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).
~~~~
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.
~~~~
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.
~~
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.
~~~~~~
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
------------------
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.

Highs/Lows

I went up to DC to visit my family for the 4th of July. There were some definite highs and also some lows.

Highs
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- I hadn't seen my parents or sister since we met up in Minnesota at the end of March. I also hadn't seen most of my other family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) since Thanksgiving.
- My parents and uncle said I'm looking 'healthier,' even though I haven't gained any weight recently or noticed any difference myself.
- We went to DC for fireworks and the concert on the Mall. My dad had talked about how great the DC fireworks were and it was pretty cool to see them in person.
- All 4 of us went to Shenandoah National Park for some sightseeing. Although we had already seen most of that kind of stuff before, it was still fun to go on a road trip since we used to go on them a lot when I was younger.

Lows
------
- My sister is suffering from some mysterious ailment that causes her to be dizzy and/or tired for long periods of time. The blood tests came out negative and the MRI didn't show anything significant and we're still waiting for results from her EEG.
- I mentioned my uncle's cancer earlier, but to see him in person was unreal. His memory and vision have been affected to the point where he can't remember certain words, can't see anything on his right side, and needs a few seconds to focus on objects. My mom said that he couldn't remember how to use the phone after he came back from surgery. All the family in the area is doing everything they possibly can to help him, but the situation is pretty bad.

Greatest Marketing Ever?

Last Friday, Evan Almighty opened in theaters nationwide. It's a humorous look at how an average guy is picked by God to build an ark to prepare for the flood. I haven't seen the movie yet, but there are parts where the sun is shining and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Everyone thinks he's crazy for preparing for a flood.

This morning, the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I thought the meteorologists were crazy for predicting rain for the next two days. On the way home, there was a torrential downpour and I must have driven through at least 5 lakes.

If this isn't the greatest marketing gimmick ever, I don't know what is. Not only is it free, but it affects EVERYONE.

Lame

I've decided that all of my guy friends are lame.

Tonight at happy hour, we had a golden opportunity when 2 girls came to our table (since the place was packed and there were no empty tables) and asked if they could share our table.

We said yes, and one guy actually got up and offered his seat.

After one of the girls sat down, we had no idea what to do. No one said a word and we probably seemed either really creepy or really lame. About a minute passed, and the girl decided it'd be better to sit on the steps than to share the table with us.

Ouch.

New blog!

All the random quotes I hear will now be posted at:

http://overheardinthesumeetzone.blogspot.com

Movies, etc.

"No one's been in here all night. We have everything."
"Then why did we come here?"
"I don't know. Why did you?"

"Don't worry. I haven't had time to spit in your food."
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Wow, I've seen a lot of movies the last couple of weeks. This week I saw Spider-Man 3 and Ocean's 13. Last week it was Pirates 3. Somehow all the studios timed it perfectly so that this summer is all about the sequels. And not just the second in the series. It's always the 3rd (Spider-Man, Shrek, Pirates, Ocean's, Rush Hour). Except, of course, for Harry Potter, which I believe is on movie #5.

I also rented The Godfather and Goodfellas since I'd heard a lot about them and they're supposedly two of the best movies ever made. I dunno if I agree with that assessment, but they were pretty good.

I also watched Labyrinth (a fantasy movie about this girl trying to find her brother in a labyrinth) after my friend recommended it. I didn't get what was so great about it. Well, except for Jennifer Connelly, and she was like 15 in the movie.
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Oh, I guess I should explain the quote. We went to eat after Ocean's 13 yesterday and got to the restaurant at like 10 or so. Obviously, the staff was not very happy since they had probably been working all night and just wanted to go home.

So our waitress didn't try and hide that fact at all. It probably had a lot to do with our group, but she couldn't even take our orders with a straight face.

I can see how a lot of people might be irritated by someone like that, but I thought her attitude was great. She had spunk, she had moxie. It was kinda hot.
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On a more somber note, my uncle's cancer has returned and he had surgery again yesterday. Thankfully, everything went well and his condition exceeded even the doctor's expectations.

Race for the Cure update

In a company meeting where the boss basically chewed everybody out for not working fast enough:
Boss: Sumeet, you're doing a great job. Thanks.
Me: Haha.. thanks.
------------
I participated in the Race for the Cure this morning - a 5k walk/run to raise money for breast cancer research. I'm terrible at estimating crowds, but I'd say there were at least 5,000 people there (if not more).

I thought everyone in our group was going to walk the whole thing, but they decided it would be better to run most of it.

Yikes. Yeah, I'm really out of shape. That's the most I've run in a very, very long time. I'm sore right now and probably will be for a couple of days.

It was still a great event and I'm glad I went. They handed out all sorts of swag at the end too (wristbands, bananas, Popsicles, bagels, frisbees/fans) so that was pretty fun.

And what better way to end a charity event than a trip to get margaritas? We went to Cozymel's afterwards for lunch. I felt like quite the alcoholic as we waited outside for the restaurant to open just to get a margarita.. Oh, but our race t-shirts came in handy as the restaurant comped our desserts ;)

Nerd Post (RIP Veronica Mars)

Now that Veronica Mars has officially ended its oh-so-brief run, I'm going to have to find some other equally superficial topic to rant/rave about. I'm not sure what it will be yet, but here's a fun nerd post for now (well, it's not really that nerdy -- I won't name names, but I've read some REALLY nerdy posts, and this doesn't come close).
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My new job requires me to use Windows XP. For the 3+ years before that, I had been using Linux for my work environment. It hasn't been a huge deal to switch (more point-and-clicking, less typing), but the main thing that I had gotten used to was the "virtual" desktops in Linux. Basically, you could have several different backgrounds and taskbars which made it easy to separate programs that had nothing to do with each other (email/chat on desktop #1, documents on desktop #2, source code on desktop #3).

Well, after searching for a bit online, I found out that Microsoft has developed what they call "PowerToys," and one of them is a "virtual desktop manager." It's not quite the same as the built-in Linux feature (the process to move a program to a different desktop is a little more complicated), but it's a lot better than just having one desktop. Now I have 4 "desktops" and 2 monitors at work.

Check it out: Microsoft's PowerToys
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They removed the mouseover in Gmail that revealed the sender's email address (or even displayed their picture if they set one) without opening the message. The feature appeared one day without notice and now it's disappeared just as quickly. Normally, Google makes a big announcement or at least describes the new feature somewhere, but I never saw anything about this one. I've also never seen them remove a feature from any of their products (especially without warning).

I hope they bring it back.

Good news, bad news, lunch

Me: You could be a trophy wife for some people.
Female friend #1: For some people?!? Could I be a trophy wife for you?
Me: Well... I dunno about that.
-----------
First the good news:

Paris' sentence cut in half!

"the Sheriff has agreed to reduce the amount of time she'll have to serve to 23 days. The Sheriff has also agreed to put her in a celebrity cell, away from the general population."

Now the bad news:

Veronica Mars canceled!

I can't believe it. It was the only good show left on television. Now what am I going to watch?

As for lunch, we had this terrible waitress who couldn't get our orders right, forgot our drinks, and was overall very absent-minded. She was pretty hot though, and I felt sorry for her since she had to manage 10 tables on her own, so I gave her a big tip.

Female bathroom attendants?

You know how they have bathroom attendants in some bars/clubs?

Well, I think it'd be awesome if they had female bathroom attendants in the men's restroom.

You might think that'd be kinda creepy, but I honestly think they'd get more tips than the guys currently do. Especially if they're attractive and follow the same dress code as the waitresses/bartenders.
---
Happy hour tonight was pretty eh (as usual). We won another VIP party at the same place as my birthday (which meant cheaper drinks and free appetizers). It was nice weather tonight, so they put us on the porch and instead of having to fight for table space, we got a huge area for the entire night. We ended up needing it though since we had about 13-14 people total.

Overall, there were fewer people than my birthday party, but it was still a good turnout and great to see everyone again.

Race for the Cure

On a more serious note, I am participating in the Race for the Cure this year to raise money for breast cancer research and awareness.

If you would like to make a donation, please visit my page at:

http://race.komennorthtexas.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1010&px=1089226

Gwen concert

I went to my second Gwen Stefani concert last night. The first one was back in 2005 (I'm sure there's a post about it somewhere). You're probably thinking it's unusual for a guy to like Gwen and to actually pay the money to go to a concert, and you're right!

The ratio was about 4-1 girls-to-guys. Of the guys who were there, they were either dragged there by their significant other or were gay. And then there was me.

There's certain advantages to having fewer guys; one being the bathroom line is ridiculously short, and another being that there's plenty of eye candy.

Back when tickets first came on sale, I thought it'd be a great idea to go. As the day neared, I started to wonder why I wanted to go in the first place.

It was an awesome concert though, so no regrets. Openers were this short British rapper named Lady Sovereign and R&B star Akon.

The girl next to me (who kept dropping all the papers from her wallet!) said Lady Sovereign was pretty good, but probably won't make it in the US since she has a really strong accent and people can't understand her. Yeah, it was definitely hard to understand her, but most of her songs had a good beat.

Akon rambled on about how he didn't care about money and started tossing out dollar bills. I looked it up this morning, and apparently he was dropped from Verizon for a risque onstage dance in the Carribean.

Funny that he can do freaky actions like that, but won't curse onstage (even though both Lady Sovereign and Gwen did). Oh, and one of his songs was about living in the ghetto, so he asked the crowd how many people actually lived in the ghetto. He obviously didn't see any of his audience since they were all upper-class white girls. Plus, I don't think anyone from the ghetto could afford the ticket prices. Ironic, don't ya think?

Then Gwen came out and did her thing. I hadn't heard most of the songs from her new album, but she played a lot of songs from the first album too so I wasn't completely lost. She also came out into the audience at one point. Oh, and she said that they're going to make a No Doubt album soon.

I still prefer the first Gwen concert since the Black Eyed Peas were the openers and it was just a better deal overall. But last night was still a great concert. There's nothing quite like the energy produced by 20,000 people.

VM quotes

Veronica: How is it that you have so many friends? You don't even like people.
Logan: And yet they adore me.

Veronica: Why settle for something not good just because it's something?
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I don't know why I keep posting quotes. I think it's because I read the overheard* websites too much and like to pretend that my quotes are somewhat comparable ;)

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.
~~~~
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.

Campaign 2008

Why are candidates like Hillary and Obama announcing their intentions to run for president more than a year in advance?

It's like an year-long interview process for a job that only guarantees them four years in office.  Plus, it opens them up to even more scrutiny and potential for scandal. 

The last presidential campaign was already too long.

Ridiculous.

Disturbingly accurate birth chart

A friend found a website that calculates the planetary positions at your time and place of birth. I've always believed I don't really match my zodiac sign of Aries, but after reading my "full" description, I'd say most of it is pretty accurate.

You tend to be very shy and not very self-assertive. You are supercritical about how you appear to others. Even though you may think you are uninteresting and dull, you are actually quite soft- spoken... and very likable. ...at times you can be quite tactless in pointing out the faults of others. You have a crisp, no-nonsense approach to dealing with others.

You are the one who will rush in where angels fear to tread....you must be first in everything you do, and you enjoy taking risks. Often you are quick to anger, but you usually recover just as fast, regretting later things you said when you were upset. One of your best traits is that you are simple and direct, blunt and honest. You have strong feelings and are extremely sensitive... you tend to react emotionally to every situation you come across.

OK, I think I've shared enough (or maybe even too much). Click here to get your own birth chart.

Information Age!

I live in Texas, and there's about half an inch of snow/sleet/ice on the ground, so naturally the entire city (and a good part of the state) shuts down.

This includes my company, which follows whatever the University of Texas at Dallas does.

How does this information get conveyed to me personally? Well, I've gotten into the bad habit of checking my personal email before getting ready to go to work. And one of my emails alerted me that a co-worker had updated his MySpace blog, which noted that UTD was closed today. So I check the UTD website just to double-check, and sure enough, it's closed.

About 5 minutes later, I get a text message from another co-worker saying that the voicemail message at work says it's closed.

About 10 minutes after that, I get a Google Talk message from the secretary saying the same thing. And about 5 minutes after the brief chat, I get an "official" email from her.

I just talked to my mom and told her how work was closed today. She asked if I had called in to make sure. I didn't even have time to do that, because everyone told me it was closed within 15 minutes of me waking up.

Word definitely travels fast in this information age.

Books

For Christmas, my sister's boyfriend got me Next by Michael Crichton. Seeing as how the weather was pretty shitty all weekend, I stayed in and finished the book.

It delves into various issues regarding genetic engineering and the moral/legal issues that come with it. I'm normally not a big fan of sci-fi, but the parallel stories were interesting and fast-paced enough that it kept me reading. It'll be fascinating to see how many of his predictions materialize in the coming years. It was pretty hard to tell at some points whether what he described were his own creative musings or had some basis in science and could actually happen in the near future.

I think this is the first novel I've finished since the last Harry Potter came out. I tried reading Atlas Shrugged, but that book is massive, and the plot failed to hold my attention for very long. I'll probably try again some day, since it's supposed to be this great novel...

But for now, my reading list is: The Book of Lost Things and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

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Oh, and a shout out goes to Nusrat for linking to me!

Tip Calculator

I tend to tip more for waitresses than for waiters, and more for attractive waitresses versus unattractive waitresses.

If I had a waiter who had really great service versus a waitress that was attractive but her service was a tad subpar, I'd probably tip the waitress more. Same goes for an unattractive waitress who has great service versus an attractive waitress. The latter would get a higher tip from me (regardless of her service).

I went to dinner with some friends and I ended up giving about a 30% tip. Her service wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but she was friendly and pretty attractive. That's all it takes.

Does that make me a sexist pig? Perhaps, but the restaurant really shouldn't be hiring waiters or ugly waitresses.

2007, what?

The last week or so has been a total blur. I recapped the Christmas festivities already, but after I got back on Wednesday, I went to a pre-wedding event in the evening. Then on Friday, it was off to Houston for the actual ceremony on Saturday.

I won't go into all the wedding details, but let's just say that it involved a helicopter, four horses, an elephant, and the bride getting arrested at the airport. Oh, and an ice sculpture with photos of the bride and groom frozen inside. It was awesome. The families spared no expense for their guests (including booking an entire hotel for the groom's side and a chartered bus from Dallas to Houston and back). As one person put it at the reception, "you treated your guests like royalty."

After getting back into town, I napped until my co-worker's NYE bash. The party was fucking awesome as well. Great party snacks, jello shots, beer, hard liquor, decorations everywhere. Hard to top the extravagant wedding, but it was definitely a fun party. A bunch of people arrived about ten minutes before the new year. Champagne shots all around at midnight. Good times.

Here's to 2007!