i've ever experienced in my life. btw, christina was really good! hahaha.

on christmas day, i had lunch over at my friend, kimmy's, house. i finally got to meet her mum, her uncle, and some of her other relatives. also meet her husband, gordon's, side of the family. i got there fairly late cuz i woke up late and didn't want to drive out to where she lives (which is out near camarillo). but i had a pretty good time once i got out there. i ate some home cooked food that her mother had prepared. played with the kids, who only wanted to hurt me by throwing toys at me. when people started clearing out, i got the chance to talk to her uncle, who lives in london. he had this asian-english accent, which is similar to the people speaking english in hong kong. it's pretty neat and i'm totally envious of him. he's a masseur at a health club there and has developed this massage method called the "kee technique." he actually gave me a massage, which was really good. the funny thing was that he asked me if i play any sports or workout with weights because my muscles were pretty solid. (thank you!) afterwards, we talked about english things, like television shows. apparently he enjoys, "as time goes by," and "black adder," too. i left at around 6:45pm and headed out to mark's place out in culver city and hung out there til 10:30. saw jenn and she's doing well and was looking good.

the following day, i went and got me a new bed. the denwick from stearns and foster. it is a eurotop and it's completely comfortable. it was priced at $1499, but with tony getting one as well, we ended up getting it for $1299 out the door. the only thing that ruined it for me was that i didn't wait for my friend, rob to decide if he wanted to get a new bed as well. unfortunately, the guy offered the $1299 for that night, and it was just too hard a thing to give up. so, i'm sorry rob. i was proud of the fact that i haggled and it worked. i've never done anything like that, but apparently it works. so i'll be getting the bed next sunday, i can't wait. i'll be going with cecilia to either bed, bath and beyond or linens 'n things on tuesday to get some sheets (she's getting a gift for roy's, her lover, sister's wedding) and maybe pillows. so tonight, i dismantled the old bed to make room for the new bed. i've been measure the room to see what's the best place to put the bed. it's highly difficult when your room is small and you want to be able to open all the windows. obviously, that's not going to happen so we'll see how it goes. i didn't realize that it's nearly 3 ft high. it's just going to stick out not matter what.

tomorrow, actually in about 7 hours, i'm going to go dim sum and afterwards going to see "lord of the rings." i've seen it already, but since i got a free ticket from the first lotr dvd, i decided to go see it again. i wasn't too enthused coming out of the theatre the first time i saw it. but hopefully it'll be better this time. last time was just too many people. packed house and i was sitting next to clark, a friend of a friend's, so it was kind of weak cuz i didn't know him all that well. shawn's still having problems with how gay the hobbits are. and i totally have to agree. it bothered me the first time i saw the first lotr. but now, i don't really mind. i mean if they want to fuck each others' hobbit anuses, who am i to stop them. my plead is that peter jackson plays it right, and not show frodo and samwise doing it in the third film. the one good thing about the new lotr, is miranda otto, some australia actress playing the role of eowyn. she's pretty cute for being in her 30's. just like, rosamund pike, who played miranda frost in the new 007 movie, miranda otto is little known in america. but hopefully, they will both be better known and will appear in more american movies.

okay fuck, i need to go to bed or i won't wake up for dim sum tomorrow. there are probably a shitload of grammatical errors, but hell, it's nearly 4am and i need some sleep.

so goodnight all.

album/song of the day: a cover of "the tide is high" by atomic kittens

length of time stuck in traffic: none, didn't drive into work

posted by your arse at 3:53 AM

merry x-mas person (well the only one who probably read this is mark)!

so we've had our "dorkz holiday party" last saturday. it went extremely well i thought. everyone had fun. unfortunately, we weren't able to go karoaking after dinner, but we ended up at my friend, mark’s house afterwards, and it was great. here’s the recap of my day:

11:32 am – woke up.

11:32 am – went to my computer and clicked on the link to “think the unthinkable.” one of the hilarious comedies on the bbc. it’s about this unique, off-the-wall consulting firm. it’s a riot. i promise.

12:00pm – got out of bed. decided to watch some of the extras in the “lord of the rings” dvd. i have to say that this is one of the best extras ever on a dvd. it blows the extras on the “spiderman” dvd by far. (as of tuesday night, i’m still not done)

12: 20pm – got a call from jenny, who i was suppose to go shopping with later in the day. set up a time to go shopping. you know it’s bad when someone calls you at around noon and asks, “oh, did i wake you up?” come on, i’m not big on sleep, but still…

12:22pm – decided to make breakfast. usually i like my eggs over easy (don’t get me started on my strange way of eating my eggs), but on that day, i figured that i’ll make some scrambled eggs. why not? it came out a bit bland. then i made some fried hot dogs cuz i didn’t want to bother with making sausages. and i made some biscuits. it was okay, nothing to get excited about though.

1:36pm – jenny calls on the way to my place. took a shower and got dressed. jenny showed up half an hour later.

2:02pm – i needed to run to my bank to deposit some checks. who knew that wells fargo closes at 2pm on saturday? so instead, i did what i usually wouldn’t like to do, and that is deposit my checks through the atm. whadda ya gonna do?

3:50pm – after walking around stores to find jenny a cashmere “thing” to wear over her dress for the holiday dinner, we ended up at pacific sunwear (website down). now, you wouldn’t think that they would carry scarves. i mean shit, it’s a surf store you know. but they had what i was looking for; a scarf for my secret santa.

4:27pm – we got the scarf, and jenny had gotten some foot massage package (in a tin can no less, nice touch!) for her secret santa some time before, we went into this shoe store called, o’my soles. this is the store where i’d purchased my steel-toed dr. martin’s three or four years previous. so we walked in cuz i was thinking of buying a new pair of shoes. i tried some on and in the middle of doing this, the salesperson mentioned something about how worn my shoes were. i didn’t really mind, cuz they were pretty bad. however, having said that, he then continued with, “i’m surprised she let you wear them out.”

*** ATTENTION: i’m not going out with jenny. we’re just friends who go shopping and hang out together. ***

4:33pm – he just lost his commission.

4:45pm – on the way home, i mentioned that i wanted to get a haircut, and jenny wanted to get a manicure. so we stopped by ben’s barbershop here in good ole south pasadena, and while i got haircut, jenny went and did her nails.

5:24pm – i got home and decided to call my friend, andrea, in nyc. she had moved to ny just a month prior to the 9/11 attacks. we had at one time, corresponded on a regular basis through email. however, having been sick for the past 3 or 4 months, i’ve slacked off on that. i received a x-mas card from her that day, so i thought, i should ring her up and have a chat. granted, dinner was at 7:00pm, and i wasn’t exactly well prepared to leave. but we chatted for about 30 minutes, which was very nice. she’ll be back in town later this month, and we’ll meet up then.

5:54pm – wow, i’m so freaking late. i didn’t realize that it’ll take me some time to figure out what to wear. and i haven’t even shower yet (i like to shower after getting my hair cut since i really can’t stand the discomfort from the little bits of hair that get caught on your collar). not to mention that i have to go get some stuff for jenny and a ribbon for my gift. as i was getting dressed, i couldn’t figure out what coat i wanted to wear. so i decided on wearing the trenchcoat i’d purchased weeks ago. it was going to rain that night.

6:37pm – where the fuck do they keep the tampons at rite aid? seriously, if you’re a guy, you would have no idea where tampons were located at any store. wait, that’s not exactly true. if you’ve been single for a year or more, you would have no idea where the tampons are kept at a store. no way.

7:15pm – christ, i’m still on the 10W heading out to santa monica. better call carlin to let him know that i’m going to be late. oh what? you’re not there yet either? holy crap. why are the people in front of me driving so damn slow?

7:34pm – note to self: for next year, pick a place where there’s (in the words of “south park”), “ample parking everywhere.” good god, there are no parking spots out in the parking structures at the 3rd street promenade. none.

7:45pm – finally got to the restaurant, a place called monsoon cafe. almost everyone was there, save for carlin, patricia, and jay. jay had to work late and carlin… well, carlin being carlin, is late. even tony was there. you know it’s sad when tony shows up before you do. but hey, i had to travel about 22 miles more than he did. said hi to everyone.

*** LIST OF PEOPLE AT DINNER: (table 1) chris s., roy, cecilia, rob, jay, susan, patrick, jenny and mike. (table 2) mark, me, tony, shawn, kathy, charlotte, chris l., carlin and patricia. ***

9:26pm – finished up dinner. i had the “burmese curry beef.” let’s just say that it was a misnomer because i couldn’t taste any curry in the dish. nor did mark. it was highly disappointing. and to make matters worse, we didn’t even get the cute waitress. table 1, got the cute blonde with the nice arse. round and bubbly.

*** ATTENTION: yes i know that was completely sexist and i’m such a male chauvinist pig. but she really did have a nice arse. ***

10:27pm – after getting some liquid refreshments at ralphs on cloverfield, arrived at mark’s only to find that with 17 people there (probably over 10 cars), parking was a bitch. bitch = just a street block away. hey this is LA, gotta have parking baby.

11:02pm – started our secret santa gift presentation. we put the gifts on the bottom of the stairs and i picked names out of a bag. we started off with someone and ended with someone else. hahaha, you can’t expect me to remember the order do you? that’s just silly.

11:36pm – it was my turn. i was kinda excited and a little embarrassed. i enjoyed mc’ing of the event, but when it was my turn, i got kinda nervous. so i went to get my gift (brilliantly wrapped, mind you). and to my great surprised, i got a wonderful t-shirt from urban outfitters. it’s a blue shirt that has “england” written in the front of it. i was so grateful, cuz i’ve never gotten a gift that involved clothing before.

11:53pm – all the gifts were handed out. now we have to guess who was our secret santa. i vaguely remember some…

shawn got mike a “beavis and butthead” dvd
mike got shawn an “unchi” (japanese for shit) piggy bank
susan got carlin a george foreman grill (only to realize later that he doesn’t cook much at home)
jenny got susan a foot massaging kit as mentioned previously
jay got patrick some big freaking playing cards
tony got charlotte a calendar with pictures of penguins (her favorite animal)
mark got chris l. some japanese graphics design book
pat got jenny a pair of bowling gloves
patricia got tony a x-mas tree doormat
carlin got roy a box of beer from around the world
cecil got kathy something from the body shop
kathy got cecil a scarf and a beanie
roy got mark a drinking game.
i got patricia a scarf i mentioned before
and chris l. got me the wonderful england t-shirt (i shook his hands and gave him a hug i think)

12:24pm – let the drinking commence! we played with mark’s drinking game. basically there are six shot classes and there’s a spinning arrow. you drink whatever’s in the shot glass that the arrow lands on. somewhere down the road, mark had a tequila shot. he really hates tequila. jay started making apple martinis, shaken not stirred. i had a few beers, but didn’t get drunk.

4:24pm – some people had left already. i was on my way out. drove back to south pasadena and called my parents in hong kong for a chat.

5:04pm – went to bed… with “think the unthinkable” playing in the back ground.

so there you have it. a wonderful saturday in december spent with friends and people you care about. oh, i’d forgotten to mention that carlin and i made little souvenir t-shirts for everyone. it was kinda shoddy because we used iron-on’s instead of silkscreening. but hey, it was the thought that counts, and we had a week and a half to do it. anyhow, we spent quite a bit of money there. carlin and patricia put the finishing touches on; ribbons, candy canes, and holiday tags. brilliant carlin, just brilliant. people were generally surprised, and i got patrick right on the face when I was passing the shirts around. excellent.

can’t wait til next year. merry x-mas, everyone… oops, i meant mark.

ps: oh, one more thing, i’ll link the site with the pictures once carlin or jay has them up.
posted by your arse at 2:50 AM

boy oh boy, it's been a long time since i've last written. i guess the motivation hasn't exactly been there. but my pre-new year's resolution is to start making the effort again.

let's see what's been happening since the last time i wrote? well i got over the illness i was talking about last time. but then i got sick again, but worse. i have some sort of sinus problem and have this cough that wouldn't go away. of course i should blame carlin for this. he's been coughing for about 2 months now, and i'm not so sure if it wasn't him that's been passing around this cough (count so far: 2, shawn and i). anyway, i've been pretty phelgmy for the last week or so after i went to the doctor's and he prescribed to me some antibiotics and cough syrup. still coughing though, and today's been kinda bad. when i cough, my sides hurt. *sigh*

thanksgiving weekend, gordon visited us down here in south pasadena. it's been several months since i had last seen him (at mike and jenn's wedding). he lives up in san francisco with his wife, amy, who also graduated from south pasadena high school. it was kinda like a reunion of sorts. is it sad and pathetic that most of my friends are ones i've known since junior high school? don't get me wrong, i enjoy having such great friends. but it seems like i should branch out a little more. the problem being that i don't really like dealing with other people. i think i'm just a little "elitistical", though i don't have much to be "elitistical" about. it's not like i drive a fancy car or make a shitload of money. it's just i like to think of myself that way so i don't have to deal with people. and it's probably not easy to get to know me because i make a terrible first impression. either i'm too loud, or i'm too brash, or i'm just down-right obnoxious.

work's been on and off lately. some days it's tolerable. other days, i just want to close my office door and take a nice long nap. today's been the latter. i'm so sleepy for some reason. this is basically what i do at "work" on a normal day:

1. get into work before 11am, hopefully
2. check and reply to my work and personal email
3. check dealnewsfor deals on electronic stuff
4. go through cnn to see what's going on with the world
5. check espn to see what happened to the games the night before and various sports-related events (like today, i learned that we've: read "UCLA," finally got rid of bob toledo. it's been a torturous past 3 years to say the least - ugh!)
6. see how my friend, jason jue, is doing through his daily log and picture.

that is pretty much the routine for 3 hours. the next 5 hours are pretty much a toss up. there's www.morrissey-solo.com, which i visit every couple of days to check out news about morrissey, (duh!) the brillant english singer from MANCHESTER! sometimes, rarely in fact, i would go to www.suede.net to see what's going on with suede (wow, how apropros, "trash" is playing on my cd player just as i was typing about suede). twice a week i check bestbuy to see what's on sale at best buy. www.freearcade.com has some fun games you can play if you're bored. i also read through some "friends" and "gilmore girls" transcripts if i'm really bored. staring out the window at the sunset is kinda nice. and if i'm really bored, i'll try doing some work. there's my regular day at the office. exciting, huh? :)

i guess the only saving grace about being at work is the fact that i can play my music all day long. if i couldn't do that, i think i would (think of something bad, very bad) to my boss. right now i'm listening to the cd i had burnt for cecil for her b-day months ago. it's not too bad, but it's not right really. i have to make another one soon, cuz it's been two months since her b-day and it's kinda sad really. which further reminds me that i was suppose to make one for my friend, andrea, for her b-day 3 months ago. oh, i'm so lazy and unmotivated, which is a lethal combination if you're trying to get anywhere in this world.

well there are probably other things to say, but i really need to get started on my daily dose of staring out my office window. but before i leave, here are three cds that i need to get sooner or later.

1. manic street preachers: forever delayed (best of...)
2. beth orton: daybreaker
3. nanci griffith: winter marquee

ciao!

album/song of the day: "yes" by butler and mcalmont

length of time stuck in traffic: coming into work - none (shit i got in at 11:10am)
posted by your arse at 3:47 PM