Surreal Weekend: Nights 2 and 3

The rest of the weekend can pretty much be summed up as one of an excess of eating, drinking, dancing, and meeting old friends.

I think this is the first time since I moved to Dallas that I've seen that many Indians in one room together. When the Indian music started, and everyone was dancing, it took me awhile to remember exactly how to dance to it.

The engagement party was pretty similar to many Indian wedding receptions I've been to in the past, but it felt a little weird knowing the bride- and groom-to-be as friends instead of my parents' friends' kids.

Surreal Weekend: Night 1

First of all, an update on the last post.  I mentioned that our cute waitress had given some of us her contact info.  Well, after reflecting on the evening, I realize that she wasn't cute so much as smoking hot.  Also, she got the contact info of a female coworker.

Well, the waitress called the coworker Thursday night and let her know that she had successfully gotten her job back at the venue!  Woohoo! I was worried we would have to find some new venue and some new hot waitress to lust after. But it looks like that won't be necessary.

Yeah, so the "surreal" part of the weekend really started with the happy hour.

Friday night, my sister came into town and we went to dinner at Cosmic Cafe in downtown Dallas (along with a few of my coworkers).  I find it interesting when my friends meet my sister just to see their reactions.  Normally, people say that we're complete opposites.  I was a little surprised that my friends said I wasn't a quiet person.  Also, my sister and I apparantly talk very quickly and have "100 mph conversations."

The post-dinner plans were to "go out" somewhere.  Unfortunately, the place wasn't decided ahead of time, and it was still pretty early so we couldn't go directly to the bar/club/lounge.  So we ended up driving all the way up to Plano where everyone else was staying, since they hadn't eaten and my sister still needed to get ready. 

I went back to my ex-coworker's apartment where my friends went.   There was plenty of alcohol but not enough other liquid to make mixed drinks, so some of them made a run to the grocery store.  Their list: 1) milk, 2) OJ, 3) UNO cards.  Little did the cashier know the great fun that lay ahead.  They couldn't find the UNO cards though, so we ended up playing a mini-game of poker instead.

By the time everyone was ready to go out, it was close to 12:30am.  The bars close at 2am.  After much confusion, we ended up partying at the "hospitality suite" in the hotel.

Oh, so to close out the night, we went to IHOP.  When we were leaving, guess who we see in the parking lot? Our waitress from Wednesday!  No, no, not the cute/smoking hot waitress who hung out with us, the one who actually served us.  Isn't that crazy?  What are the odds? The weird thing is that my coworker placed her perfectly.  I recognized her face but wouldn't have been able to say from where.

Happy Hour Madness!

We returned to our old favorite venue for happy hour yesterday.  Not sure exactly how or why this happened, but this was our most successful happy hour to date, with more than 20 people showing up!  We ended up taking 3 tables before the night was over.  

It might have to do with the fact that there was no happy hour last week, or because a lot more people decided to bring other friends.  It made for good times though.  We had a suprisingly good girl-guy ratio too.

So I keep telling people that we go to this place since they have a free food buffet on Wednesdays (which is true), but the real "secret" reason that I enjoy going there is because of our waitress.  She's by far the best waitress we've ever had, bringing us our drinks quickly, and also hanging out with us when she wasn't busy.  I'm pretty sure I've talked about her in a previous post.  Oh, and she's also pretty cute.

Well, at this happy hour, we learned some interesting things.  First of all, our waitress no longer works there. Apparantly, she had to quit because her parents are Southern Baptist and working at a place that serves alcohol and has dancing is a big no-no.  Also, she's married. 

She ended up hanging out with us for much of the night (just like she did when she was our waitress), and a couple of us managed to get her contact info.  She said that we were her favorite customers, and she wanted to go wherever we went.  How hot is that?

Awkward?

There's nothing more awkward (and somewhat amusing) than watching two people who don't like to dance and don't want to dance trying to dance. It makes for an entertaining evening.

Woohoo for VM!

Looks like Veronica Mars will be back next season on the CW!

Also, the season 2 DVD comes out on August 22 according to Amazon.com.  I saw most episodes from the season, but if you miss even one episode, there's so many references throughout the rest of the season that you feel lost.

A Riddle Wrapped in a Paradox Smothered in Irony

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
A lower raise.
A lower raise who?
A lower raise (percentage-wise) than last year, even though my review was more positive.

That's probably not the funniest joke you'll read today, but it's the news I received today when they made announcements about raises.  And sometimes, the truth, in its own twisted way, is funnier than any joke you can come up with.

Flying!

I flew a plane on Saturday!  Ok, well didn't really fly it, but I did get to do the takeoff and steered it for a bit in the air.

I've been meaning to take lessons for awhile, and this was the introductory lesson where they take you up and show you what it's all about.

It was a really fun trip, and I would still like to do it, but I'm a little hesitant since it's pretty expensive (over $4k) and would take a lot of time (2-3 lessons a week).  Also, what happens if I just completely suck at it and am not able to grasp everything that's needed right away? It means even more time and money.. Yikes.

We tried Sunset Lounge in downtown Dallas on Saturday night.  It was a pretty nice place: good women-to-men ratio, and tons of attractive females.  It turned out to be too middle ground for everyone though.  Some people wanted an actual club where there was a dance floor, others wanted a place where they could play pool.  It also ended up being really expensive ($6 for a mixed drink; $4 for a Bud Light).  Good to know that there's a place like that though.

Starbucks Soiree

Wow... last night was the most fun I've had without any alcohol in a long, long time.

Met some new people, saw some people I haven't seen in awhile, and just chilled/chatted for three hours.

It was great.

Cinco de Mayo weekend

I spent most of yesterday reading On Intelligence, which basically outlines why the current status of the field of AI is headed in the wrong direction, and in order to model computers based on human intelligence, it's necessary to take a closer look at the human brain and see how it works. Obviously, this is a very broad thesis, and is made much harder by the fact that not everything is known about the workings of the brain.

Overall, though, it's a great book -- touching on the subjects of computer science, neuroscience, and even a little bit of philosophy. Like the author, it's a little amazing to me that artificial intelligence didn't take this approach to start out with.

Although the main focus of the book is to outline where AI needs to be headed, I mainly bought the book because I was interested in learning how the brain worked, and it definitely excels in both areas.

Last night, went to a former co-worker's apartment-warming party. Poker + good mix of guys and girls + dancing + lots of alcohol = pretty fun night (ended up staying until 5 am). Got some crazy pictures/videos (125/3). Somehow, every time I take my camera out, I end up with way more pictures than I remember taking.

Fun with T-shirts!

While browsing the good ol' Internet, I came across some pretty funny t-shirts.

My favorite is:
Unfortunately, I don't think it's work-safe, and would probably get me kicked out of most public places. They also had a similar one that said "You say Tomato I say Fuck You."

Some other good ones:

(The one above is great since it works whether you're sarcastic or sincere.)

You can find more here.

Worst Dialogue Ever?

From the trailer for the new movie Stick It:

Girl: Call me.
Guy: Stalk you.

Huh? How is that even remotely natural? Ugh.

Unlike Bring It On (which was written by the same people), this movie doesn't feature the star quality of Eliza Dushku and Kirsten Dunst and can not escape with really bad lines.

I've seen bad movies before, but when the dialogue in the trailer is this bad, it kinda makes you wonder how much worse it can get in the movie itself.

Grade (based purely on the trailer): F

Woohoo for Blingo!

I've been using this search engine called Blingo for the last six months or so, and I must say that I'm a fan.

It uses Google to do searches, but the catch is that you can win prizes with Blingo. You're probably thinking it's a big crock and no one ever wins, but I just won again tonight (the first time was about 2 or 3 months ago).

You don't have to give them any personal information until you win either, so it's perfectly safe.

If you want to join in the fun, click here:

eh

"eh" is a strange word.

If it's used singularly as an expression, it conveys apathy and general nonchalance.

However, if you're in Canada and use it at the end of a sentence, it suddenly makes you very Canadian and sound friendly.

Food for thought.