Memorable Quotes

My friend has been working at Verizon for a month (after getting laid off from her previous company) and she decided to have a party to celebrate. I had a coupon for a free pint of ice cream if you buy a cake and thought this would be a good time to use it.
Cake guy [after writing "Congrats" on the cake]: What's the congratulations for?
Me: Oh, our friend has been working somewhere for a month.
Cake guy (confused): Is that a record?
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Female friend: What time did yall leave the titty bar?
Me: Oh, do you still have my lunch box?
Male friend: Is that a euphemism?
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Me: Yeah, I haven't bought any of my game consoles. They were all either gifts or just bought by someone else.
Friend: Do you buy ANYTHING?
(To be fair, he's kinda right. Looking around my apartment, the only things I've bought on my own are the sofa, chair, and digital camera. Everything else is pretty much furniture from Austin. I'm spoiled, what can I say?)

Best Week Ever

My sister: Are you still at work?
Me: Yeah, but I'm about to leave in a bit to go to my party.
My sister: You're throwing your own birthday party?
Me: Yeah, but there's other people coming too.
My sister: Well obviously! You're not going to be sitting at home by yourself with a cake.
Me: And a birthday hat.
My sister: I love how the hat is crucial to the party.
---

Wow, this week has been ridiculously busy. I started my new job on Monday, and so far, it seems like it'll be a fun place to work with interesting projects. We're also looking to grow and move to another office so that be a fun change in the near future.

On Wednesday, I went with a few friends to the opening night of the musical Wicked (the story of the Wicked Witch of the West and why she became "evil"). I wasn't a fan of the book since nothing in it overlapped with the original Wizard of Oz. I read the book a long time ago, and don't remember a whole lot of it, but most of the second half of the musical seemed to be completely different than the book. It was for the better though, because they tied in Dorothy's story to a much greater degree. It was very well-done, too. I wish I had brought binoculars or gotten the headsets though. I couldn't hear a lot of the songs, and could never make out the faces of the singers (we were pretty far back). We were talking about it on the way home, and realized that they turned the entire story into a huge love story even though the original Wizard of Oz was just about Dorothy trying to get home.

Yesterday was my 25th birthday. Yeah, I'm getting old. But I'm still younger than a lot of my friends, so there's always that. The first part of the day was mostly uneventful, but then we went out to a bar where my friend won a "VIP" party, which basically was free appetizers and slightly cheaper drinks. We had an awesome turnout and the crowd was pretty different from last year so it was good times and definitely one of my better birthdays. It was also nice to see everyone again, since I hadn't seen most of them in about 2 weeks (or even longer for some of them).

Poker Fun

Normally I don't post about poker since it's pretty much the same thing every time: same people and you either go up or down by a little.

Last night was interesting though, since we had several new people come.

We had enough players last night that we split into two tables.

There was the big table with a lot of new players and the smaller table with all the regular players.  I was at the big table.  I like to think I have a fair amount of patience, but my god, some of the people were ridiculously slow.  We had one guy who seriously seemed like he was on something.  We talked about him after he left (as we tend to do), and others thought the same thing. Then there was the guy who's a semi-regular and is just incredibly slow and a little dumb. After you've played 4 or 5 times, you're not allowed to say that people need to "help you out."  Especially if you keep winning big pots.

It was definitely better to play on a Saturday than our weird Sunday night games, since you can play til whenever.  I think I left at like 2 am (we started around 7:30), and people were still playing.
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New guy (looking at a friend's Illinois t-shirt): You and I have a connection.
Friend: Uhhh, whatever signals you thought you were getting were being misinterpreted. We don't have a connection.
New guy: No no.. [Illinois basketball player] Carter went to the same middle school as me!

New guy #2: Hey Sumeet, am I big?
Me (looking away): Um, yeah, you're big blind.

Me: I didn't like that guy ______.
Friend: You don't like anyone.
Me: True.

Reality TV

I thought I was over reality television, but I was wrong.

Last night, both The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll and American Idol were on.

Before last night's episode, I favored Melissa S because she did a really good job last week. Well, the episode changed my mind and I think I like Chelsea (the short girl who sings really well but can't dance). If she can work on her dancing, I think she may have a shot at winning the whole thing. Oh, and then there's Melissa R, the exotic girl who won immunity because she was the best backup dancer to the real Pussycat Dolls. I still find the whole premise of the show hilarious. It feels almost like a Chappelle's Show skit the way all the girls keep talking about how it's their dream to be a Pussycat Doll.

On American Idol, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that I like the (only) hot girl left, Haley. As Simon put it, "I like your tactic. Wear as little clothing as possible. You know you can't win on your vocals, since everyone here is a better singer than you." Maybe. But if I just wanted to hear people sing, I would turn on the radio. This is television, where you have to look good too. The best finals possible would be Sanjaya vs. Haley. Neither of them are great singers, and the reason they've made it this far is because of their looks. You read it here first.

Shreveport

We went to Shreveport this past weekend to celebrate the April birthdays in the group (over Easter weekend, too - isn't it ironic?).

If you've even heard of Shreveport, you know it's a gambling town with a bunch of riverboat casinos. It was hilarious because one of the guys asked if there would be gambling involved. The rest of us were just stunned. I don't know why you would sign up for a 2-day trip and not realize what it was all about. We made fun of him for that comment the entire trip.

Since there's not a whole lot to do in Shreveport, this post could only be incredibly interesting if either a) I lost all of my life savings or b) I won a massive jackpot.

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but neither of those things happened. I ended up down a lot (maybe even the most in the group), but I still had a lot of fun. I went to Shreveport a couple years ago, but this trip was way more fun (we also had fewer people last time). It's true what they say; as long as you have the right group of people, any event can be a lot of fun.

Since it was seven guys and no girls, it reminded me a lot of my friend's bachelor party in Vegas back in October.
~~~
At the poker table:

Older woman: What do you do for a living?
Me: Um, I'm a computer programmer. What about you?
Older woman: I'm a teacher. I was asking because you have the fingers of a surgeon or a pianist.

Maybe I picked the wrong career...

Money

Well, that didn't end quite as I thought it would.

Instead of letting me finish out my two weeks, the company decided to unceremoniously terminate my employment yesterday.  They came to my cubicle as soon as I walked in and asked me to sign some papers, saying basically you're done.

So, now I have two weeks of unpaid vacation before I start my new job.

I think this is the first time since the fall semester of my senior year in college that I won't have an income, and may not have an income for all of April.

Obviously, I have a lot of savings and it won't be a big deal financially, but it kinda sucks since I'm used to having an incoming cash flow.

Oh, and since my birthday is this month, some nice gifts would be money for rent, clothes, food, etc.  Oh, and if you have a lot of money and are feeling incredibly generous, an island would be awesome.

As one door closes..

I officiailly put in my two weeks notice today.

I've worked here since I graduated from college back in 2004, so I think it's time to move on and see what other opportunities are out there.

The thing I'll miss the most about working here is definitely the fun people I've worked with.  Hopefully, everyone will still want to hang out and didn't see each other just because we all worked together.

Someone was saying the other day that it feels like the end of college, because everyone goes their own seperate ways and you don't really know what's going to happen.  In some ways, the company felt a lot like college, since everyone's young and, being a research company, we had a lot of different projects that we got to work on.

Also, like college, I don't feel that I learned a whole lot. The last few years could probably have been better spent working somewhere else.

I don't regret it, though, because I did get to meet some really good people and it was a good way to delay working for real.  But the fun is over, and it's time to join a company where results do matter and every minute wasted is a dollar gone.

It's time to enter the real world.

Hockey Game, etc.

I just got back from a Dallas Stars game.

The atmosphere was very different (i.e. much more subdued) from a basketball game. I guess I figured that all sports fans were the same and had the same amount of energy no matter the sport, but I was wrong.

All I knew about hockey going into the game came from watching The Mighty Ducks (yes, the classic Disney movie starring Emilio Estevez).

I know a lot more now:
1) Fights make the game a lot more interesting (esp. since there were only 6 goals scored, and that was considered a "high-scoring" night)
2) The Ice Girls alone are worth the price of admission.
3) There are no timeouts in hockey. (Go figure ).
4) Players just run on and off the rink whenever they want. They don't have to wait for a stoppage of play.
4) It's a much quieter atmosphere in general. In basketball, it seems they're always playing music. In hockey, they only play it after goals.

Oh, as for the 'etc.' in the title of this awesome blog entry, this past weekend there were two parties and I took defensive driving.

Defensive driving wasn't too bad. One of the girls (who was incredibly hot btw) took the same class with the same instructor three weeks previously and had known that she would be taking it again. You'd think there'd be some sort of rule against that.

I actually learned a few rules that I didn't know going into the class, so maybe it was worth spending a Saturday holed up in a Mexican restaurant. Rules like you can't pass or change lanes in a school zone and the suggested distance between you and the car in front is now 2 seconds instead of "one car length for every 10 mph." Oh, and the instructor told us all this stuff about alcohol which turned out to be mostly LIES - stuff like tolerance is a myth and everyone absorbs alcohol at the same rate no matter their weight or height.

The parties were fun, but not incredibly eventful (I only found about 30 pics on my camera, which I still need to upload). The one on Friday was literally in the middle of nowhere, and the one on Saturday was a hop, skip and jump away from my place. In both cases, I think I was the soberest one there (except for the people who weren't drinking). The scare tactics at defensive driving worked to some extent since I didn't drink nearly what I could have on Saturday.

St. Patty's Day

Just like last year, we started the day bright and early at 10am. 

We took the train down to the parade site, paid our money and started drinking right away ($10 for unlimited beer -- well, until the kegs ran out).

For awhile, it was only the three of us, but as the parade time approached, more people joined us.

I remember the parade being longer last year, but maybe that's just cause I was more drunk last year.

All in all, a great parade again (but less strip club floats, which was disappointing). We got fewer beads this year though, mainly because we had a group of fairly attractive young blonde women standing next to use who managed to get everything thrown at them (including silk panties).

After the parade, and an excruciating attempt to try to use any public restroom available (note to organizers: you're going to need more than 2 Port-A-Pottys for 200 people), we made what felt like a 10-mile trek through the desert (but was probably only like a mile or two down Greenville) to get to the next party.

None of us really knew what the "block party" was all about, and when we finally arrived, we found out that you had to pay a $5 cover to get in.  But that was IF you could even get in.  We were all pretty hungry by this point, so we decided to go eat instead of the block party. 

After walking all the way down to Lower Greenville, we turned around and walked almost all the way back to where we started!  Ugh.

Met up with some more people at the restaurant and reunited with people who had abandoned us earlier.  After we ate, most of us were exhausted -- it was 3pm, we had been up since 9am and had walked at least a couple miles -- but instead of calling it quits, we decided to go to the West End.

Lesson learned here: have a real destination instead of a vague general area.  We have no idea where to go once we get to the West End.  We wander around for a bit, and finally listen to this random homeless guy who tells us how to get to "the best place to drink" in the West End.  Um, it might be the best place, but it's also probably the most expensive.  We all spend a fortune there ($3 for a third-full glass of Red Bull???) and decide not to spend any more money on alcohol for the rest of the day.

Skip forward a few hours, and we're at this random Indian guy's party on Lower Greenville (gotta end the day on the same street as it started).  Pretty awkward because we don't know anyone. We try to make small talk with people but they duck out as quickly as possible.  It's a great view of the scene on Greenville and it's free alcohol so we stay anyway.

End up getting home around 2am-ish.  Fun day, but tiring.  Just like the Irish celebrate, I'm sure.

Best Waitress Ever?

Happy hour last night was very eh, but we did manage to get the best waitress ever to serve us.

First we had a guy as our waiter, and he was okay. But then she took over his shift, and damn. She memorized our orders, and made sure we had everything we needed the entire night. We never had to ask for anything. Splitting checks can be a nightmare, but she remembered what everyone had and only needed to ask us how to split appetizers and pitchers.

Since our group was pretty large, gratuity was already included on our checks, but I believe good service should be rewarded, so I added a little more.
~~~
I've been called a lot of names in my life, but I was called a 'jerk' recently. That name hurts a lot more than any of the others, mostly because I don't think it was deserved nor is it an accurate description of me.

Not just me?

I thought I was the only one who did this, but apparently not.

Stop reading right now and take a look at your desktop. How many things are you doing right now in addition to reading this column? Me, I've got a terminal session open to a chat room, I'm listening to music, I've got Safari open with three tabs open where I'm watching Blogshares, tinkering with a web site, and looking at weekend movie returns. Not done yet. I've got iChat open, ESPN.COM is downloading sports new trailers in the background, and I've got two notepads open where I'm capturing random thoughts for later integration into various to do lists. Oh yeah, I'm writing this column, as well.

Folks, this isn't multi-tasking. This is advanced case of Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder. I am unable to function at my desktop unless I've got, at least, five things going on at the same time. If your count came close, you're probably afflicted, as well. Most excellent.

My list is a little different: definitely listening to music, have AIM open, as well as Gmail (where I'm writing this), and about 7 tabs open in Firefox. 

But the same general idea applies.

Friday Funnies

If you've never heard the song, here are the lyrics it's referring to:

This is why I'm hot (by MIMS)
I'm hot cuz I'm fly
You ain't cuz you not
This is why
This is why
This is why I'm hot

Party like it's 2007

I hosted my first party at the apartment last night, and a few lessons were learned:

1) Never invite more people than you can reasonably handle/fit in your apartment.
2) Power hour is an evil, terrible game and should only be played when you haven't had anything to drink and have a full stomach.
3) McCormack's is disgusting and shouldn't be used for number 2.
4) Don't pass out when your guests are still there.
5) You can measure the success of a party by the number of people who crash there. Last night: 3.
6) I way overestimated the amount of alcohol and snacks needed.
7) Never host another party.

Oh, and the whole 'party like it's 2007', that's a bad idea.  I hope other 2007 parties don't end the same way for me.

Speeding

I've had a driver's license since I was 16 or 17, and had never even been pulled over until this morning.

You'd think that the first time you get pulled over the cop would be nice enough to just let you off with a warning.

But no. He had to give me a fucking ticket.

What a great way to start the day.

Whatever happened to....

.. Paris' pet kinkajou?

That question has been bothering me for quite awhile. (I'm not even kidding; these are the things I think about.) There used to be reports about it all the time, and then one day, they stopped talking about it. I figured that the government probably took it away seeing as how it's not your typical pet (and from what I remember, she didn't exactly acquire it legally).

But then today I saw this:

Paris kicks out kinkajou

Paris Hilton has apparently gotten rid of her pet kinkajou, Baby Luv, because it kept scratching and biting her.

I wonder where you go to get rid of your kinkajou. Does the local humane society accept such animals? Or did she just give it to a friend? As with most things Paris, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Oh, in other mysteries, the last episode of this round of Veronica Mars is tonight and we'll finally get to see who murdered the Dean.

Layoffs

6 people were laid off from the company that is currently paying our salaries (ironically, none of us were laid off, even though we haven't contributed anything or raised any sort of funding yet).

In a big company, that might not be a big deal, but there's only about 15 or 16 people left.

I feel really bad for those that I hung out with outside of work, since they were very bright and worked hard. In a perfect world, they would be recognized and appreciated for their contributions instead of being laid off. In all honesty, though, most of them were looking for a way out anyway and weren't exactly happy working there. But it would still be nice to leave on your own terms instead of someone else's.

I can think of people that should have been let go instead of those that were, but I suppose that politics sometimes plays a bigger role than merit.

We should have determined the layoffs Survivor-style, where everyone votes for who they want out. That way, we'd build morale within the company (since everyone is united against the deadweights), and we'd also get rid of those who are the most disliked (and probably least productive). Two birds, one stone.

Laughter

You know that commercial for candy where the girl's sitting in class, laughing at the professor even though he's incredibly boring and there's nothing funny going on (but she's in her own world because of the candy)?

Yeah, that was me back in school, and continues today in meetings at work. Even though I don't have the candy, somehow I always find the speaker to be far more amusing than everyone else around me (sometimes the speaker is trying to be funny, but most of the time they're not).

I've also been told that my laugh is very loud and distinctive, and that people can hear it from down the hall and since I've moved floors, downstairs as well.

UPDATE (2/17): At the party last night, two more girls said they loved my laugh. One of them even said that her office would be complete if someone had my laugh there. Then again, they were both drunk by this point in the night.
Oh, and apparently everyone thinks I hype events too much. I don't think that's true. I just like to keep it real, and the majority of the events have been really fun, and they would be even more fun if certain people came. People are relieved that they didn't come if it was lame, but really, if they had come, it would have been a lot of fun.

I disagree

As you may have heard, Anna Nicole Smith died yesterday after being found unconscious in her hotel room.

Our waiter at lunch today said that he liked her because "not everyone lives their life the way they want to, but she did."

There was an article on cnn about her life, and for some reason, they dragged Paris Hilton into it.

This quote caught my attention:

"With Anna Nicole, she was pathetic but at the same time you thought, 'Gosh, if I could just scoop you up and fix things, it would be OK,"' said Jerry Herron, a professor of American culture at Wayne State University. "You wouldn't want to scoop up Paris Hilton."

Sorry, Jerry, but I can think of many people who would want to scoop up Paris Hilton. Apparently, American culture means something completely different at Wayne State University (where the hell is that, anyways?). I'm glad I didn't go there.

Video Games

Until recently, I haven't been a big fan of video games.  Most of them seem very similar and they tend to lose their novelty after the first couple times I play them.  The last games I played regularly about were the GTA series on PS2 (hey, we all need a way to vent and soliciting prostitutes/stealing cars/beating up innocent people/killing cops is a great way to do it! - although driving right after playing is ill-advised).

But, now, there's a new crop of video games that are ridiculously interactive and more fun than anything that's come out in the past 20 years.  With games that have specialized controllers like Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution to consoles like the Wii, the idea of video games has a whole new meaning.  

I played Wii Sports this weekend at a friend's place, and it definitely matched the hype.  Instead of giving the advantage to players who can memorize a bunch of button sequences, the advantage now clearly goes to the person who is the most into the game.  I suppose we'll still have to wait for a truly interactive video game system, but the Wii is the closest we've gotten.

I don't know why they didn't introduce this idea on home consoles earlier.  Companies were too focused on improving the graphics with each of their consoles (and essentially relying heavily on their established customer base) that they didn't realize they could revolutionize the way video games are played and designed just by modifying the user interface.  Arcades rely on this sort of "trick" for most of their games, since there is no central controller design for all of the games to share.

In retrospect, it seems obvious. But it's a whole different story to suggest giving up the graphics fight in favor of a complete redesign of the game system (especially at the risk of losing one's job).

I'm sure there's a great business lesson here about underestimating markets and thinking outside the box.

The Return of VM

I'm not sure why I didn't post about this last week, since that was the return of the greatest show to hit the small screen since... well since television was invented.

I know you've been anxiously awaiting my opinion on the new episodes of Veronica Mars!

Last week's episode was alright. Not quite up to par, but it still had its moments. My favorite part was when Veronica and Keith were discussing what 'manila' meant (as in manila folder) and my first thought was, you should look up it on Wikipedia. And, seconds later, that's exactly what she does! Good stuff. Oh, and the episode involved a monkey. And who doesn't love monkeys?

Tonight's episode was way better. More hurdles in the Veronica-Logan relationship plus hookers! Oh, and a "GFE" reference. Strangely enough, the term came up at work just last week and a co-worker was kind enough to explain what it meant to everyone. It stands for "girlfriend experience." When you solicit an escort, you can specify the type of experience you want. Another level (according to the episode) is "PSE" - porn star experience. You learn something new every day.

One of the hookers was pretty hot. I've watched the show for two and a half years now, and this was the first episode where a female actually may have been hotter than Kristen Bell.
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In other TV news, the show where they pick the new star for the Broadway revival of Grease is actually pretty good. It's funny to me that they could find so many talented people for this show, but P Diddy needed 2 seasons to find a halfway decent girl group. I was really hoping that the hot blonde Ashley would be able to pull it together and prove the judges wrong, but she might actually be tone-deaf. It's unfortunate because she's definitely the hottest girl in the group, and looks the most like the original Sandy.