i have the best job ever. yay!
that is all.
(read the comments)
(numbered, but not in any particular order)
1) i stumbled across mark cuban's blog. i think i like him. he's someone who seems to be loud and obnoxious, doesn't like to dress up, and has a buttload of money. ok. it's not that i like him, it's that i want to be him.
2) martha stewart's illegally dumped IMclone stock is doing good. "Revenue rose to $109.6 million from $19.6 million."
i guess sucky things happen to rich people too. but this is very rare and does not nearly make up for the ridiculousness of how unfairly good things happen to the rich.
3) pretty girls.
4) what i'm going to eat for lunch today.
5) is it that i hate work in general? or am i just starting to hate working here? or is it something entirely unrelated that's making me upset, and i just attribute the cause to be work?
6) i bought a $5 vacuum. then i needed to buy more to get free shipping. which, i understand, is part of the trick. but i bought some moderately reasonably-priced surf dvds (i actually currently don't own any), so that was ok.
7) i also bought the exact same pair of basketball shoes that i currently wear. they're light and responsive and wonderful. and when i wear this current pair out, i'll have that pair to use. my future is so bright!
8) pretty girls.
i saw it on tv. then i saw it here.
and i bought it.
you might call me dumb,
but i am happy now.
i already have the sobakawa pillow and the eurosealer. i won't stop until i have every single thing i've seen on an informercial that i thought was cool. like the electronic change sorter. it's dope. on the horizon? darren's dance groove.
it's monday morning, i've already eaten my lunch, i'm falling asleep, and nobody i know has updated their blogs since friday.
why yall gotta waste my flava'?
damn.
my father claims to be chinese. but the internet has caught him in his own web of lies:
ingredients:
one tube of the generic chocolate chip cookie dough.
a whole lot of oatmeal.
directions:
1) mix the cookie dough with the oatmeal. sure, add more oatmeal. we're making healthy cookies here, america!
2) bake at 350F for 12 minutes. or just before they're burnt.
3) try to stop yourself from eating them all. it's hard to do. they're all warm and melty and the milk is so good and cold.
4) sit at work and eat one after another until your little container of cookies is down to two cookies. one cookie. half a cookie.
5) share the rest. you're so giving.
you know those machines where you put in money, operate the crane-grabber-thing and try to have it pick up a toy? well, there's one here at the food court. the twist? you don't pick up toys. you pick up lobsters. live, rubberbanded clawed lobsters. you can't even imagine the happiness that people are filled up with when they first see the machine. you can win a fricking lobster! how cool is that? and for $.50 a try. i could watch that machine all day.
"the first rule about the illuminati is you DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE ILLUMINATI"
so some of you, fully 1/3 of my readers (his name is ned), wanted a review of superbrawl. so here it is:
superbrawl was disturbing. not the most disturbing thing i've seen, but not a simple competition of skills and strength. it's this weird mix of kickboxing and wrestling, and it was almost painful for me to watch. i can't really articulate why it was so unsettling; i find no overwhelming offense to normal boxing, nor to wrestling (either the wonderfully entertaining WWE or the strange world of weigh-ins and greco-roman wrestling). so why would the hybrid "sport" be so disagreeable? if i had to bet money on a reason, i'd go with the crowd.
the arena was filled with a demographic that i never, ever want to be a part of.
the air was thick with a sense of anger and hate. i'm not sure what i expected, but it wasn't to have "KILL HIM!" shouted toward the ring from all sides of the place. every blow was followed by an uproar of glee from the crowd. i tried to mask my grimace of disgust which the friend i was with cheered "YEAH! OOH! OH YEAH!"
i guess i was just viewing the event from the vantage point of a person who knows the face that's being punched. had i been cheering for a favorite fighter, and only rejoicing in his success, maybe i would have enjoyed more of it. but i couldn't help see a knee colliding with a jaw without cringing.
there was a point in the event that i enjoyed, however. i'll get to that in a bit.
the typical fight went like this: the fighters come to the center of the ring and touch gloves. then they circle each other throwing jabs and looking much like a normal run-of-the-mill boxing match. they do the bit where they punch and dodge and punch, then grab each other so they can't get hit by one another. this is where the boxing match takes a turn. one of the fighters sweeps the legs of the other, and they both fall to the ground. this is where they begin wrestling around, trying to both pin the other fighter's arms down, as well as trying to punch/kick/knee the other fighter in the head/face/stomach/neck/etc.
fun fun.
so, the title fight was the hometown hero, enson inoue's return to hawaii. he'd been living in japan getting his fight on for years. (his brother, egan, was a big name in the superbrawl world, too. egan lost to some japanese guy some months ago. the japanese guy won with one punch (!) that broke egan's ear drum. oof). they made a big deal about how enson is willing to "fight to the death" and how he's a homegrown hawaii boy. they had all the motivating island music playing and the lighting effects going while he walked to the ring. the arena was on their feet and cheering wildly. and standing in the ring, enson looked significantly larger than the white guy he was going to fight.
long story short, enson got worked. he stands up and gives the classic, "why'd you stop the fight? i was fine!" bit, and chaos ensues. his corner jumps in the ring and starts pushing the ref around. the police response consisted of a whopping 2 (TWO!) cops standing in the ring, watching and yelling for the to break it up. (in their defense, i wouldn't put myself in the middle of two ultimate fighters, even if i was carrying a gun.)
then, as the arena grumbles about their hometown hero losing in the first round, these two ultimate fighting clubs start getting into a fight ring-side. imagine the "cobra kai dojo" from karate kid 1. now add 10-20 years and 100+ lbs. now imagine two such groups arguing the merits of the ref's decision to stop the fight. now imagine a 6'4", 280 lb samoan taking swings at people around him ringside. thank god i sat in the upper (cheaper) level. i had the perfect view and was out of their angry reach.
the official response came from the announcer: "everyone...leave NOW! ... HPD asks you to LEAVE the arena NOW!" yeah. they'll make you. all 10 of the cops.
i'm glad i went. i probably won't ever go again. i'll stick to pretend and make-believe violence. maybe i'd actually get in a real fight if my life or safety of my friends or family requires it. real violence for entertainment? no thanks. but it was satisfying to see the cocky and surly enson lose, as well as his corner's sportsmen-of-the-year response.
this week has been filled with the most sleepy and tired days ever. i don't know why i'm so tired all the time, but i'm sitting here with a few cokes worth of caffeine in me and i still cannot think of anything besides sleep.
so, it's friday and all i want to do is leave early to sleep. and i can do it, too. if i can only figure out how to do this one magical thing with my computer. hm...
but no! there will be no home and sleeping. tonight is superbrawl, and i have a ticket to go. i've never been to one of these "ultimate fighting" or "mixed martial arts" fights. it sounds kind of scary, but maybe fun to go to. once. it'll kind of be like the movie fight club. but without the fakeness of a movie. and without the social commentary. and without brad pitt and ed norton. but a similar transfer of my money to people who probably have a lot more than me.
today is shaping up to be a pretty ok day.
we had to go do horrible fieldwork today, but we got rained out. then, just now, the sun came out, the breeze picked up, and it's beautiful outside. the soil is still too wet to do the fieldwork, but not wet enough to ruin the day.
there's this laboratory presentation at dave and busters today at lunch. free lunch. probably free beverages. improbably free games. i wasn't gonna go because of the fieldwork scheduled. but now, i'm on my way there.
so there's this company out there called ezula. they're evil. pure evil. they use this technique called "ActiveX drive-by-download on web pages" to load their software on your computer. they call it "adware", but we all know that it's a virus. they're evil and i hate them and i'm shocked to not read anything on the web about someone firebombing their SF headquarters.
mark got the virus. bone's girlfriend got the virus. we're angry and we're going to beat up ezula's people if we see them on the street.
today seems to be the day where all the enthusiasm and motivation, which i gathered during my incredibly restful sleep last night, is sucked out of me by people at work. i came here ready to do stuff. and now they force me to look at stuff like this.
homeboy at work didn't review the documents that i emailed him. why?
boy: "oh, it's because the intern didn't print out the files."
ericlau: "didn't i email you those files?"
boy: "uh...yeah. but i don't have a printer at home."
ericlau: "oh. but they're on the server, right?"
boy: "uh...i....uh....jfksld;jasd....."
--later--
boy: "so...uh...could you print those out for me?"
ericlau: "uh...sure (moron)."
does getting a phd make you dumber? seriously, there are three people in my company with phd's. one of them is brilliant and crazy and awesome. the other two are very strong arguments for me not returning to school to get a doctorate.
i'm not like them
but i can pretend
the sun is gone
but i have a light
the day is done
but i'm having fun
i think i'm dumb,
or maybe just happy.
i think i'm just happy.
i think i'm just happy.
thank you, vh1's "behind the music 1994":
pulp fiction
regulators
death row's the chronic: gin and juice and snoop
kurdt's death
clinton's adventures
free oj.
i watched it like i was there, finally noticing how many significant things went on that year. i feel like i was just old enough to realize what was going on, but not old enough to really do anything about it. and then i think the concept of jadedness hit me, so nothing else had the power of a thousand thousands of people gathering around the space needle to feel how angry they were at losing their kurt cobain...feeling how confused and misinformed at how a white ford bronco's slow speed chase down the 405 could make an entire nation stop and watch cnn for all the "latest breaking news"...and how we wouldn't really realized how hip hop's stars were beginning their trip down the road to bi-coastal feuds that would set the art form back a decade or so.
i sat there watching the show and i felt like opening up my cello case (i just picked up my cello from my brother a few days ago). i hadn't even seen a cello in person for at least 4 years, and considering how large a part of my life it was in highschool, 4 years is a ridiculously long time. and when i opened it up, it felt like it was meant to be. my right hand went straight for the bow and the left hand went straight for the top tuning pegs. within a minute we were both tuned perfectly and we playing along with vh1's video clip of mtv's nirvana unplugged in new york. (it might have been only a few of us that noticed that beside the three original members of nirvana [kurdt, foo fighters drummer man (dave grohl), and the bass player] there was only a cello playing chick that joined the band on that night).
so my A string broke, psht. there are plenty of strings to make the night of cello reuniting magical. i hate the cello for making me an "orch dork", but i love it for it being the key that allows me into the world of the deepest musical understanding and love.
blah blah blah. my skin has lost its callouses and fingers have lost their place, but it still feels like i've come back to the home that i hadn't even known i'd left. i know that it should be better than it was, but i know that it is already better than it has been.
i think i was a freshman in 1994. it was a hard year, i was growing into myself and trying to abandon the kid that i was (i think i'm still struggling with that.). i know i can't articulate any of the emotion of the events of that year. and all i can do is remember hearing/reading/learning of the things that were going on in that year and the numbness that i felt upon learning of everything. what was really more important to me? the country was falling apart while the president was getting his freak on, our poetic, musical, and cultural role models were falling from grace (oj) or dying off (cobain), but i was just a kid trying to figure out how to not live a life that my classmates would forever riducule.
this cello reminds me of the best of times, the safest of places in my own mind and soul, and the worst and most vunerable of life stages.
i'll probably start playing again this weekend, when my neighbors aren't so prone to complain about me.
so the universe is all about yin and yang, right?
light and darkness, good and evil?
yin -- yang
where's the fucking yang?
J.Lo's mom wins $2.4 mil jackpot
why does it still feel like monday?
i had a great big event-filled, productive weekend. i completed all but the last three home improvement things that can be reasonably done (the jet-propelled toilet is next on the list), and i surfed a bunch. yesterday i stayed at work until 9:30pm, and then i went home and did my taxes. all that's really left on the wish list that would make the week perfect is to land a ridiculously high paying fun job and to marry britney spears. maybe marrying britney spears would be the ridiculously high paying fun job? i'll take it.
surf has been a mixed bag for me lately. i got the new board recently, which really made things exciting, but i've been surfing horribly. considering how long i've been surfing, the amoung of times i fell flat on my face while taking off on waves on sunday was embarrasing. i tried to fight through it, thinking that the next wave would help me shake off the sucky surfing i had in me. i was wrong. poop.
and then this morning. it was small and clean and decent. i didn't humiliate myself, which was good. but as i was paddling in, some dummy decided to fall off his wave and kick his longboard out at me. it ended up driving itself into my knee fairly hard. it didn't hurt too much at the time. but now, a mere 2 hours after, it hurts more and more. those are the best kinds of injuries. fun fun.
Genetically Manipulated Bull Euthanized .
the last two lines of the article:
[The cow's caretaker] said he [Herman the cow] listened to a rap station "around the clock."
"It makes Herman calm," she said.
the "crimson room"
there's a ton of cheat pages online to help you, but you should see how long you can last before you get that frustrated with it.