Most Recent Fortune Cookie - The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.
Still so far behind but I might as well post what I have already written down...
So I woke up early the next morning to get on the first bus. Takes quite a long time to get from West Hollywood to the convention center but we made it there eventually. Man there were like Korean businesses all over the place. West LA is like this one big Koreantown. I found my co-workers and since the exhibit hall hadn't opened yet, they got me in for a quick preview before everyone else. Played Starcraft: Ghost, World of Warcraft, the new Tribes game, and the cute trash-picking game, Katamari Damacy. Pretty soon everyone starts piling in. Picked up wrist straps for Sony party and got the tickets for the Square Enix Show at 1PM. Turns out it was a good thing, I picked up the Square-Enix tickets early, cause they actually ran out early. The standby line was so long too. As I waited my turn to get in the theater, Max called me and said that she could help me out. Her friend Fernando who works for Square-Enix got me out of line and right next to the entrance so I got to get a seat before anyone else did. There were about 30-40 Aeron chairs that were inset into the ground so you couldn't roll them around. A voice told us to remain seated throughout the show for our safety. I was like "Huh"? But it all made sense halfway through the show because the floor was actually this huge turntable that spun around the 360 degree room!!! Nothing too earth-shattering, though I did get to see the new Advent Children movie trailer. 1 of the hotels sent sushi for lunch to Max and Aileen, so I pigged out on that till Lih-Chern and Jeff came finally. They came later since they actually started driving down in the morning.
Spent some time trying to find out where these inflatable balls where to be found and wandered over to the Nintendo area where they were giving away Pokemon plushies, cellphone chains, and pins. Wasn't able to get a plushie though.
The Xbox area was jam-packed. Could get very claustrophobic. Played some Doom 3, Mechassault 2 (which I LOVE) and managed to sneak a peek into Bungie's ultra-secretive Halo 2 room. Alas, I could not get my hands on it.
After the expo closed on Thursday, I went backto the CMR booth and met up with Aileen and Max to go chill at the Westin before heading to the Sony party.
On the way up, there was this guy with a Retailer badge that had a silver Xbox case with the cool Halo 2 logo in the front. At first I was hyperventilating cause I thought it might have been a demo, but later on when I was talking to one of the graphic designers for the Punisher game, that it was only a press kit. Whew, for a few minutes I was wondering if I should knock him down and run away with the disc. Hahahaha
Max and Aileen's suite at the Westin Bonaventure was so cool. The Westin is the hotel featured in Arnold's movie "True Lies" where he rides an elevator in a horse and rides the horse through a pool. Max and Aileen's suite had a kitchen, a circular starcase connecting the two floors. Dining tables, wetbar. Crazy stuff. The hotel even put a display of chips/drinks for us when we arrived. We watched the Laker/Spurs .4 sec game before going to the buses. Man, that was one crazy game.
After the game, it was time to get on the buses to the Sony Party. All the stars actually came to the PS2 party that happened the night before where Iggy Pop performed. This year's party took place on this hilltop near Dodger Stadium and the Police Academy. They had these huge cool lighted tents and tons of searchlights. Initially when we walked in, I was disappointed by the food. Lots of sandwiches and wraps. On another area, I found hot dogs which was alright so I had one. Stupid stupid stupid. Anyways, we came out of that tent, and the Black Eyed Peas came out and performed. It was so great since I was like only 20 ft from them. They had encored with Where Is The Love and ended with a somewhat political note. Lot of Bush-haters in the crowd. After they ended, me, Jeff, and Lih-Chern headed over to the open bar to get drinks. I didn't know that there were bars all over the entire place so we ended up going to the most crowded one right next to the stage. The whole place was so big...like 4 or 5 big tents with a huge open area in the middle where the stage was. After awhile we noticed more movement on the stage. This huge wall thing with day-glo paint on it was being covered up with this drape. Every once in a while, it'd drop down a bit and I could see this graffiti saying "Supa Fly". Of course, who else could it be but Missy Elliott! She actually emerged kinda like a magic trick out of a box and was all blinged out with a suit that Leah told me was covered with crushed Swarovski crystals. The choreography was really tight.
In another tent, they had a smaller stage with a projected image background. These 3-4 erotic dancers would writhe around on the stage and do all sorts of weird things. Another tent, had sushi, excellent lounge couches, and lots of edamame.
More to come later plus I should be able to link in pics to go along with these entries...
Still writing my E3 story down...
Tomorrow is KFOG's Kaboom Free Concert at the Piers!!! Watch the fireworks! Plus the Cardigans are playing tomorrow at Popscene!
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Another 160GB Hard Drive on the way. I'm almost to a terabyte now.
So I left work last Wednesday at around 5:30PM. My plane was at 7PM so I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to get there on time. It was just fine though cause I managed to ride BART from SF all the way to the Oakland Airport BART station, ride the bus to the airport, get through security checkpoint, and to the gate in 40 min. Pretty speedy. Plane ride was uneventful and I touched down in LA at around 8PM.
I had already booked a shuttle from the airport to the hotel for $17 via Prime Time Shuttle. Didn't even ride around once, picked up 1 more person and we were off. The driver was really talkative, telling me stories about how he and this hottie with a million-dollar mansion hooked up, stuff like that. It was really amusing really. When I got to the Hyatt West Hollywood, I instantly liked staying there.
Since it was on Sunset, everything was really cool and happening. My suite, thanks to some string pulling from my co-worker Max, was incredible. King size bed, couch, coffee table, even an aquarium. Didn't stay too long in the room though cause I needed to do some exploring. Went up Sunset all the way to the Virgin Megastore (open to midnight I think) and then came back (stopped at McDonalds). Looked inside Justin Timberlake's restaurant/bar Chi and then went up to the mezzanine floor. There, I came upon what had to have been other E3 attendees. 8-10 30-40 year-old men all huddled in a part of the floor playing MAGIC. Yes, MAGIC, the one with the cards, where you deal, and turn sideways, and say things like "This is the artifact Genesis Chamber. Whenever a nontoken creature comes into play, if Genesis Chamber is untapped, that creature's controller puts a 1/1 Myr artifact creature token into play." Shudder. It was this complete and utter clash between cool hipsters downstairs in the lounge and creepy old men playing card rpgs.
More on E3 later! Plus a TechTV Unscrewed exclusive!
Last last Saturday, I had some Jamba Juice...the Mango one. Pretty tasty. Good stuff. Played a scavenger hunt type game (the Go Game) with Margaret, Leah, and 2 of Margaret's old dormmates. It was a lot of fun doing all sorts of crazy things in Berkeley. Ranged from crossdressing in the Goodwill store, asking bums to be my valentine, sitting in front of Starbucks in the lotus position going Om....., a lot of craziness. Unfortunately, we lost some ground in the judgeable portion so we came in 5th. The key is to be as dirty/raunchy as possible it seems. We got bubbles as a prize. It's still in my car.
Britex was closed so a visit to Jessica McClintock was in order. It's really hard for anyone to look bad in one of those gowns. Let me just say that us guys need to watch out for them. They make women look 10x more attractive when inside them. I saw Morgan Webb from TechTV's Xplay at Macy's (I'll mention more of her later). I thought she was taller but I guess Adam Sessler was just short. There were protesters outside of Nieman Marcus with pelts/dead animals and other stuff. At Long's, I looked at all the cool camping stuff wondering when the next time I'll be going camping. Saw a flower that was supposed to smell like chocolate but my nose was kinda stuffed up. Went to the newly opened Orchid Bowl Cafe which is just opposite of 99 Ranch. Man, was it expensive. $15 for a large pea shoot thing! I couldn't believe it. Good thing I cancelled it. I still ended up paying like $30 for a bunch of appetizers. Ergh...at least I had clams which I hadn't had in awhile. Ever had a disagreement on quails? I have. Hahahaha
It was Mother's day last last weekend as well. I sent flowers/chocolate down to SoCal...and I took advantage of the 99 Ranch specials and bought me a new spiffy rice cooker. It's one of those REAL O.G. rice cookers you know, with the built in cover, overflow container, condensation disperser, atomic disrupter (jk). It's like I've finally moved on.
Not too much happened during the 3 days before I left for E3. Had lunch with Margaret and her coworkers from the Army Corp of Engineers at this place called Bistro Burger. Place must be pretty popular cause there was a line stretching outside just like Taylor's. Last Tuesday night, I used the $20 off coupon at Skates and got me a $69.99 prime rib and australian rock lobster entree. It's something I NEVER would have ordered. I actually ordered it to go!!! Hehehe. Once I got home and opened it up, I was like OMIGOD IT'S LOOKS SO GOOD. And it was. Actually I still have half of the prime rib in the freezer cause I couldn't eat it all. I even had most of the asparagus, it was that good.
FYI, nyotaimori is where you eat food off of a naked body. Got to get me invited to one of those sometime. Hahaha
For people who wondered how E3 was....well....it definitely wasn't dull...:-P Lisa Gleave has taken the crown of my fav booth babe from Candace Kita for sure. While I was taking a picture, Gleave pointed at me and said I had a really good camera. I was so shocked that she was talking to me I almost dropped said camera. That's her on the right. I'll put up pics of her in the Ninja Gaiden outfit later. She really was one of the nicest people there. Actually all the booth babes were really nice. EXCEPT FOR THE NINTENDO ONES. Not the ones actually telling people what games were about. The ones passing stuff out. Sheesh, it was like a whole attitude thing.
The next pic is of me and Morgan Webb with Adam Sessler looking on. Hehehe, he's gotta be used to it. I did take a pic with Adam too though. I hope they make it to LA. I'd hate for the show to end like this.
Hadn't had pho in a while so we had some semi-late night pho in SF. Don't ever get the seafood pho. It was like 2 shrimps, some calamari, and lots of fish cakes. Not even worth it., The superbowl noodles I had last time with Fred was much better. There were these 2 guys sitting at another table and I kinda took notice when 1 of them reached over and touched the guy on the kneecap. THEN he reached over and put his hand on the guy's thigh with his fingers halfway inside his shorts. I was like WHOAAA!. I'm not homophobic or anything, I'd have the same reaction if it was a guy and a girl. It was just so out there.
Had dinner at this Egyptian place called Al-Masri in the Richmond district near Geary on Balboa. Hoo and Chee had come up for the weekend. There was a "world-famous" belly-dancer there with a certificate from the Turkish government to prove she was the best at belly dancing. Wonder how much that cost. hehehe jk. Afterwards, there was some Halo in the apartment where I did only ok. Fred wasn't concentrating much cause he got schooled by both me and Eric. Showed them some Ebichu. Surprise surprise Fred had already seen it. So shocking for first-time watchers though.
Watched 13 going on 30. Went to Old Navy/BR and got a pair of pants. Emeryville has its own Taiko club! @ etaiko.org. Went to the Fillmore Springtime Stroll. There was a band, and a lot of people just walking around and enjoying the sun. At Johnny Rockets, the rows and rows of bacon really stimulated my senses. I don't understand how driving around, walking around the cannery, eating food at the wharf can be like so ordinary now. Wayyy back in HS I would never have thought I'd feel this way. It's not like I'm bored or anything. It just feels good. Saw a cockroach at this one stand. Totally shocked.
The graduation dinner for me and Leah's communication/care class happened last weekend. I learned quite a bit in the class. Definitely found that I was lacking (and in some ways still am) in certain listening skills. Hopefully, these 8 months in this class have helped me as much as it should have.
I think I forgot to post this. While I was at the Moscone Center, this guy who was contracted with the audio/visual company we were working with suddenly had a heart attack and died. Apparently, he used to be a strongman with the circus and had a really full life (lived hard, played hard). After eating at the Metreon, he went out to the Gardens and suddenly fell over. The paramedics actually were able to revive him but he actually shouted out,"NO DON'T RESUSCITATE ME!!! LET ME GO!!!" And then he passed on...Man, powerful stuff.
1 day, I didnt eat till 4pm so I was left to run around looking for places open after 3PM. Thankfully I saw a Chinese place that had steamtable style food. The owner lady even gave me some free spring water.
Geez, the papers say that gas is going to reach $3 this summer. Ice Cream will even be more expensive this year. What is this world coming too?
Watching Game 3 of the Kings\Timberwolves series was such a nailbiter. Freakin exciting game. Even though it ended the same way as Game 2, it seemed like a much better game.
Fixed quite a few of the things happening with the car in a few hours. Got a somewhat overdue oil change, WD-40eed the rear squeaky doors, and fixed the brake light that went out. Gave my car some transmission/fuel injection fluid as well.
It was Golden Week in Japan last week so there was a big slowdown in manga/anime releases. I wonder if Adam took a vacation just like all the other salarymen. Well, actually salespeople don't get time off for it. Teachers should though.
We had Spa Day at work which meant free lunch and massages. Signed up for my 20 min session. Got in that massage chair amidst the oils, incense, calming music. Man, she really pushed/rubbed/squeezed hard. Used her elbows and forearms to really dig into my back. Inside, I was like,"Ouch...oooh". Everytime I felt pain, I'd tense up and then she'd squeeze harder for more pain. I did loosen up somewhat towards the end though.
Good thing, I have a lunch buddy. I'm get tired of eating by myself sometimes. Beef noodle soup! Yep yep yep!
I watched the last episode of Friends. Incredibly satisfying. The DVD came out only a week after the show aired! I want to get the Friends DVDs but the final big set is probably going to cost $400.
I took Friday off last week due to the overtime I accrued from AAN. Started off the day looking online at cellphones and plans. I decided on Verizon as well as Lih-Chern's phone, the LG V6000. Went to the Korean cell phone places, had lunch at Koryo, and then picked up my phone. I'm getting the data cable so I don't have to pay for the stupid picture service. So far I'm incredibly satisfied. This phone actually works alright in my apartment. No more dropped calls.
Had Fred and Eric come over to watch Van Helsing at Bay St. It was ok. Cool special effects, really corny lines (though thankfully not from Hugh himself), and pretty women. I know know that flying female vampires do not have nipples. Went to D&A for dinner afterwards. Had Walnut Shrimp, Seafood Clay Pot, and Ginger/Green Onion chicken. Hmm, Eric and Fred both didn't seem that impressed. Don't understand it. Had this big debate with Chu and Fred about the abuse happening in Iraq. Will talk about it in a bit.
Leah's laptop contracted the Sasser virus. 2 diff strains of it too! We protected pretty darn well at the office so cleaning up Sasser was a good instructional lesson for me in case it ever pops up at the office. Freakin German teenager. Well, it keeps us types in business right? He might have developed Netsky as well? Geez.
Had Dobinmushi the other day. Dobin Mushi is Seafood and Vegetables Steamed in a Teapot. You drink the broth as if it were tea. Loved the stuff when I was a kid. I think it's time I started to make Chawanmushi again.
The Kings have been pretty exciting to watch during these playoffs. I still have problems distinguishing Bibby and Christie from each other but I'm doing better now. I think Bibby always wears a headband and Christie is taller. Different tatoos as well bet I usually can't tell on my 20" TV. Hopefully, this secound round will be an exiting one even against the number 1 seed and the NBA MVP. Go Pejas!
Last Thursday was crazy. First off, one of our main servers went down due to an incompatible Microsoft Update that was applied days earlier. I had to reboot it due to a failed service which caused it to not boot properly. Over the afternoon and all night was spent researching the server, finding all the corresponding discs, figuring out different ways to solve the problem. I ended up sleeping in my office at around 4 AM and then waking up at 6:30 AM. It was causing all sorts of problems with other servers too but I was able to figure it out at around 3AM. Luckily, with the expert help from a consultant, who brought in the server in the first place and whose subordinate installed the updates as well, it all got fixed at 10AM. Would have taken longer if I hadn't done all that research. It was funny, in the end I had all the answers, I just couldn't find the 1 disk out of 100 possible install disks that could get me to a command prompt. RAID can be such a pain the butt sometimes. Should have agreed on a standard like how IDE is. freakin too many drivers for RAID controllers.. The whole HP-Compaq merger mess just made it worse too.
At least I took off like 5 hours for myself between the whole debacle. Went to this AIDS benefit dinner thing that was being hosted by Margaret and Christina at this restaurant called Ramblas Tapas in the Mission district. Eric and Fred and I met up at the place. Though it was freakishly expensive, we did end up having a good time. Expect to have a meal after eating there unless you're prepared to spend a lot for appetizers which is what tapas is. I liked the calamari, and the potatoes. Chicken was a good deal. Afterwards, we went to Fisherman's Wharf where Fred scratched his Clam Chowder itch, I got some calimari. After that we went to Steps of Rome, were we had dessert. Actually, Fred and Eric spent most of the time people-watching...heh heh heh. Like them backless shirts.
Before I begin, a word of apology. Sorry for not updating. It's just been difficult with work and all to keep updating with the detail that I do. Gomen nasai. Also......a big Happy Birthday!!! to my Sister and Dad. My sis like like 19 and I won't mention what my dad is. Hehehe. Another year I miss the celebratory food. Sucks.
Went to Eric/Fred's place before watching Kill Bill Vol 2. That was like weeks ago but I haven't been keeping up well. Saw Eric play Tribes and watched Fred play Gunbound. Went to Fuddruckers for dinner. On the way, Fred and Bojangles sang along to Live and Dave Mathews. Good stuff. Had a ribeye sandwich with horseradish which I turned into a lettuce wrap sandwich. Felt like I was making a Moo Shu thing. Kill Bill was great. Had a lot of great scenes.
I still havent switched my wireless provider yet. I keep holding off cause its such a pain to have to sign a new contract. Every one seems to want 2 years commitment. I also want unlimited messages too which ATT gives me for free. I don't know if its the service that sucks or its the phone.
Went to Taylor's Refresher finally with Margaret a few weeks ago. Had their version of the double western bacon cheeseburger. I think I spent about $18 there just for lunch. They do have interesting things like sweet potato fries though.
Did I mention that once I woke up on a Sunday and starting getting ready to go to work? It was all cause I had set my alarm for some reason the night before. I'm all getting ready and mentally readying myself for work when Lih-Chern walks out and is like "Whoa...you're awake early." I was like,"Huh????". Couldn't go back to sleep though. Just the nature of these things.
The American Academy of Neurology opened at Moscone Center last weekend so we had to be ready for that setting up the computers/servers and the like. Setup 20-something computers, had 1 server plus a backup, and 18 printers. It was great having meals paid for and transportation as well even though it was just at the Moscone Center. I have a better idea now what San Antonio is going to be like. Learned a lot during that weekend+week. Used my scooter to go back and forth between the office and the conference. Really useful. Saw a spider inside one of the booths which Richard wanted to save but eventually I just had to kill. I think Richard picked up some respect for Nature while working as a guide in Africa. I was like,"Huh?", when he asked me not to kill it. Tried to save it but it just wouldn't cooperate. For lunch I usually ate at the Metreon or the Chaa-Am Thai place. We had a catered lunch thanks to AAN which was amazing. Second only to Pixar lunches, this one had ribs/hot wings/haagen daz. Hmmmmm.
At the convention, Richard Ozer told me about how conventions used to work in Chicago where unions would go nuts. Apparently, if you had a stack of boxes, you were required to hire a fire gaurd to make sure that the boxes wouldn't spontaneously combust. The guy would just sit there watching the boxes. Then apparently, he heard that another company had run its own network cabling once without going through the union. The next day, they found that someone had taken a wirecutter through the entire cable cluster. Crazy stuff.
Richard M's been getting a lot of spam lately. One had the subject "Penis Life Cutlass". Geez. Poor guy.
Because the conference is about neurology, the store had some whacky stuff for sale. Scott got this jello mold in the shape of a brain for $20. It was so sick. A lot of goodies on the exhibit hall. Keylights and flash memory keychains were to be found.
One of the guys registering for the conference plopped down a black American Express card. Apparently these cards are very exclusive (I've only seen 2 before). You have unlimited credit, a personal assistant (to help you buy things), and it has the power to buy planes. Planes...not plane tickets...planes! I heard on NPR that you need to spend upwards of $150,000 on the card to get it. $2,500 annual fee though. Sheesh.
Since I was CMR staff and we had a lot of temps working, I had to make executive decisions on who got refunds and stuff like that. These things could cost them a lot too. Some of the registrations cost several thousand dollars. With cancellation fees and stuff, it could get nasty. I did learn how to be firm with people though. One of the benefits of not having a server go down (well actually one did but that will have to wait till the next post) is that I got to learn people skills outside my job description.
Went to the gym and exercised for more than an hour. Ran 2 seperate 25 min runs on the treadmill and did some of the other machines like the bike and the rowing.
Went to Costco a few times. I bought Tilapia with Seafood Stuffing (the premade stuff) and baked it. Came out really good and tasty. The other time, I went with Lih-Chern and bought a Prime Rib Roast to split. Got some mushrooms and broiled the sucker. Good stuff. We still have 2.5 lbs left. I also got a lot of Rainbow Trout.
Went to this club called Tongue and Groove to hear a 80's cover band called "Tainted Love". They started playing all these great 80s songs. Apparently Margaret's theme is Human League's "Don't You Want Me Baby?". She assures everyone that she's not being narcisstic about it. Hahahaha. It was Margaret, Margaret's roommate Christina, and 3 of Margaret's co-workers. Pretty fun time. The band was really cool. Some of the songs I didn't know but I recognized quite a few of them. I think my theme songs are "Happy Face" by Destiny's Child and "Eye of the Tiger". Not joking. :-) There are some 80s songs that strike a nerve with me but I can't seem to remember names well. Take on Me is a good one.
I went to a SBC meeting on network security the other day. It was funny situation, it had an engineer talking like a salesman, and a salesman talking like an engineer (reading from a paper). It was just so odd that the engineer would have the better sales pitch. I did get a sandwich out of it at least. My table was interesting cause we ended up just talking about wardriving and all other sorts of neat stuff.
One of the days I was working at Moscone, the bus became incredibly late so we missed Carrie's birthday dinner at Chevy's. Went to Zao Noodle Bar instead at Bay St. where I had a wonderful seafood noodle thing. Great stuff. Afterwards, we met up with Carrie, Heidi, Brian and Caitlin at the Bubble Lounge. Pretty chill there, no cover charge, and a good atmosphere. Some lecherous old men but the crowd was alright. Everyone seemed older than me though. I think it'll be a while before I start seeing women younger than me at clubs like that.
So I've gone to Buckhorn Grill a number of times, been Lyon's, been to Long Life Noodle, been to Sushi House even. Leah even came to the conference to hang out. She went on to the exhibit hall where she stumped an exhibitor with questions about why their product didn't work with other neuro-paralytic diseases than the ones they decided to list. GO LEAH!!! I was so proud when I heard it. Hahahahaha.
So next update must include the NBA playoffs, eating Tapas/clam chowder/steps of rome, the server shutdown and the subsequent allnighter, pho in SF, dinner at al-masri/belly dancing/people from the past/halo in apartment/ebichu, 13 going on 30/old navy/br, etaiko.org/fillmore springtime stroll/johnny rockets/bacon, driving around/cannery/food at the wharf/cockroach/britex fabrics, graduation dinner. Whew. Lots to cover. Must stop doing anything more. :-P
Old Fortune Cookies -
The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.
Others appreciate your good sense of humor.
You are next in line for promotion in your firm.
Treat others as you would treat yourself
