Campaigning

I don't understand the idea of campaign yard signs.

I get the ones that advocate a certain policy position or vote yes/no (only one, obviously) on a certain proposition.

And if it's actually in someone's yard, I can understand that - people are strong supporters of a candidate and are proud to express their support to the world.

But what about the ones that are in a random field or especially the ones right outside the polling place? Is the premise that, if someone has no idea how to vote, they will suddenly pick a name since they saw a sign for it? God, I hope not. The mere thought of that scares me - I would much rather those people don't vote at all.
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I'm also skeptical of voter registration drives. If people don't care enough to register to vote on their own, is their vote really worth it? Since everything is done by secret ballot, simply registering someone to vote also isn't enough. There's no way to tell if they actually voted for the candidate that registered them, or even if they'll end up voting at all.

It's also been reported that face-to-face contact with voters is the most effective way to register someone. Well, yeah, but that's because there's probably a lot more pressure to sign the form than to simply hang up the phone.

Although it's admirable to get more citizens involved in the democratic process, the reasons for which it's being done aren't so admirable. By reaching outside the normal electorate, Obama is basically conceding that the current voters wouldn't elect him into office.

If that's the case, and the new voters are only voting for him under pressure, where's the win in that? And more importantly, if he does win, will he have enough political capital to make any bold moves once he's in office?

Mac whore

So I officially became a Mac whore today.

I traded in my ThinkPad at work for a MacBook Pro.

I now have a regular MacBook, a MacBook Pro, an iPhone and an iPod (albeit an old one).

Better than Sarah Palin

See you at the fake inauguration, bitches.

One more..

I'm not sure when this became an anti-Palin blog, but here's another video:



She's much more qualified than originally thought, if she reads ALL the magazines and newspapers.

VP Debate Drinking Game?

I was thinking a fun game would be to drink every time Sarah Palin made a rambling statement that didn't make sense and completely avoided the question.




But based on her previous interviews, you might be trashed in the first few minutes.

Oh, there's the elephant!

I can imagine the deliberations right before they picked Palin to be the VP nominee.

McCain's entire strategy revolved around her gender. It has nothing to do with the fact that she supposedly advocates reform and has staunchly conservative views. I'm sure there are male Republican members who have a similar record, and probably have more/better experience to back up their claims of reform.

So he picked her purely because of her sex, yet any attack or question about her experience is ruled to be sexist. Even though it was sexism that got her the pick in the first place!

Loved the SNL opening, and actually like Amy's Clinton better than Tina's Sarah (rest of the show sucked though):

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/palin-hillary-open/656281/

More politics!

I've always thought Matt Damon was a douche, but this little video changed my opinion (slightly):



Palin's supposed to be interviewed by ABC later this week and I'm wondering if we'll learn anything new about her, or if she'll just repeat the obnoxious lies from her acceptance speech.

The lying continues from the McCain side:

http://www.jedreport.com/2008/09/why-is-john-mccain-defending-s.html

Why that ad - and the obvious mischaracterization - hasn't gotten more press, and the stupid line about lipstick is taking over the airwaves, is beyond me.

I know Obama wants a clean game about the issues, but if the other side wants to play dirty, he should at least respond just as vigorously.

Palin = Umbridge

My Gmail status today was: does palin remind anyone else of umbridge?

I did a quick search and this page popped up:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080903194746AAkjgMG

Kinda creepy that it's word-for-word what I had.. there's also a Facebook group for the same idea.

Seriously though, her personality and the pasted-on smile reminded me of Umbridge the moment she started talking, and the whole censorship of books put her over the top: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2008/09/sarah-palin-ban.html

As creepy and scary as she is, I'm glad that McCain picked someone who could fire up his party because it makes the election exciting and probably a lot closer than it would have been if he had picked a boring, predictable running mate. I'm also pleasantly surprised that both candidates (so far) have shown a lot of restraint and haven't made the race about petty personal attacks. They've kept it about the big policy questions and other factors that should make a difference in how we pick our leaders.

It's also almost comical the way the Republicans spin everything. If the Democratic VP nominee had a 17-year-old unwed daughter, the Republicans would have had a field day and probably wouldn't have stopped talking about it until Election Day. The Clinton impeachment hearings are a pretty good indication of that... However, since it's on their side, any attack whatsoever is just sexist.

Palin also conveniently left out all of her extreme views (anti-abortion even in the cases of rape and incest, book banning, pro-gun control, teaching creationism in schools, etc.), and lied about her already short record (she claimed that she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, but only took that position after she realized it was incredibly unpopular, and she never gave the money back!).

We'll have to see how the Democrats respond to her, but I really hope her extremely conservative views are given a broader audience, because my guess is that she wouldn't be nearly as popular if everyone knew her stance on various issues.

US Open

Things to do before I die:

#256. Attend a tennis Grand Slam event in person.

Check!

This Labor Day weekend was kinda hectic. My parents' family friends stayed with us on Friday night, and then we drove Saturday afternoon for NYC. Normally the drive takes about 4 - 4.5 hours, but traffic was ridiculous and even after taking a few shortcuts, it still took us 6 hours.

We were all kinda tired, so we didn't do much that night except walk around Times Square. If you've never been, you should definitely check out the indoor ferris wheel at the Toys R Us. It's pretty cool.

On Sunday, my dad, my cousin and I went to the US Open. Fun fact: I've now visited the grounds of all 4 tennis Grand Slams (Wimbledon in England, French Open in Paris, US Open in NYC, and the Australian Open in Melbourne). We couldn't get tickets to the main stadium and instead had a grounds admission pass which basically lets you wander around the smaller courts and if there's room in the larger stadiums, you can see those too.

I've been to other major sporting events before, but I have to say that this one was really unique. I was surprised at how quiet everyone was (and they say that the US Open is one of the rowdier tennis events!), and at the fact that the ushers only open the gates during changeovers. I was also very impressed at how good the juniors were. We were there on the first day of the boys and girls singles and some of the kids we saw were absolutely incredible. Since they played on the smaller courts, we got a close-up view of the game and I was pretty amazed.

I think if I lived in New York, I would definitely try to get out and see more games (the evening sessions at Arthur Ashe seem to have a whole different feel). We left my sister's apartment around 10am and got to our seats before the game started at 11 - and that was with getting our tickets, the security scan, and looking around!
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Last week's DNC was interesting. It started out pretty slow and kinda boring, but the main personalities of the party really delivered when it mattered. Hillary finally showed some passion and emotion that was lacking at critical times during her own campaign, Bill gave an articulate and impassioned endorsement of Obama, and Biden was able to make Michelle Obama cry.

And, of course, Obama surpassed even the highest expectations in his own speech. It was well-written, well-delivered and set the tone for the political season.

So far, the RNC is kinda slow as well. I don't remember too much about past political conventions, but it seems like they're paying an inordinate amount of attention to Palin. On the second (really the first) day of the convention, they should be focused entirely on McCain, no?

I wouldn't be surprised if the Democratic Party went through a major shake-up if they lost this election.

Olympics de-brief

I'm kinda pissed that I'm not in Dallas for the Liukin rally this weekend. It's kind of a shame that Shawn Johnson seems to be getting more publicity and attention - Liukin won 5 medals, including gold for the all-around! I suppose it's all about personality though - Shawn's got the perkiness going for her, while Liukin seemed more focused (and honestly, a little pissed she didn't win the balance beam).

I went to the Carly Patterson rally back in 2004 and I still remember it pretty well. I wonder if she's play a prominent role in the one for Liukin.

I still think it's pretty crazy that out of the entire world, the past two female Olympic all-around gold medalists went to the same gym and trained together.

While the overall Olympic coverage was very impressive and amazing - to be able to cover that many events on every NBC-affliated channel as well as live streaming events online is no small feat - I think they could have done a lot more to emphasize the athletic prowess (for example, comparing the world record in the 400m to the average human's time) and spent more time portraying China as a country.
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I'm going to the US Open on Sunday with my dad and cousin. I've never been to a professional tennis match so I'm pretty excited. Oddly enough, I've visited 3 of the 4 Grand Slam sites, but not Flushing, NY.

Olympics Update

Well, you can get an update anywhere, but here's my take ;)

I'm glad that we got the 1-2 (Liukin-Johnson) in women's gymnastics - apparently it's the first time in history that taken both gold and silver. Although, I'm really shocked at the judging (Americans would nail perfect routines and the Chinese would literally fall on their asses and yet they both get the same score?!?) and the amount of times the judges needed to get on the phone to figure out some of the scoring. You'd think they'd get more seasoned judges for events like the women's finals all-around.

I was surprised that the Alicia chick was competing again. They interviewed her on NBC and I was also surprised that her voice was so high-pitched, I was expecting it to be deepr. Too bad she didn't medal though, even though this time she stuck her landing. Even worse is that she lost to the German chick who looked like a dude and is in her 30's. I feel bad for the Russian girl who got a 0 on vault because she didn't pay attention to the light. She suffered from Alicia syndrome too and messed up her floor routine right afterwards (although I'm not sure if they ever posted her score officially)..

It's really hard to gauge how good the atheletes are until you can compare it something you've done yourself. They were running the 100m and 400m today, and it's a little clearer. The women ran the 400m in less than a minute. That's one lap at the elementary school track. I'm pretty sure it took me about 2-2.5 minutes if I was running my fastest.

What's left in the Olympics? Swimming's done, as is gymnastics for the most part, yet we still have a week to go!

Bollywood show, Olympics

We went to a Bollywood show this past weekend in Atlantic City. I've been to Indian shows in the past, and I'll say I was pleasantly surprised that the audience actually behaved themselves for the most part.

The whole coordination with everyone was kind of ridiculous though. We met my sister there about 2-3 hours before the show started and met the other family at the venue like 5 minutes before it started -- it's a good thing the show started late - otherwise we would've been pissed since we had their tickets and had to go outside to get them.

The show itself was actually pretty good. 4 of the biggest names in Bollywood sang and danced to their most famous songs. They also mixed it up with Amitabh Bachchan delivering some dialogue from his movies. I'll admit that the whole Bachchan adoration was completely lost on me (and there was a LOT of it during the show), but I guess I didn't grow up watching his movies. I'm assuming he's something like Elvis or the Beatles here.
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Wow, the US women's gymnastics team really screwed that up. That Alicia chick will forever be known as the one who lost it for her team. One fall is acceptable, but another one on the floor exercise? You're in the fucking Olympics! Get it together!

Too bad she's not even competing for an individual all-around so she has no chance to redeem herself. I'm sure she's won all sorts of medals in previous competitions, but for millions of people who only watch the Olympics, she'll be the reminder of why we won silver instead of gold. Apparently, Nastia Liukin goes to the same gym as Carly Patterson (the Gold winner of the all-around in Athens). Either her or Shawn Johnson (who has a really nice ass by the way) better win the all-around gold tomorrow.

Phelps is ridiculous. Is there seriously no one else in the world who can compete with him? I also don't get how there's so many different events within swimming that an individual can enter. Do all individual sports have that many? It doesn't seem like it, which makes the whole "most Olympic gold medals" incredibly unfair. Kobe's pretty good too, but he can only get one medal per Olympics...

Video and Photos on the Internet??

Here are some pics from the coolest concert ever (stolen from the friend of the violist because I'm too lazy to post mine on Picasa):

Concert Pics

Ugh, I was trying to make it all fancy, but apparently you can only embed your own photos, so a link will have to do...

But here's a really cool video with Paris Hilton!

Groupie for a day

Yesterday was the most fun I've had since I moved up here, and I have my friend in Delaware to thank for all of it.

We started out going to a Nationals game. I was a little worried at first since the forecast called for 100 degrees and it was outdoors, but our seats were in the shade so it was pretty comfortable. Oh, but they were also right behind the foul pole (or whatever it's called), so we decided to try and find better seats. The Nationals are the worst team in the MLB so it was only about half-full (like that optimism? ;) ) so we were able to get a much better view on the opposite side of the stadium.

Surprisingly, the Nationals actually won and they're now on a 3-game winning streak! Overall, it was pretty fun even though I didn't know anything about either team and there were only 3 innings where a team scored. I found it sorta interesting that the game length isn't determined beforehand. The Nationals were already in the lead, so the game ended after the top of the 9th.

After the game was the main event - the Flobots concert. My friend's girlfriend knew the only female member of the band and we were able to get VIP treatment throughout the show. I always thought that the band would be super-busy beforehand preparing, etc. but it turns out they mostly have downtime before they go on. The only times the band chick didn't hang out with us was when she performed! We got to hang out in the green room with some members of the band and a bunch of other groupies, and then got first-class viewing room on the balcony overlooking the stage (we even made a picture on an online review of the show - I'm the third guy from the left in the plaid shirt and beer bottle).

I didn't know too much about the band before the show, but they were really really good. I was also surprised about their whole political call-to-action message - particularly because all the band members we met before the show seemed pretty low-key. I really hope they continue to do well and we'll see more of them soon. I read somewhere that they're planning a "big surprise" during the DNC in Colorado later this month.

Yup, definitely best day ever since I moved up here.

TV

Wow, I can't believe Chelsie was voted off of SYTYCD today. Even though I'm a fan of Courtney, I thought she didn't do as well as Chelsie last night.

Unfortunately, I think that the Asian chick is going to win it all, especially since I've heard the judges pick the ultimate winner. It's not that I don't like her because she's Asian. It's that I don't like her because she's unattractive.

It sucks that the tour is coming to Baltimore on a Monday.
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Since the greatest show ever (aka Veronica Mars) has gone off the air and I already have all the DVDs, I needed a new show to watch and preferably one on DVD. Well, I remembered the short-lived but excellent dramedy called Wonderfalls that aired on Fox a few years ago and decided to buy it on amazon.

I have to admit I'm a little disappointed because I remember the show being a lot funnier (and the main chick being a lot hotter). It's kind of eerie to see the similarities between Wonderfalls and Veronica Mars though - both have a teenage girl as their main characters and very quick witty dialogue. And it's even stranger that I'm drawn to shows like this.

The show's about an Ivy League graduate who works in a Niagara Falls gift shop, and through some strange event, inanimate objects start telling her to do (usually bad, dangerous, and sometimes illegal/unethical) things.

What makes the show so creative and inventive is how the simple commands can be interpreted to mean different things. Well, that and the fact that her family is insane and she's usually reluctant to help anyone, ever.

Management Styles

It's been interesting to see the different styles of management I've experienced since I started working.

I was sort of thrown into a project at my first job and didn't really have a manager for the first few few months. After I was assigned to a real team though, I found out that the guy sitting in the cubicle next to me (and who started a few weeks after I did) was going to be my new manager. I also found out that he had never really been a project lead before. Needless to say, I was skeptical of his leadership abilities and unfortunately that didn't change much over time. He knew his technologies pretty well but I think that clouded his judgment a lot and also closed his mind to suggestions by others.

My second manager was actually another programmer on the previous team. When the first company split into a commercial offshoot, he was promoted to be a project lead. We worked together pretty closely before (bonded more by our dislike of the management style of the former lead than perhaps anything else), and so the new structure worked out pretty well. I can see how in some situations there could be a lot of bitterness concerning the promotion since we both worked at the company for essentially the same amount of time, but that wasn't the case at all. I felt the team ran a lot smoother since he knew both our strengths and weaknesses and ideas were more free-flowing than before.

At my current company, the management structure is actually pretty similar to my co-op at IBM back in college. I have a manager and then a project lead. My main interactions with my manager have been personnel-related (timesheets, performance evaluations, etc.), and all of my tasks have been assigned by the project lead. Although I haven't worked with my manager much, everyone has said that he's an incredibly hard worker and very open to the opinions of others. I've seen the same thing in my project lead.

People become managers for different reasons and take different paths to get there. However, from my own experiences, the most effective teams have leaders who are willing to listen to everyone's opinion and want to consider all options before moving forward. The most effective leaders are those that set an example by working hard themselves and offering their own innovative opinions.

My new social life

Back in Dallas, my friend circle consisted mostly of people who did the same thing I did: sitting in front of a computer for 8+ hours a day. Sadly, our conversations at parties oftentimes turned to the latest technologies and problems with certain programming languages (after we got tired of gossiping about people who weren't at the party ;) ).

Well, here in DC, my new social life has consisted of going to random parties where I've met the host maybe once or twice and didn't know anyone else. Sure, it's sort of awkward at first, but a little bit of alcohol, food, and some fun party games and it's like you've known the people forever.

The random party on Friday was hosted by my sister's good friends and they had a Christmas in July theme. I was a little hesitant to go at first since it seemed like a close knit group and was far away, but I had a great time and everyone was really friendly. There was even a girl there who went to UT!

We also went to drop my sister off in NYC this weekend. Her project in Belgium didn't get an extension so she'll be working on a project in NY again. I visited my high school friend in NYC and it was pretty interesting to hear all his med school horror stories. If I had known that there were so many attractive girls in med school, I may have switched majors ;) although it sounds like their shifts are ridiculous (his roommate had just finished a 27-hour shift with only one 40-minute break!).

The Holocaust isn't funny?

Bert: Hey, Ernie, uh, you know that you have a banana in your ear?
Ernie: (Loudly) What was that, Bert?
Bert: I said, you have a banana in your ear, Ernie.
Ernie: (Very loud) Whaddya say, Bert?
Bert: (Yelling) WILL YOU JUST TAKE THAT BANANA OUTTA YOUR EAR!
Ernie: (Yelling back) I’M SORRY, BERT, BUT YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK A LITTLE LOUDER!
I CAN’T HEAR YOU! I HAVE A BANANA IN MY EAR!

As I mentioned in my last post, my friend from Delaware came to visit this weekend and it was a lot of fun.

We saw two shows from the Capital Fringe Festival: one was a stand-up comic who related his life stories as episodes from a soap opera, and the second was labeled a comedy on the website, but turned out to be incredibly serious and depressing.

I suppose the synopsis for the second show didn't really sound humorous (the German chancellor invites 6 million Jews back to Germany and examining the repercussions of his decision), but we still thought there was a chance. That idea quickly dissolved about 15 minutes into the show when 2 characters had already died and there were no jokes.

The comic was pretty funny though, so 1 for 2 isn't bad.

In between shows, we met up with my (only) friend in DC and some of her friends at the Jim Henson exhibit at the Smithsonian. I had no idea he had created so many other shows and characters besides Sesame Street and The Muppets. They had Kermit and Bert & Ernie on display as well as some other characters - but no sign of Elmo, Grover or Miss Piggy.

Fun fact: Kermit only ended up being green because the first one was made of Jim's mother's coat.
Fun fact #2: Oscar the Grouch was originally drawn purple, and he was orange in his first season, before taking on his familiar green color.

Eye Doctor

Is it just me or are female doctors getting a lot hotter?

I went to get my eyes checked today for 2 main reasons. 1) I haven't gotten new eyeglasses in a really, really long time - close to 8 years. 2) It was free - my vision insurance covers eye exams, lenses, and a good amount of the cost of frames, so why not?

First the nurse (or the optometry equivalent of a nurse) ran a bunch of visual tests. The worst was when she put these eye drops and then ran this light DIRECTLY into my eye, mumbling something about how I wouldn't feel a thing. Well, I might not feel it, but I'm not about to let some strange light into my eye. Yeah, I think that test took longer than it should. Oh, and then she put some more eye drops before she left, saying that they would leave my pupils dilated. I wasn't really sure what that meant, but she managed to say that I wouldn't be able to see anything at a close distance for 3-4 hours. Um, but can I go back to work on a computer right after this? Of course, she said yes, but the answer was really no.. I had to push my laptop way back on my desk to even vaguely make out what was on the screen.

Then the (hot, blonde) doctor came in and ran pretty much the same tests as the nurse. It always amuses me that nurses spend more time and run more tests than doctors, and yet they get paid way less and get less respect.

It turns out I've developed a slight astigmatism, just like my sister and mom. It was weird finding out that my left eye is weaker than my right eye. I always have both eyes open. It's not like I drive or work with my left eye closed or something.. I wonder how that happened.

My friend from Delaware is visiting this weekend and my sister is coming back to the US (for good this time!) on Monday. We need to help her move to NYC sometime in the next couple of weekends, my Delawarean friend is coming back to DC in a few weeks, and my family bought tickets for this cheesy Bollywood program in Atlantic City at the beginning of August. For knowing so few people in the area, we somehow have a pretty busy schedule!

Racism

The cover of the recent New Yorker illuminates and exposes the racial undertones of this election. What's probably most interesting about the whole thing is that it's not even Obama's political opponents who were responsible. For some reason, the self-righteous people at the New Yorker thought that the cover was a brilliant satire of the common misconceptions leveled against the Obamas.

Unfortunately, since the cover has no words and only contains these striking images, many uninformed and uneducated people will walk by the magazine in their local grocery store and will form misguided opinions about them.

The most common misconception about Obama is that he's Muslim. While most people would disagree with this especially after the whole issue with the reverend showed that he was a devout member of his church, there's some people (my mom and her elders included) that believe you inherit the religion of your father.

At first, I thought it was only my mother who held these beliefs. But later I found out that other people, like her aunt and uncle and some of their friends, expressed the same feelings. I suppose it has a lot to do with how they were brought up, but I still think it's unfortunate that in their view, one can never truly escape their roots.

$, family

My mom watches this show on the Indian channel, and she's become a big fan of the doctor who practices/prescribes ayurvedic treatments. Apparently, he tours the US every year and came to our town this week. We had to wait for 2 hours in a stuffy hotel room (even though we had an appointment!) and he basically felt my pulse for 2 seconds and then prescribed a bunch of herbal remedies without really asking any questions. I felt ripped off. It was the biggest waste of $100 since I saw Mystere in Las Vegas a few years ago.

My sister's been visiting this week from Belgium. She has a (very well-deserved) break between projects and it happened to fall on the 4th of July too so she decided to come here. It's been really nice having her here and everyone seems to be in a much better mood when she's around.

My family is terrible at making decisions. Person A will place the responsibility on Person B, and if Person B has a good idea, Person A will invariably be upset about the idea. We didn't have a plan for the evening until about 5pm. There's supposedly a great fireworks display at the lake near our home, so we waited with the other throngs of people at the corner. For some reason, the 50 or so other people had never seen the display before either, because the fireworks were way too low and there were huge trees blocking our view.

Happy 4th!

Gender Gap

From Brain Rules:

When girl best friends communicate with each other, they lean in, maintain eye contact, and do a lot of talking. They use their sophisticated verbal talents to cement their relationships. Boys never do this. They rarely face each other directly, preferring either parallel or oblique angels. They make little eye contact, their gaze always casting about the room. They do not use verbal information to to cement their relationships. Instead, commotion seems to be the central currency of a little boy's social economy. Doing things physically together is the glue that holds their relationships intact.

I found that to be pretty interesting, and mostly true, based on my own interactions and those I've observed between females in general.

Miss me?

We're having company this weekend. My mom's friend's family from India is visiting them, and they're staying with us on Friday and Saturday nights. So, it'll be 10 people sleeping in the house for 2 nights. Luckily, I don't think I'll have to share the basement.

They should create some sort of email protocol to exclude addresses on listservs. For example, if you have a list where everyone communicates regularly, but have specific messages that only certain people are interested in, it would be really useful to exclude other people off that email. I don't know if that made any sense, but it's a really good idea ;)

A while back, they asked us if we wanted to get Macs at work. They said it was highly unlikely we would get them even if we requested it since they had to show a substantial business justification due to the higher expense. Well, I requested one and it looks like it's a done deal! We should be getting them sometime next week. I use a Mac at home now, but to be honest, I still don't know how to do a lot of things on it. I've always been a Mac wannabe, and really didn't think we'd actually get Macs... I guess I'll have to learn how to be productive on it quickly!

There's a ridiculous amount of useful information that could be analyzed on someone's Facebook page. In addition to the info users choose to enter, there's also a lot of data from photos, wall postings, and friend circles. Assuming you use profiles that are updated on a fairly regular basis, it's possible to draw a fairly accurate portrait of a person just through this info.

Have you seen the new Daylife widget on the side? I know I mentioned the site before when it first launched, but my cousin had his picture and an article in BusinessWeek recently and the site has improved a LOT since it first went live. Here's a link to his (mostly work-related) blog.

Dallas

Get closer to your home base, whatever that means to you. It could be family, your place of birth or the home office, but you should find that you feel more confident and relaxed there.

That was my horoscope for Friday, and it couldn't have been more accurate. I returned to Dallas this weekend for my friend's wedding. It was great to see everyone and I think it's fair to say that I consider the city my "home base." Since I knew very few people when I first moved there, I had to create my own friend circle. Even though I met most of them through work, everyone has moved on to other companies yet still keeps in touch. Coincidentally, the couple that was getting married met through this very friend circle.

I was supposed to fly in on Friday night, and had even organized a little homecoming party (I'm a little vain and self-centered, so what?) for my arrival. But since the airline industry sucks, and especially American Airlines, my flight got canceled and I wasn't able to get there until 9am the next morning!

Needless to say, the entire weekend was pretty busy. I had lunch with some friends on Saturday who weren't invited to the wedding and then had about an hour to kill before all the groomsmen had to be at the venue to get dressed. It was a pretty short ceremony (which was good since being a groomsman and having to stand still in uncomfortable shoes for a long period of time is not fun), and we actually spent more time taking pictures afterwards.

I have to admit I got a little reflective during the ceremony since I (like most of the people in the room) saw their relationship from the beginning. It did make me question to some extent whether I should have done more during that same time period. I certainly don't want to follow their path (divorce, dating, child, and marriage in 1.5 years is a bit fast), but I also don't think I've grown/achieved as much as I could have.

It was supposed to be a dry reception, but my friends are creative and crafty (and huge lushes) and managed to sneak liquor in. Since it started at 6pm, the entire thing including ceremony and reception was finished by 10pm. We continued the partying at my friend's place afterwards and I didn't get to bed until 3am.

We played Truth or Dare (actually our modified version, Truth or Truth), and this time it got a little rough and very personal -- we had played it at a previous party but it was more light-hearted and fun (e.g. if you were gay, which co-worker would you sleep with). I don't think we should play that game ever again. Let's just leave it at that. There's probably some truths that are better left unknown.

It was a little sad leaving this time, since I honestly don't know when I"ll be back or if I'll see some of them again.

Race

I neglected to mention in my last post that I was the only Indian at the party. Not a huge surprise really, most of the time I went anywhere in Dallas, I was the only Indian. This was a little different though, since there was only one white person and everyone else was black. I had never really hung out with black people before (my best friend in Dallas notwithstanding), but everyone was pretty friendly and cool to hang out with.

Obama finally clinched the Democratic nomination. It's still hard to believe, from lots of different angles.
- He had little political experience.
- He didn't even have a brand-name (Bush didn't really have political experience either, but at least he had a name). In fact, his name could very easily have worked against him - and might still in the general election.
- He was running against the entire Democratic establishment - everyone had written him off before he even started.
- By not taking money from lobbyists, he had to work even harder to raise money.
It's also interesting that a black person got the nomination before a woman, when the former was given the right to vote in 1965 while the latter was granted it in the 1920's.

It should be a very interesting election. The party's just getting started.

Weekend Fun

The last two weekends were pretty fun, and I'm really looking forward to this one.

I already wrote about Atlantic City, so I'll just recap last weekend.

I went to my first real party on Saturday! My friend in Dallas has a college friend who lives in the DC area and she was nice enough to invite me to her housewarming party. I was a little worried at first, since I wouldn't know anyone else there, but I later found out that most people didn't know each other either.

After everyone was feeling loose after some food and drinks, we played Taboo and Mafia. I had never played Taboo before, and my guess is that our Mafia game was more unruly that normal.

All in all, it was a pretty fun party and it was interesting to meet some people who work in different fields (most of them were lawyers or teachers).

Atlantic City

Well, that was pretty fun.

I spent the majority of Memorial Day weekend in AC with my friend from Delaware and his girlfriend. I went there a few years ago in the dead of winter, but was with my family so the Boardwalk wasn't open and no one wanted to gamble. Needless to say, the city isn't much fun without those two things.

It's interesting to see how the entire dynamic of a trip can change when a female is present. And not just any female, but a girlfriend. I'm glad she came though, because my friend could easily have lost more money if she wasn't there to stop him from gambling. I've been accused (unfairly, I think) of egging people on and convincing them to go further than they want.

So yeah, he didn't do so well. He won in one game called Sic Bo, which is basically betting on the rolls of dice - no, it's not craps, because it's only based on one roll. I found it amusing how many times he got carded. He's 25, but looks a lot younger, and everyone carded him - at blackjack, poker, even Sic Bo! Who the fuck even plays Sic Bo? I think even if he was younger than 21 they should have let him play that game.

I, on the other hand, did the best I've ever done in a casino! I made $300 dollars playing poker. I was afraid at first to play NL since I thought people would bet ridiculous amounts and I wouldn't be able to call, but I got some pretty good cards and was able to do fairly well.

My favorite hand was when I flopped a full house, and then turned quads! The poor Southern girl next to me also had a full house, so she lost a good amount of money to me :(

The scariest moment was when a guy went all-in for $90 and I only had trips. I guess calling ended up being a good play because he had trips too, just a lower kicker.

Yeah, so if you ever go to a casino, and have a little patience, I suggest you play poker. It's definitely your best bet. Oh, and sorry if you didn't understand those two previous paragraphs - I'm just excited about my hands and actually remember what I had for the first time.

Work Musings

I attended a training session at work today and my suspicions about the company were confirmed: most of the people are in "Gen-X" - born between 1963-1980.

10% (only 4 people) were in "Gen-Y" - me, another Indian guy, a knocked-up Hispanic woman, and a hot brunette who looks like she just graduated college.

The sad part was when the instructor told everyone if they didn't know a word, they could always go to urbandictionary.com. More than half the people in the room actually wrote it down! Really? People hadn't heard of the site? Yikes.
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I'm a big fan of all the free food at the company - free breakfasts on pay days, and free lunches for special occasions, like the monthly CEO talks or during training sessions. It comes out to free food at least 4 or 5 times a month. And that doesn't even count pizza during lunch meetings.
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Two managers in my group admitted to receiving more than 100 daily emails that they needed to personally respond to - ranging from 6am to 11pm at night.

My project lead was the only person in the training session who claimed to work more than 60 hours a week.

A Rose

- My friend's cell phone address book was filled with only people's first names, except for cases where there were two people with the same name. And for some reason, she had my full name too. I have no idea why and she just smiled when I asked her.

- My new project manager at work has something similar for his IM contact list. Mostly just first names, but then for me, it's full name.

- I work with a bunch of Indians, and they spell/say my name "Sumit." Really? Even when you're writing an email and it's spelled right in front of you? It's very annoying but I don't want to be an asshole and tell them. Not yet, anyway.

Birthday Woes

My birthday sucked this year.

Last year, 20+ people celebrated with me. This year, more than half of them probably didn't even remember that it was my birthday (or just forgot about me entirely).

Facebook wall posts on your birthday seem to be the new measuring stick of popularity. Even if you never talk to most of your Facebook friends, everyone seems to come out of the woodwork to wish you a happy birthday. Well, I noticed that although I got some wall posts (thanks everyone who posted!), no white people. Curious.

I also only got one real gift this year (but it was an awesome one!). Sure, I didn't get too many the last couple of years, but at least I had the company of a lot of my close friends so I didn't really notice.

Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate that my sister and my friend in Delaware both went out of their way to make the day special. I just wish that certain other people would have remembered too.

Try and keep up

The movers finally came on Friday. The only thing I really missed was my clothes.. I had 3 suitcases and 2.5 boxes full of them (is that too many for a guy?).

Oh, and of course, the evil eye. I put it above my bed tonight so things will be good now.
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My birthday will be a lot more chill (aka not as fun) this year compared to the last few years. Those were probably my favorite nights in Dallas since it was all about me and my friends tried their hardest to come out even if they didn't come out normally. My friend in Delaware is driving down on Friday night though so it'll still be memorable.

My other friend in Dallas came up last weekend to celebrate his birthday so now I know at least a couple fun areas in DC. It didn't come easily though. There's one corner where there's like 4 or 5 clubs literally next door to each other (and where I randomly saw the one family friend I know in the area) and then another club on the other side of town. So we tried to find the corner again from the crosstown bar and somehow ended up on the gayest block in the gay neighborhood. After getting a drink at the one bar where the male waitstaff didn't grope us, we asked around and made it to an area that has a 6th Street vibe to it. Unfortunately, it was already 3am and everything was closing, but I'm definitely going back there.
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The slutty blonde on American Idol was voted off today (I missed the episode partly because of the Democratic debate and partly because I can't stand Mariah Carey). I think her attitude did her in. She was ready to be knocked off on every show. I liked Simon's comment in an earlier episode that she was like musical wallpaper - it's there, you just don't really notice it.

The Australian tattooed hottie is really lucky she survived. Her performance last night was terrible. And why was she so happy after her song? She couldn't stop smiling. It was kinda eerie.

Awkward

I attended a hip-hop dance class this past week. It was incredibly awkward, as I expected. But not really in the way I expected. There were about 10 other students - all female and all probably college sorority girls. Yeah, I was the only guy until another black dude showed up about 10 minutes later.

Damn, hip-hop dancing is hard! They made it look so easy on America's Best Dance Crew. I only paid for that one class, so I'm under no obligation to continue. But I think I'll go back, because it's still fun and great exercise even though I suck. Oh, and the eye candy's not bad either ;).

As for the FBI interview, that was incredibly awkward as well. I was expecting it to be about 50 people in a small room taking a test. Well, there were about 400 people and most of them dressed much better than me - and I was wearing a dress shirt and slacks! It was an excruciatingly long 5 hours of testing with only one break in between. And they discouraged getting food because we might not be back in time!

I'd like to talk more about the tests themselves, but since the FBI could be reading this and I signed an NDA stating I wouldn't talk about it, all I'll say is that the questions were pretty interesting and could be interpreted in two ways and it's hard to say which way the FBI wants you to interpret them. The agent also said that half the people fail the first round. I'd say my odds are pretty good.

Mindless reflections

It's been 3 weeks now and I still don't feel like I've moved.

A large part of the reason is because the fucking movers still haven't come here with my stuff. I'm pretty sure they've stolen it. Fuckers. I also don't know anyone around here - a fact that keeps getting brought up by my parents, my co-workers, everyone. Thanks for the reminder!

I have a job interview with the FBI tomorrow. I applied for a Special Agent position back when I sent my resume to anyone who seemed remotely interested and they contacted me last week. Although I've rejected most interview requests (and have little to no interest in this one), I decided it'd be fun to go just to see what kinds of questions they ask.

I don't believe in God. I believe in fate, luck and karma (and not necessarily in that order). It just makes more sense.

I had a pretty good experience in Dallas and I learned a lot about myself while living there. In my Austin days, no one considered me a leader and I wasn't always willing to try new things. Now, I have a lot more confidence and I'm ready to take more chances.

New Job

I started my new job on Monday.

It's been a stressful last month or so, not knowing if I'd be able to find a job here in the DC area. But the timing worked out perfectly and my dad and I started driving from Dallas on Friday night and arrived at home on Sunday afternoon.

As often happens in my life, a million things could have gone wrong on the trip but none of them did.

Now I know what the difference is between working at a small company and a big company (or at least the difference between a shitty small company and a good, stable big company). People are much more focused on their jobs, and managers are much more focused on understanding the big picture rather than micromanaging.

It's also kind of ridiculous that all most engineers need to do their jobs is a cell phone and laptop and they're good to go.

What I'm not used to:
- No one checking to see if I'm in my seat at a certain time
- Not really having a seat - I was assigned a cubicle, but since most of the people I'll be working with for the next couple weeks are in a different building, I was told that I could move to a temporary cubicle - 2 cubes, what?
- Free coffee, which I need to take advantage of ASAP
- Off-work conversation focused on kids - um, yeah I have nothing to add to this conversation, but did you see that waitress, she was hot! no, nothing? ok, I'll be quiet now, tell me more about how your 3-year-old spit up on you yesterday...
- Co-workers busting out the Hindi randomly in meetings

The Spitzer Debacle

I didn't really care much about Eliot Spitzer soliciting prostitutes. But a couple of interesting things happened that piqued my interest.

First of all, I had no idea that he was the governor of New York. His name sounds like something out of a mobster movie and I thought he was some no-name senator or congressman from some Midwestern state.

Secondly, most hookers are ugly (or so I've heard). But then, I saw pictures of her, and damn. She's not bad. Maybe not worth $4,000/hour, but at least a thousand. Jay Leno joked last night that reporters were able to find her name, MySpace page, and pictures in a day and a half, but it's been 7 years and we still have no idea where Bin Laden is hiding.

So what happens to the girl? He's under prosecution and had to quit his job, but she gets major exposure and will probably be signed to a record deal? That's America for ya.

Going-Away Party

I hosted my own going-away party on Saturday night. It's only the second apartment party I've had, and this one was decidedly tamer than the last (case in point: I was awake when the last guest left!).

Apparently it was just a bad weekend for a lot of people and most of the people that came to my last party couldn't come this time. It's cool though - over the last few days, I've seen everyone I wanted to see (except for that one girl, but who's keeping track?).

It was still a fun party, just a completely different vibe. We did run out of beer which sucked. Normally, everyone brings some and we have a ton leftover. For some reason, only one person brought a 12-pack and that obviously wasn't enough.

Having the party also forced me to clean up my apartment a little and see where everything is in terms of packing. The living room and dining room are pretty much empty now and the major stuff is in the kitchen. I've already sold my TV and nightstand and hopefully, I'll be able to get rid of my desk and entertainment center by Thursday.

Tonight is my only night off. Tomorrow and Wednesday nights are both booked, then my dad comes Thursday evening and Friday it's driving time!
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If you're in Texas, don't forget to vote/caucus tomorrow!

Last Happy Hour

I met my friends for the last happy hour yesterday. Well, my last one anyway. I'm sure they'll still meet up. Although one of my friends said "Why would I ever see you again?" to some others.

It was bittersweet. It felt like a regular happy hour, except for when everyone was leaving and it became apparent that I wouldn't see them again for a very long time, if at all.

I hope to keep in touch with everyone, and several people have already talked about coming up to DC to visit. Plus, my friend is getting married in June and I've been asked to be a groomsman so I'll definitely be back for that.

It was also much longer than normal. We went to a restaurant and then the dueling piano bar and then finally IHOP. I don't know how my working friends made it to work today. I slept until 11.

Oh, and happy hour was that much better knowing that I secured a job in the DC area! More on that later...

Miracles

Miracle #1: I wasn't robbed.
Miracle #2: My car started without any troubles.

My parents made me worry unnecessarily about both of the above.

It was great to see everyone again (and, honestly, to drink again ;)). My friends are all in weird places with their job situations too. One just started a new job on Monday and his girlfriend/mother of his child may interview for another friend's current job (his contract is up in April).

I don't have any other firm plans for the next two weeks but there are definitely people I would like to see before I leave for good. I'm thinking a happy hour this coming week and maybe a going-away party at my apartment next weekend. But nothing for sure yet.

Obama!

One of the nice things about being unemployed is that you can attend events that would otherwise be impossible.

The Potomac Primaries (Maryland, Virginia, and DC) are tomorrow, so a lot of the candidates and candidates' families have been in and around town campaigning. I went this morning to see Barack Obama speak at the University of Maryland and I can see now why so many young people have gravitated to him.

It was a good day-long ordeal -- driving 20 minutes to the Metro station, riding the Metro for an hour, waiting in line for another hour, and then doing it all again on the way back -- but it was definitely worth it. I've never been to a Hillary Clinton rally (I went to a Bill Clinton rally in Austin in 1992), but I'm guessing that Obama has the ability to get the crowd fired up in a way that she lacks.

Policy-wise, Obama and Hillary are very similar (which makes sense, since they're both from the same party). However, I think Obama appeals to the idealism and excitement that defines the Democratic Party (and the same aspects that Bill Clinton invoked in '92 and '96, and that Gore and Kerry failed to capitalize on in successive election cycles).

Voters tend to support candidates that have attractive and magnetic personalities - not necessarily those that have the best policy ideas and/or experience.

It isn't always the most qualified person who gets the job. It's the person who does the best in the interview.
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OK, enough politics for now. After I attend the Hillary rally, this post will either be completely refuted or deleted ;)

Oh, and it's still weird that my parents come home around 4 now. They never did that when I was growing up.

Interviewing

Do you know the best part of interviewing?

No, it's not learning about exciting new opportunities that will allow you to grow both professionally and personally. And it's not learning about creative and innovative technologies that are changing the world.

It's getting to talk to beautiful women who actually listen to what you say, and who call you instead of the other way around.

It's like this weird parallel universe.

One step closer to my final resting place...

I moved my stuff into the basement today. I was fine up there for the first couple weeks, but then I slowly realized that there was no phone connection or cable connection in the upstairs bedroom.

The basement, oddly enough, has both in the big open room. So that's where I sit now, after a full day of cleaning it out and a lot of errands. The latter of which ended in me buying a TV!

I've been passively looking for a new TV for close to a year, and my dad thought that I may as well have a nice TV in the basement instead of using the ten-year-old 19" one.

After the day of errands, I've further confirmed the following about my parents - 1) my mom would rather spend more time to save some money (whereas the rest of my family would rather spend more money to save some time) and 2) my dad is much more willing to lie in order to get a good price.

In case you're curious, this is the TV I got.

My basement's all set up now. I've got my phone, laptop, TV and bathroom all within 6 feet.

Oh, and on a side note, I would've beaten The Godfather if I had stayed in Dallas. Just saying.

Everday Normal Guy 2

2 weeks

I finished Water for Elephants (great book!) and rented Hot Fuzz (funnier than Shaun of the Dead!) and Smokin ' Aces (not even worth a free rental!).

Redbox is the coolest thing ever - especially when they keep sending free rental codes. I've spent a total of $2 to watch 2 movies, and that's only cause we were snowed in yesterday and couldn't return it on time. I'm thinking of getting another movie today, so that'd be 3 movies for $2. I'm also going to get American Psycho from the library.

My mom watches this Indian soap opera everyday, and I'm kinda getting hooked. It's pretty cheesy, but it's not any worse than say, Gossip Girl (which is a great show). To give you a brief summary, there's a couple that lives together in this house and the sister of the husband is trying to kill him so she can inherit the property. Here's the kicker: the wife is pretending to be pregnant so that killing the husband wouldn't help since the inheritance would go to the child instead of the sister. It's getting intense.

Last weekend was pretty fun. I went to dinner with a family friend and he had some good advice and suggestions about how to proceed. Saturday I met a friend in Baltimore (he lives in Delaware and I'm staying in Virginia, so it was a good midpoint). It was nice to catch up and gossip about old co-workers.

As far as the job search, it's going kinda slowly. I've applied to roughly 20 positions and haven't heard anything.

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Now playing: Kanye West - Good Life
via FoxyTunes

Back in DC!

So after the thing that happened on Friday, I'm now unexpectedly back at my parent's place in the DC area. I don't know how long I'll be here, or where I'll ultimately end up.

The last week hasn't been that bad and I've somehow kept myself busy, but I don't know if this next week will be the same. Luckily, I'll have a car for the first few days so maybe I'll get to know the area a little better.

Everyone else seems to be more optimistic about my future than me, but I think it's a lot easier to see someone else's future as being bright when you are stable yourself.

I wonder if coming up here was such a good idea after all. It's weird not having all of my stuff and depending on my parents for everything. It feels like I'm back in high school. I kinda want to go back home, even though there's no real reason to return.

Even? Really?

According to blogthings, my year was "average":

You Had an Average Year

While you had some setbacks, your year also brought some good things. All in all, things mostly evened out. That's just how life works. Focus on what went well for you - and what you can improve. A new year is a perfect reason to give yourself a fresh start!

How Did Your Year Rate?

I don't know if that's true, but after that thing on Friday, this year will be anything but...

Holidays Recap

The Christmas holidays were pretty fun. A tad hectic, but still fun. We seemed to have people over for dinner almost every night. I don't know where my parents get the energy to entertain that much.

My mom was in an exceptionally good mood and that always makes the holidays go a lot smoother. I got to see my Australian cousins again (who I had met for the first time 4.5 years ago), and they were just as friendly and awesome as I remember them. I wonder if it's because they're in my family, because they're Indian, or because they're Australian. Or maybe it's a mix of all three.

My parents loved the photo album my sister and I made for them (my mom even cried!), but unfortunately my sister couldn't keep any of the DVDs she got (since the DVD players in Europe require a different region encoding).

I didn't ask for much this year, but I got the 2 Wii games I wanted (Godfather: Blackhand Edition and Super Mario Galaxy), food from Belgium, a Simpsons calendar, a pajama set, and some other gifts I can't remember ;)

As my sister wrote in her blog, I think we're one of the few people left in our age group that still get excited about (or even celebrate) Christmas. Oh well.
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"Overall, 2007 kinda sucked." ~ my sister

The year had its highlights, but the negatives handily outweighed the positives.

I don't like my job (it pays less and isn't as exciting/challenging as my previous job). I don't like my apartment (it's smaller and more unsafe - I got robbed in October - than my previous place). My uncle passed away in September. It's always hard when a family member passes away, but this one was especially hard since he had been fighting cancer for so long.

Oh, and the way we celebrated the end of 2007 was pretty fitting for how crappy the year was. We went to a friend's apartment to watch the ball drop since he has a really nice TV. Well, we found out when we got there that his cable went out and he didn't even have network TV! We tried in vain to find live streams from Times Square on the Web, but ended up looking at our watches at midnight to know that 2008 had arrived.

And how did we start 2008? By playing drinking games to old episodes of The Office.

Hopefully, the year gets better...

What?

How did spinach and artichoke dip become a bar appetizer? Those are pretty random ingredients to throw together and make a dip. A bit gourmet for a bar, don't you think?

Why do they only serve eggnog around Nov-Dec? I can't think of another food/beverage that is only available at a specific time. How did eggnog, of all things, gain that status?

This Christmas should be interesting since no one in my family has a specific wishlist (my friends and I don't do the gift thing). Normally there's at least one or two big-ticket items that people ask for (or you can easily guess that they secretly want). Even though I haven't asked for anything, I still want to be blown away. I want to open a gift and get exactly what I want (even though I don't know I want it). Yeah, it's asking a lot, but that's what I want for Christmas - not so much the gift itself, but the idea that there's a perfect gift out there and I had no idea.

Indirection

It's been an interesting couple of days. Just like last week, somehow I'm managed to drink 3 nights in a row...

I saw a free screening for Kite Runner on Thursday and then we went to a hookah bar on Friday (even though the weather was cold and rainy and it probably would have been better to stay home). I just got home from a Christmas party (which was broken up by the cops!) where I got Shaun of the Dead from the White Elephant gift exchange (I've never seen it but my friends refer to it all the time, so hopefully it's funny).
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As for the title of this post, it actually relates to two different things.

First, my sister and I collaborated on a gift for my parents for Christmas. The program that we picked is ridiculously difficult to use. After an order has been placed, it can't be canceled. Also, even though the company has a website, the only way to use the product is to download the application on each computer and then use it locally. There's no way to share files between computers except for explicitly emailing the file back and forth. It's quite possibly the worst design ever for a web application.

Second, I tried to organize a hookah outing for last night. One of my friends didn't want to drive because of the weather, but my other friend lives pretty close so I suggested that he give her a ride. Here's where the indirection comes in: both of them refused to call the other person even though they know each other pretty well and have each other's number! So I ended up arranging everything for both of them.
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In the past, I've never had to deal with friends disliking other friends. Lately, however, that situation has arisen several times. I suppose it's inevitable, but it still puts me in an awkward spot when people tell me flat out that they don't like a certain person and refuse to hang out with them. At least the hatred is mutual.

Pole Dancing on the subway

The song is Erotic City by Prince.

Rock Band, etc.

My friend got the new video game Rock Band this weekend. If you haven't heard of it, it basically allows people who don't have real musical talent to pretend to be in a rock band. The "simulated" instruments are lead guitar, bass guitar, vocalist and drummer.

It may sound kind of lame, but it's actually a pretty fun game. We have 4 people for our fake band (I'm the drummer) but, for some reason, they only sell the game with one guitar. We need to figure out how to get the second guitar since they don't sell it separately.

We played for 4 hours last night. The coolest part of the game is that each band member gets "freestyle" sections where they can play whatever they want. Needless to say, I love banging on the drums whenever those parts come up and have won the most "most energy" awards ;)
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I feel like I've been oscillating between being sober, drunk and hungover since Thursday night. People are always saying I'm a lush/alcoholic (half-jokingly, I think), but I didn't even suggest drinking this weekend. So there.

Belgium Pics

More pics here.

Belgium

We spent Thanksgiving in Belgium this year.

My sister got a project working in Brussels (all expenses paid!), and she arranged flights for my parents and me to come visit her. We were also supposed to go to Italy for a few days, but my sister was still recovering from tonsillitis so we had to cancel that trip.

I was pretty impressed with Belgium. Hearing people talk about the great architecture and the culture is very different from experiencing it yourself. I don't know why Americans think Europeans are stuck up and rude. Most of the people we talked to were more than willing to help us.

We saw a good part of Brussels and then took a day trip to this tourist-y city Brugges. On the last day, my sister had to work so I went by myself to Antwerp. Luckily, the public transportation system is fairly easy (and my sister left great directions) so it was pretty easy to get there.

The best part of Brussels was definitely the food. We tried the chocolate, beer, fries, and waffles. My sister had always talked about great the waffles are, and now I know exactly what she means. They sell waffles on the street like they sell pretzels in New York. Delicious!

Everyone in Belgium seemed to be very stylish. It didn't matter where we went, everyone just seemed to be more fashionable that what I've seen here.

Oh, one of my life goals has changed as a result of this trip. Instead of owning an island, I could easily make do with a castle. I don't know how many are still available/for sale, but a castle would be pretty awesome to live in.

From/To

Chicago-London: I sat next to this nerdy but kinda hot (in a nerdy way) girl. I might have talked to her but I suddenly got hives and was itchy for the next 7 hours (and still had them for a couple days in Brussels). Real attractive.

Brussels-Washington, D.C.: The crazy Asian lady sitting next to me sounded like she was coughing up a lung for the entire 9-hour flight! I hate having an aisle seat since I can never get my head in a position where it's comfortable to sleep and because the fucking carts seem to come by every hour serving drinks or food or something. When we were landing, the attendant screamed "If we need to have an emergency evacuation, leave everything!" Great, I've been sitting on a plane for 9 hours and now I might die.

Vegas, baby

My manager thinks I'm fickle and quirky - two things which I am not.

I just got back from a business trip to Las Vegas. Our company had a booth at G2E and the response was generally positive.

I was kind of dreading the trip since I had heard that there wasn't much time to have fun since we would be in business meetings at night and at the conference during the day. My manager caught pneumonia right before we left though, so we had to cancel most of our evening plans.

That turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Me and the other software engineer played poker for the first 3 nights (we would have played more, but he lost his $200 gambling budget - I won $160 overall).

We went out for a business dinner on the last night to a fancy French restaurant in the Wynn and then to a cocktail party at the House of Blues Foundation Room in Mandalay Bay. They had this awesome light show at dinner set to music. The view from the MB is incredible! Since it's at the southernmost end of the strip, you can see the entire strip from the balcony. They've also set it up so that you can't see straight down, eliminating any feelings of dizziness.

The conference itself was huge - they expected 30,000 people and had 750 exhibitors. Our booth wasn't incredibly busy so I had a chance to walk around every day. Let's see - the highlights included booth babes, Hulk Hogan, some famous poker player nicknamed "Jesus" and tons of slot machines, blackjack tables, and automated table games. Some companies opted to not advertise at all and just offered a "lounge" environment where you could get free drinks (including alcohol) and chill.

All in all, it was a pretty fun business trip. It's nice not having to pay for anything and Las Vegas is one of my favorite cities. It's also great to see the more posh side of the city that I'd never be able to experience on my own budget ;)

Long-ass weekend (one fear gone!)

I feel like everything from Friday night until now has just been one extended day.

I went to a friend's networking event right after work on Friday. I didn't realize there would be games and organized events so I got there late and missed out on most of it. Oh well - I still had the hookup for the free food and drinks. ;)

The bar comped all the drinks for the event so they were way under budget. Everyone who stuck around decided that we needed to make up for the difference by getting more drinks! My friend joined us later to help us drink and the two of us decided to hit up some other spots after everyone else left.

I won't say much more about the night, other than it ended on a high note (and it wasn't at the place with the $10 cover). Oh, and I should NEVER be allowed to use my phone when I've been drinking. I made some stupid phone calls and embarrassing text messages that I'd rather forget.

I got home around 3am and had to meet a group of people in about 8 hours to go to Six Flags. Yikes.

I finally overcame my fear of roller coasters! I was deathly afraid of them before Saturday - I blame my parents who never rode them and never made either me or my sister ride them either.

Maybe it was the fact that there weren't any lines (since my friend's company had the park reserved), or the fact that my friends were very reassuring and not being mean about it, or perhaps the fact that I was forced to stand in line with them for the Batman ride so I didn't have to wait by myself. Whatever it was, I decided to just get on the ride so they would stop harassing me.

Surprisingly, it was a lot of fun and way less scary than it appears when watching from the ground.

We rode almost all of the major roller coasters in the park. My favorite was probably Mr. Freeze (it does the entire ride forward, goes into a vertical, and then does the entire thing backward!) or Shockwave (two back-to-back vertical loops). I also liked the Titan - it has this ridiculous 200+ foot drop at the beginning, but after that it's pretty fun.

I still get really scared on dips, scream like a little girl and can't raise my arms, but at least I'll ride roller coasters now. One step at a time.

Geez, this post is long (and probably incredibly boring since I've left out the most interesting parts ;). I'll just finish by saying I won $14 (140%) at the post-Six Flags poker game. A tout a l'heure!

Halloween Fun!

I haven't done anything for Halloween in like 10 years....

.. until this year!

We went all out - from pumpkin carving and black vodka to dressing up in costumes.

Good times. I've been told that I need to work on my pimp slap though ;)



I'm not sure how obvious it is, but our group tried to do a 70s theme.

As for tonight, the original plan was to visit a haunted house, but no one wanted to go, so we'll see what we end up doing.

Recovered!

I got my stuff back!

The detective called this morning (at the ungodly time of 7:45am) and told me that they recovered the laptop and I needed to come to claim it. So I went down to the station expecting to only get my computer (the one that this entry is being typed on) back.

But no! They recovered everything - the laptop, the Wii, the 12 games, and my camera. I originally told them that it was only 8-10 games and the detective at the station was a bit skeptical that all the games were mine.

I also didn't report my camera missing because I never checked to see if it was in my apartment. I was a little surprised to see it at the station and was even more nervous as to whether they'd let me take it since I didn't report it and didn't have any proof that it was mine. Luckily, there were still some pictures on the camera - with me in them - and my story checked out.
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I'm not entirely clear on how they apprehended the theives (that word reminds me of pirates), but the officer said that several apartments had been hit on Monday. They found everything in a motel room and arrested the men who had stolen the stuff.

The amount of stuff that was stolen was ridiculous - 6-7 laptops, jewelry, cash, Wii, portable DVD player, Nintendo DS, ipod chargers, etc.

I'm just glad that I have my stuff back, and that the guys are behind bars.

Oh, and thanks to everyone for their advice and concern!

Robbed!

I came home after work yesterday and noticed that my door was unlocked. Well, that's weird. I KNOW I locked my door.

After I got in, I saw that my laptop - a month-old MacBook - was missing along with the AC adapter. I turned towards the TV and saw that my less-than-3-weeks-old Wii was also gone. Inside my entertainment center, all my PS2 games were also gone (but, curiously my Arrested Development DVDs were still there). Nothing else in the apartment was touched. I don't think the culprit(s) even left the living room.

So, I was robbed. I honestly things like this happened to people like me. I've been thinking about it and there's really nothing I could have done to prevent it. Someone had a key, entered the apartment, took exactly what they wanted (they also stole my only Wii game, the Wiimote, and the TV sensor), and left.

American Express said they'd refund up to $1K with their consumer protection plan, so I'll probably get another laptop - maybe even upgrade to MacBookPro. I'm not sure about the Wii just yet. It was pretty hard to find in the first place, but it was pretty fun once I got into it.

The lady above me - a cute, single black girl about my age - also got robbed yesterday. She dropped by earlier and she has the same opinion as me - that someone from the complex is involved. In her case, they also took her laptop but had to go into her bedroom to get it. We've both been here for less than 3 months, don't have renter's insurance and are upset about the parking situation. She talked to the apartment people and they weren't very helpful.

Their official line is that someone used a 'bump key,' but the cops ruled out that possibility. I'm not sure if we'll get compensated for our losses, but I do know that neither of us plans to renew our leases and we'll never feel safe living here.
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My favorite part of this whole episode has been people's reactions. I use the Gmail status pretty obsessively during the day - mostly because I get bored at work, but also just to see who reads/responds to it. Usually, they're song lyrics or links to random celeb stories.

Today, I had the message "I was robbed!" and was surprised that no one responded! Finally, when people did message me, instead of immediately showing/faking sympathy/concern, they asked "Were you actually robbed?", "Really?", "Did you really get robbed?"

I suppose it's a crying wolf situation. When something serious finally happens to me, everyone just assumes it's another one of my crazy superficial messages. Fair enough.

Surface-level?

I went on a non-double date with a couple of girls and another guy. What's a non-double date, you ask. Well, what else would you call a group of 2 guys and 2 girls? I guess you could call it a group of friends, but I prefer my term.

Anyway, I thought it was going to be a chill night, but it ended up being a little crazy. We started out with a couple drinks at happy hour, then went to a comedy show (where we had a couple more), and then ended the night at one of my favorite places, Pete's Dueling Piano Bar.

The comedy show was an incredible deal - $5 for four comedians. Ironically, the headliner (Pablo Francisco) was the worst of the 4. One of the other openers also seemed to bomb on every one of his jokes. Apparently, the audience didn't watch the news or follow politics and that was his entire shtick.

All in all, a pretty fun night but I drank (and spent) too much and was feeling sick/drunk this morning and even into the afternoon. I wish we had gone on a non-weeknight.
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My friend said that my blog was "surface-level Sumeet" and that I don't reveal that much on here. That's probably true, but as more and more people read the blog, it gets harder to be honest - especially when you want to write about certain people that you know read it.

I almost want to start another blog that no one knows about. Then again, what would be the point if no one would read it? It's a bit of a dilemma.

Weekend

Following the suggestion of pretty much every Wii owner, I decided to buy Zelda. I haven't played a structured "adventure" game like that in ages (I normally play games like GTA or sports games). It's actually pretty fun though and the graphics are pretty amazing for the Wii. The interactive tools like the fishing rod and sword are really fun to use with the Wii-mote (is that what it's called?). It's funny that whenever someone talks to Link in the game, he never responds! Is he mute or something?

I find it amusing that people reserve large blocks of time to beat games. I don't think I could play a game for that many hours straight. I don't have the attention span.

I went to a housewarming party last night at a former co-worker's place. It's kinda odd that I'm still good friends with a lot of former co-workers (considering I left 6+ months ago) but have yet to hang out with any of my current co-workers outside of work. It's even odder that there was only one person at the party who works there still, but everyone worked there at the beginning of the year. I guess this is when real networking starts ;).

I found out that about half of my friends are looking for another job right now. Yikes.

free happy hour?

I just realized I didn't spend any money at last night's happy hour.  I drank water and enjoyed two free cheese quesadillas but didn't get anything alcoholic or order food off the menu.

 

We also had 3 new people: a month-old baby, a roommate of the mother of the baby, and a cousin of a former co-worker.

 

'Twas an interesting happy hour to say the least.

Wii!

I finally bought a Wii yesterday. I went to Best Buy to get a USB cable for my printer and there was a big sign out front: "We've got Wiis!"

Sure enough, there were still around 20 Wii boxes waiting to be bought. It only took 9 months for it to be readily available in stores...

I think I'll get the Godfather game since I've heard it's very realistic and sounds pretty fun.

I'm not sure what else to get though.

Any suggestions?

Life is unfair

My uncle passed away this morning. He had been fighting cancer for the past two years and finally could not hang on any longer. The saddest part about it is that everyone was expecting it to happen. Although that doesn't make it any easier to swallow.

He was a great person - always smiling and cracking jokes. He had nothing but love for everyone. He was also a very accomplished person, attending the most prestigious university in India and holding a prominent position at the World Bank in DC.

It was very frustrating to see someone who had always been good to everyone else around him suffer like he did.

Tace Bell girl

I went to Taco Bell for dinner and this girl ordered food to go.

She was a pretty hot blonde with a t-shirt that had 'Let's Get Plastered!' on the back so I figured she was a college student and had to be somewhere.

Much to my surprise, she was sitting on the curb outside eating when I left! Who does that? Who gets food "to go" just to sit right outside the restaurant?

Ironic

Last night was supposed to be Britney's big comeback performance at the VMAs.

Well, she bombed it. Terribly.

The ironic thing is that it's still the most talked-about moment of last night. Sure, there were great performances, but no one's talking about them. And isn't that the whole point of a comeback performance, to steal the show one way or another? Sweet, sweet irony.
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I've noticed that if I'm given an interesting task, I can get it done quickly and efficiently. If I'm given something that I don't really care about or don't see the reason for it, I tend to take a lot longer on it. My previous (and current) bosses have noticed it too.

new computer

I bought a MacBook yesterday.

My PC is about 5 years old (my parents got it for me when I was a sophomore in college), and it's been getting really slow lately.

I refused to get a computer with Vista, since I've heard nothing but bad things. Since most of the new PC's come with Vista pre-installed, my only option was to get a Mac.

I haven't used a Mac regularly since I was in elementary school so I was a little hesitant at first, thinking that the learning curve might be really steep. But, I did learn Linux essentially on my own and Macs are supposed to be very user-friendly so I figured I'd give it a shot.

It took me maybe an hour or two yesterday to get used to the new interface/keyboard shortcuts. I'm pretty sure there's still a lot of really cool stuff on the Mac that I need to read up on and explore on my own, but so far I'm pretty happy with it. It's a lot faster than my old computer and is very slick. And if you know me, you know that I'm all about style.
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I had pretty much made up my mind about what kind of computer I wanted, but the Apple store was really busy so I had to sit with this other couple who had a million questions before the salesguy would ring me up. While I was at the cash register checking out, the lady next to my salesguy complimented me on my watch. I was completely distracted. I don't get complimented very often (let alone by strangers), and it threw me off. They probably could have charged me another thousand dollars and I would have signed on the line.

Kristen Bell is back!

I used to watch this really great show called Veronica Mars, but then for some unknown reason, they cancelled it.

It was the greatest show on earth.  Definitely gave Ringling Bros. a run for their money ;)

I doubt they'll ever make a show that even comes close to being as good.

The main reason it was so good was because of the leading actress Kristen Bell.  Well, luckily, she hasn't faded from the spotlight.  She'll be on Heroes this fall and has the starring role in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a new movie from the people that made Superbad and Knocked Up.

Remember all that stuff about me needing to find some new topic to rant/rave about? Turns out it won't be necessary since KB's still lighting up the screen.

--

Speaking of Superbad, I saw it last night.  Hilarious.  

More comedies should adopt the style of improvisation.  There wasn't a single scene that appeared scripted.  The director simply said, here's the idea: run with it and make it funny.

*NEWS FLASH* Men want hot women...

This is the kind of article you'd expect to find on theonion:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/04/dating.mating.ap/index.html

When given the choice for a mate, men go for good looks.

The men also appeared to be much less choosy. Men tended to select nearly every woman above a certain minimum attractiveness threshold.

I can't believe they do studies on stuff like this. No wonder we haven't cured cancer or AIDS or solved many of life's mysteries. All the money is going into proving stuff that most people already know...

I'm a verb

So I mentioned some time ago about how I was unceremoniously let go from my last company (I put in my notice, and they told me to leave without finishing my two weeks out).

Turns out other people at the company have met a similar fate since then, and they jokingly referred to it as being "sumeeted."

Well, now I'm officially a verb! A former co-worker submitted the definition to urbandictionary.com and it was approved!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sumeeted

Have you too been sumeeted from a previous job?

Give it a thumbs-up and maybe it'll be an urbandictionary word of the day!

Finally

After two weeks of living in my apartment, I now have Internet and cable hooked up.  I didn't miss it terribly since I've been pretty busy moving things from my old place and with other various activities (movies, hanging out with friends, happy hour, etc.).

But it is definitely nice to have Internet again.  

Oh, and cable.  I can finally watch The Hills again.  And Britney's comeback at the VMAs.

The moving itself went fairly smoothly.  I had 4 friends help me out so that sped things up quite a bit.  The weekend after the move, I went up to visit my parents and sister to celebrate Rakhi so I didn't even need Internet or cable then.

We'll see how long I stick around.  I think it'd be nice to move somewhere else entirely.  I've been in Dallas for over 3 years now and it really hasn't grown on me.

first feature in 10 years? congrats!

Well it looks like Evite has finally decided to get back to work and added a new feature!

 

You can now send event details to your phone (although it cuts off the last few letters on each line).

 

Maybe in another 10 years, they'll add a feature to let you message other invited guests.... but don't hold your breath.

Bathroom Switches

Most bathrooms have two switches: one for the light, and one for the fan.

I grew up in Austin and lived in the same house for 20 years. Almost every time I used the downstairs bathroom I would turn on the fan, immediately turn it off, and then turn on the light. After awhile, it just became a habit.

Yesterday, at a friend's baby party (which is really a topic for another post), I did the same thing on accident.

It reminded me of Austin.
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Now playing: J Holiday - Bed
via FoxyTunes

Evite Alts

In my previous post, I mentioned that I hated evite because the features it advertises don't actually work.

Well, I'm not the only one who hates it. On a website that I don't hate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evite), more notable tech people voiced their dislike for the site as well.

Luckily, there are some sites listed on the page that supposedly do a better job (including the Friendster founder's attempt at integrating social networking with event planning).

There's always Facebook events and Google calendar if all else fails...

You know what pisses me off?

Well, there's lots of things but here's a few:

- Evite: If you organize an event and click the checkbox that says 'email me when guests reply,' it doesn't email you! WTF? I'm honestly surprised they haven't fixed this because I doubt I'm the only one who's complained. Also, it would be really nice if you could mouse-over a name and it would show a picture of the person - kinda like Gmail does - since you don't always remember names, but you do remember faces. I hate Evite.

- The waiter at Gloria's: Maybe you want to ask next time you pack the boxes up separately. How do you know we weren't on a date? You don't think I could be on a date with a girl like that? Asshole.

- The stock market: One day you're up 20%, next day you're only up 10%. This whole investing thing is far more emotional that I thought it'd be. And the thing that really pisses me off is that Apple went down 6% today because some analyst said they'd be cutting production of the iPod/iPhone. Um, what? Not someone at Apple, not someone who knows something about what goes on at Apple, but an analyst. My guess is that the analyst wants Apple stock himself so he made something up to make the price go down. Asshole.

Okay, enough griping. Maybe next time I'll post about things that amuse me.

Oh, but before I go, a couple of pop culture tidbits: Britney and K-Fed's divorce has been finalized, The Simple Life has been canceled (I know, I was shocked too!), and Lindsay Lohan's new movie is the worst reviewed movie of the year.

Even if it's true?

Is it rude to tell a waitress that she should quit and become a stripper because she could make a lot more money?

Stocks, Harry Potter, Yoga

Stocks
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Back in grade school, we had this project in Math class where we had an imaginary portfolio and had to invest $10,000 dollars in however many stocks we wanted.  The winner at the end of the 6-week project would get a prize (or maybe it was an A on the project, I don't remember).

It was in Math class because we didn't have this newfangled gizmo called the Internet where you could easily look up the stock quotes.  Nope, you actually had to know the ticker symbol of the companies and go to the newspaper and manually search the thousands of stocks to see the closing price.  It was a pain in the ass.

After you did that, you had to calculate your total by multiplying your number of shares times the price per share.  Also, a pain in the ass, especially if you had a lot of stocks.

Well, thank god for the Internet.  Investing in stocks is a lot easier now that everything is calculated automatically.  For some reason, I've decided to take a lot more interest in stocks and recently invested in both Amazon and Apple.  I still haven't completely figured out the websites, but I do know that green numbers are good and red numbers are bad. 

I need to move some more money around and invest in a few more companies,

Harry Potter
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Last night, I saw the newest HP flick.  We arrived too late (20 minutes before it started), and had to sit in the front row.  Normally at a concert or play or something, that would be the perfect seats.  Well, not so much at a movie.  Harry was definitely larger than life, and not in a good way.

It was a great movie though, with lots of special effects and interesting character development.  Daniel Radcliffe is finally becoming a decent actor.

I heard the IMAX version has a 20-minute 3D ending which would be awesome to see..

Speaking of Harry Potter, the final book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) comes out next Friday.  I've already gotten some people interested in attending a book release party (where everyone goes to a Barnes and Noble and dresses up and plays games while waiting for the book to be released).  It would be even more fun if we combined it with a happy hour beforehand and got to the party a little buzzed ("What the hell am I doing at a bookstore at 11pm on a Friday night? And why is everyone dressed up??")

Yoga
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I guess I haven't mentioned it on here yet, but I've been taking yoga classes for a few weeks now.  I'm taking the kind where you exercise in a warm room (98.6 degrees, 60% humidity) and hold different poses for 90 minutes.  It's excruciating but also a great workout.

I thought today's class was more difficult than normal, and found out that the room was 103.5 degrees!  I could barely walk when class was over.

Speaking of hot, our teacher today was incredibly attractive.  Most of them are older, but this one seemed to be newer and younger.  I hope she teaches again.