Fatigue and Flu

Oysters at Pt. Reyes on Saturday

This day was probably what got me sick. Sleeping at 4AM and waking up at 10 to go Oyster eating.  It was refreshing to wake up at a normal hour! The drive to the Oyster place was pretty twisty, I was so lucky they let me sit in the front.  I had very little motion sickness this time (phew!).  The Oysters were delicious and cheap! 50 bucks for 50 oysters nom.  It was pretty fun learning how to shuck! It was even better eating the oysters that you shuck, so gratifying.  My sauce of choice is lime with Tabasco sauce.

(left) The guys chillin; (right)Cherry's Butter Cheese Onion Oyster concoction

When we made the drive back, there were like 10 Miatas that suddenly showed up behind us! Made me want to take my car out on those roads one day.

Henry's Thanksgiving
On the drive back, Gary and I were talking about Henry's fried wontons.  His parents make them every year and they are damned good!  Henry's Turkey was amazingly moist and tender, I would have ate more! But unfortunately, towards the end, I was completely fatigued.  I wanted to sleep so bad, and their deliciuos vietnamese Iced coffee had no effect on me.  I should have went home to sleep, but everyone was down to hangout and I couldn't miss out on the fun!

We went back to Henry's place and played a bunch of Halo, and Buzz.  Alex and Kevin also brought their MMA gloves and.. we all partook in an activity which, due to the 1st 2 rules, I can't talk about it :)

By the time I got to sleep, it was like 3 o clock.  I woke up extremely groggy at 3 o clock the next afternoon! I thought it was just because I was so sleep deprived, so I went jogging with Gary to refresh myself and get rid of the Holiday Body haha.  WRONG.  Once I got home, I was so fatigued I plopped onto my bed and slept another 3 hours.  I totally have some kinda flu now.

Hookah

Since there was no Friday Thanksgiving Dinner, Henry invited me and Gary over for some Pho.  Damn it was good.  It rekindled my love for Pho (that Pho Garden took away).  I felt like going out tonight so I went with Gary to drink with his co-workers.

Cairo Nights

The first stop was Cairo Nights, a Hookah bar that is BYOB and food!  I only hookah'ed once in Bangkok and it was a great experience for me. Cairo Nights was another great, yet different experience.  When you walk in you immediately get greeted by Khalid, the energetic and friendly owner of the bar.  I was a bit confused by the BYOB because there's a sign on the door saying "Alcohol Prohibited".  Anyways, we have a beer and a wine on the table and Khalid comes by with: "No alcohol allowed!"  and "Bring your drinks to the back" all in one breath.  At the bar, he gives us coffee cups with lids and tells us to pour our drinks into them.  Haha, how awesome is that?  It was kinda like a secret speakeasy kinda deal. We had a lot of fun drinking, hookahing and blowing smoke bubbles.  I would definitely be back again with friends! Such a great and inexpensive night out.

Thanksgiving Weekend Fun

I just popped two Vick's Nyquil Gel Tablets (funny story about Nyquil that I read before) so that I can hibernate away this darned sickness.  So there's a good chance that you might see a "aoeu;esrughager" at the end of this post.  Hopefully, I'll be able to stay awake!

Thanksgiving Trifecta
Every year, Gary, Henry and I have a thing called the Thanksgiving Trifecta.  We each reserve a day on the Thursday-Saturday timeslot for our families' Thanksgiving dinners.  This way we all get to feast for 3 WHOLE days! How awesome is that?!  I was talking about it with Gary and it seems like we've been doing this for about 6-7 years in a row now.  Unfortunately, this year Gary and my dinners conflicted due to lack of foresight so we both had ours on Thursday.  Oh well, we all hung out this entire weekend and it was still a blast.  The only drawback to this 3day feast is...yep: Holiday Body.

Disappointment after dissapointment
After our dinners, everyone came over to my house and we played video games and Apples to Apples.  We all started to get food coma so we decided to go out for some coffee.  Haha this story is about Gary's dissapointments throughout the night. We ended up at  Creations in search of ice coffee or milk tea.  But we started looking through the menus and couldn't find the two! So Andy asks the waitress:

Andy: do you have milk tea?
Waitress: nope
Andy: what?! no nai cha?! how about coffee
Waitress: no we don't have
Gary looks through the menu: Can I have the sweet and sour radish?
Waitress: we ran out of that. (by this time we're all chuckling)
Gary: What?! no sweet and sour radish?! I'll have the black sesame porridge balls then (thinking that it was the white balls with black sesame filling).
Andrew orders: How's your house ice cream? is it good?
Waitress: No. (now we're dying from laughter, how can she say no!? lol)

The best part was when Gary gets his sesame porridge balls.  It came to the table looking like this:

Lol Gary's face was priceless when he got that bowl of black muck.  He was like "ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!" hahha.  Man there's some changes to be made at Creations.  That was such a bust for Gary that night lol.  Afterwards we went to 7-11 to get some coffee and... it was watery as hell (you could see through it).

Fun Random Night

I hope you had the time of your life

That was the song that I last heard from Andy's car (reminder: get Andy's CD), and we were karaoke-ing the hell out of it.  It also wasn't the only song that we karaoke'd.  We sang a crap load of songs throughout tonight.  Man today was a regular day that turned out to be one of the funnest random days I've had.  I wouldn't say it was the time of my life, but it was pretty damned awesome.  And I'm sure Andy, Gary, Henry and Kevin can vouch for this haha.


Mundane Morning
Morning for me these days is pretty much after 12PM haha so bad.  I was planning on going to this WIA orientation at one of the EDD One Stop Centers to find out more about government subsidized training, but... I arrived late.  Poo.  When I got to the area (that Market, Mission area that confused the hell out of me) I hella couldn't find the place.  So even if I had skipped my "morning" shower, I probably wouldn't have made it.  Oh well.  Henry got off early, and Gary took the day off and it was a sunny day so I wasn't really kicking myself.  We ended up playing Altered Beast and River City Ransom at my place, fun!

Four o' Clock Fro-yo

It was a pretty warm day for Autumn so we met up with Mel for fro-yo at Lakeshore Plaza.  Something like Nuubi Fro-Yo? I think it was new.  It was selfserve and I went way overboard on mine.  There were like 12 flavors! So I just went crazy.  I had 5 different flavors and 5 different toppings.  Total cost? $4.49  oops.  Next time I gotta control myself.

Spontaneous, Ambitious, Delicious
Hmm.. that spells SAD.  Which is what we would have been if everything didn't fall into place like it did tonight! (heh maybe)  So at Lakeshore, Henry get's the ambition to be spontaneous and buys a set of Boxing Gloves and Mitts too (relevance).  Here's when the day started getting fun.

I was originally planning to eat at home, but Andy mention's Chinos and cleverly lures me to eat at Henry's house.  We ate some, played some rockband, and we started boxing!  I had brought my gloves too, so now we had two sets.  Perfect for some light sparring.  This is what lured Kevin to Henry's house haha.  It was a lot of fun sparring with each other.  We got to test our own fighting skills (since training mitts don't really do that) and just randomly fought each other.  I felt so uncoordinated in a sparring match! And it's actually pretty hard to get a good hit on the other guy.  I think I fought Gary and Henry, and man when you get hit in the gut you feel it.  But the gloves give good enough protection to not do any lasting damage.  I'm so glad that everyone was so into it! Good investment.


Gary decided to go to Safeway and buy some Wine haha.  So random.  I felt like it turned into a Ladies Night: Men Edition.  Wine and Boxing? Great times!  While we were sipping on the Reisling (quite tasty, sweet and sour, i like!) Gary bought, we watched Man Vs. Food on the Travel channel.  I swear the host is going to die of some heart disease.  A 4 patty hamburger thats got the diameter of your head? That can't be good. 
 
Then this show Meet the Natives came on, and it was actually pretty entertaining and interesting!  It's about 5 tribal natives from an Island in the South Pacific coming over to the US to see what life is like here.  Those guys are so naturally funny, and they're really looking at our world with virgin eyes.  They described a sleeping bag as a "tube" and have never seen a snake (which one of them was terrified of ).  In a way, this show may be exploitive, but I think it's always interesting to see cultures mingle (why travelling is so fun!).  They were exposed to cattle ranchers, New Yorkers, and even "the Orange County people".  Man those people are so superficial it makes us look bad.  The OC'ers explained to the natives that they had a lot of mirrors around the house, because "you always have to make sure you look good in Orange County".  They even brought them to a Botox injection appointment, which was pretty cringe-worthy.

But the most interesting part were the questions that the tribe wanted to be answered during their 5 ambassador's vacation.

1. Why are we so obsessed with money and possessions?
2. Why do we allow pollution even though we know its bad? 
3. Why do we treat our pets better than some of our fellow citizens?
4. Is the United States still a peace keeper? Do we look out for others? 

Very interesting perspectives coming from a tribe that has never been exposed to our kind of society.  It's pretty cool how people exist in a society that is entirely untouched by "modern" technology.  It's also refreshing to see the happiness the guys had living a simpler life. 

It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!  So another food program comes on showcasing different unique restaurants around the country, and by now all our mouths are watering.  This one restaurant in LA I think serves only Peanut Butter Sandwiches.  Once we see the Peanut Butter/Marshmallow Fluff sandwich, we start looking at each other.  We're like fuck it, we gotta hit up Safeway again and make us some peanut butter sandwiches haha.  It was SO worth it! and this was when we were all buzzing from the wine.  We picked up bread, Peanut butter, Strawberry Jam, Marshmallow Fluff, Condensed Milk, Nutella, M&M's and Lactose-Free milk (to prevent Andy's lactose farts, which happened anyway).  Haha yea, we went all out on creating many different combinations of PB sandwiches.  I only had room for 1, so I made the PB and Marshmallow.  It was sooo delicious! Really hit the spot.  Some other combinations we made were: Jam and Marshmallow, Jam and Condensed milk, Jam, PB, and Marshmallow, and Andy's famous, PB, M&M's, condensed milk, and Jam.  (need to grab pictures from Henry's camera)


It's Karaoke Time!
Lol for some reason when we got back from Safeway with the sandwich ingredients, we were breaking into song left and right for the next of the night.  It was hilarious and felt great to belt out our favorite ballads.  I think we were buzzed and hyper from all the sugar.  Lol we were so ridiculous.  We also streamed Karaoke from Youtube on Henry's big screen TV.  I swear we never have to hit up a Karaoke place again. We sang 

• Unchained Melody - Oh, My Love, My Darling, I Hunger for your touch
  
• You've Lost that Lovin Feelin - You never close your eyes, anymore when I kiss your lips
  
• I'll Make Love To You - Close your eyes, Make a wish, and blow out the candle lights. 
• Nice and Slow - It's seven o clock on the dot, I'm in my drop top cruisin the streeets
  

Top Gun - You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin

Man it was so awesome, we let it all out with no care in the world!

Gary said it best: "Should this be a Thanksgiving tradition?" aha maybe, maybe not.  But I'm down for more nights like this.  Good clean random ass fun.

Today is Thanksgiving, and I'm thankful for all my friends (you know who you are!)

Sorry for such a long post haha.  I mostly write about events for myself to remember later down the road.  And today was a memorable day.  If you made it to the end, you are awesome!! 

Waste of Effort!

GoDMANIT

So today my goal was to apply to these two new positions posted by "Company".  I wanted to stand out so I decided to write two different cover letters for each position.  So I'm at Zephyrs at 9-11 diligently cranking out these cover letters and feeling good about myself.  Then when I get back home to check on the application status, I found out that their stupid online system only saves the most recent cover letter!!  For some reason they just delete your previous ones, what the heck.  I've written a total of 3 cover letters for "Company" because I was applying for 5 different positions!  How does that make any sense?  I put in my effort to handcraft each letter for a specific position, and they only take one?!  That's jacked up.  I wasted my time.  Now I have to write a generic one.  so lame.

Ninja Assassin (possible spoiler)

Just saw a free screener (Thanks Brian for the RSVP code) for Ninja Assassin at Westfield Mall.  We had a shitload of people (like 10+) with us this time.  While we were in line playing Blokus I overheard some girl saying that Rain (Korean Pop Sensation Superstar!) was coming?  I thought she was joking, but he actually showed up!  It was a total let down though because he showed up for like 5 seconds, waved, and left. wtf.  They wasted our time! and He came late so they stalled with this lame martial arts demonstration.  I swear kids playing patticake had more action than their "kung fu".  I want 20 minutes of my life back.

The movie was pretty entertaining, but was kind of mediocre.  The action and gore were the highlights of the film, and it was filled with a bunch of cliche cheesy action movie lines lol.  The lines actually made the movie funny to me.  It was like they made it corny on purpose to poke fun at the genre or something.  The most ridiculous part was when two of the ninjas (boy and girl who liked each other but had to keep it secret) were sleeping on the floor apart from each other, and they started synchronizing their heart beats and smiling.  They were having Ninja Sex! haha wtf

I'm gonna give this one a 5.5/10 (entertaining, wouldn't pay for it, wouldn't watch it again)

Tiesto Kaleidoscope @ the Cow Palace

What a great show!  It was everything I had expected from all that "Tiesto Training" that I got from Andy for the past two months haha.  When Kaleidoscope came on, I was in awe that I was actually there with the visuals playing in the background.  The only bad part of the show was that it ended so soon!  Tiesto was great! His set seemed seamless and time passed by so quickly.  It would have been awesome if he played till 4AM.  I spent most of the time on the dance floor this time with the lumberjack gals.  I thought it was awesome how they surprised Tiana for her birthday.  She totally thought that she couldn't make it to Tiesto because her buddy Holly (heh) from Oklahoma was in town.  But Holly was in on the whole thing too! 

Oh this time Henry bought these lightshow gloves and I was messing around with them on the dance floor and gave 3 of my friends (forgot who?) a ghetto light show lol.  Andy tells me later that I was actually doing it for 8 people including randoms!  pretty embarassing.

Highlight of the night was definitely seeing Brian and P there having a great time! haha it really made my day.  Wish I had more time to hangout with everyone in the stands.  Oh! and we finally got our Lafayette picture taken (stolen from Steph stolen from Henry):

Lafayette '97!

Chill Out
This time, Gary had a great idea for an afterparty at his house.  He had some spare mattresses in his garage so he just put them on the floor of his room.  They fit perfectly and his entire room was just mattresses (2 fulls 1 twin)  It was perfect and hella comfortable, just what I needed after Tiesto.  We just sat there reminiscing about the night and listening to songs with visualizers on his big screen TV.  Best chillout party.  I think I fell asleep around 7-8.  We had lunch later on at Pho Garden.  That place sucks.  Soup was bland, meat was chewy, noodles were dry.  Its a wonder people complete the pho challenge!

Tetris Attack, I Do Declare!

So ever since I got SNES on the Wii I've been revisiting my favorite game Tetris Attack.  I love it! It's so simple to pick up, but takes a lot of skill to master.  Been playing a lot with Wilton and Angel so far and it's been a lot of fun and I'm looking for more Tetris Attackers out there! (Alex, I'm calling you out)  Also heard from Andy that Melanie plays too, thats pretty awesome.  I wanna play more people to see where I'm at skillwise.  cus I've been watching some youtube vids, and damn.  Makes me look like a banana.

Seriously, are these people robots?!

So last Saturday after the lumberjack party, Gary (facial hair and all) starts talking to me in some southern ass accent like "I do declare" and "it just flows out of your mouth like sweet molasses" "there's been a muhder tonight".  I'm like wtf right?! I'm like hungover as hell and I don't know what to make of the man.  Then yesterday he shows me the clip of The Office where he got it from, friggin hilarious.  I only found a snippet of it on youtube:

Haha, I don't watch The Office much, but the entire episode was great though.. here it is on Hulu.  Watch it when you got free time! it's only 22 minutes

http://www.hulu.com/watch/107052/the-office-murder

Sincerely,
Chun Lick

PS. I'm still tipsy right now. 2 beers buzzed, 3 beers tipsy.

UCD Career Fair

Wow so refreshing to have some dialog with engineering companies!  Been feeling so alone and left out from the engineering world.  I'm glad I made it to the UCD career fair, even though it's far away.  Everytime I tell someone I was going to Davis for a career fair, they're like wow so far!  It's always great being in Davis for me, I mean it's so peaceful and calm there, and everything is walking distance.  The career fair was really helpful in terms of re-learning how to talk the interview talk.  The first 2 companies, I was nervous as hell, stuttering stanley and everything.  But I warmed up, and by the end of the day I had talked to about 20 companies.  It's still discouraging because most of the companies were there just for show.  There were only about 3 that were reaally hiring. 

I spoke to my old college recruiter Nicole from PG&E and 2 years ago, they were hiring like 50 engineers, last year 26.  This year? a big FAT zero.  ugh.  But it was cool seeing my fellow engineering buddies there, we're all hurting bad right now.  One dude got laid off as well! but he got married and he has to live with his parents with his wife now.  It's bad out there.  There was also this other guy that was complaining to the Boeing guy about how he never gets a call back from anybody.  This guy was so distressed it was like he was having an emotional breakdown.  Just kept on asking why why why?! It wasn't pretty.

I am so ready to work! hire me please, I'll make you rich!

Meteor Shower

Just came back from trying to see a Meteor Shower tonight with Andy.  The last time we tried to see one, it was foggy as hell and we couldn't see anything.  Tonight was a lot clearer, we went up to Land's End and could actually see a bunch of stars.  We were out there for almost an hour and I didn't see shit!  Andy saw two trails; the sky must hate me.  As I was laying there I heard a "seagull" noise, but.. seagulls don't come out at night right? Must have been something (or someone?) else haha.  Anyways, we were about to leave... and suddenly! I see a burst of light flying across the sky! ...It was Andy flicking his cigarette. 

Next time, sky.. next time.


Science Time:
So we were wondering if there was a difference between meteor showers and a falling star.  Turns out, they're the same.  Falling stars aren't stars.  They're caused by cosmic debris or rocks (meteoroid) entering the earth's atmosphere and burning up.  Cool.

Double Dressup Party Weekend

Just had a really fun weekend.  It's so much fun dressing up for parties, because everyone's in a silly mood having a grand ole' time. 

Lumberjack Party
So Gary got us these suspenders to go with our costumes, and when we first put them on they were WAY too tight.  We had to "pick a side" to get comfortable, if you don't understand its cool don't worry about it :)  It was funny because Andy was just wearing his regular everyday clothes, so it was pretty much a Dress Like Andy's party.  I love walking around in public in costume though, we went to Delano's to get some whiskey and beer and got some funny looks haha.  The house party was great! There were so many costumes that I didn't expect.  Like Tiana's bear costume! That was hilarious, she actually gutted a stuffed teddy (Albert?) and wore it like Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder. 

LumberJacks

With Forrest Gump, Babe, the Log, and Bear! Sweet costumes

90's Party
For Mel's bday we all dressed up 90's style and headed over to Club 1994.  The music was pretty friggin' awesome man, it was a really fun night.  It was fun singing along to all these middle school hits  "everymornin there's a halo hangin from the corner of my girlfriends four post bed"  "I...like.... big butts and i cannot lie you other brothers can't denyyy"  major karaoke fest, it was a blast!    There was also a bunch of friends and friends of friends out, which was awesome.

Highlights:
- Seeing Gary the Hoff's doppleganger (blondie wearing a red top)
- the boy band screams, it was like I was at a real concert
- Leslie rapping to Gangsta's Paradise, she's a G

Duct tape Wayne's World hat yayeerr..

Misc.

Haven't really had a main topic these days, but I got some notables!:

On Tuesday: 
Hung out with Andrew to watch the WSOP Final Table.  It was pretty damned amazing watching 21 year old Joe Cada win it all.  At one point he only had 2million chips with the blinds at 500k/1mill, so he was pretty much hanging by a thread.  In my view, he won this tournament because he was lucky, but congrats to him being a millionaire by 21 wow.

Got introduced to Metric by Anju!  Yea, a lot of people have been talking about them and I actually recognized some songs, but I never consciously listened to the lyrics.  But Cora's cursory analysis, opened my eyes (ears?) haha, i also learned some vocabulary reading that post haha.  Anyways, I shall be getting myself acquainted to Metric these couple of weeks.  (favorites so far: Help I'm Alive, Sick Muse, G G and G)

Wednesday: 
Had Kitaro for lunch with the Gary and went to Ross to pick out some Lumberjack wear for Tiana and Paula's House Partay.  It should be fun! Too bad I didn't grow out the facial hairs for 3 weeks like Halloween.  It's actually much more appropriate for this event! darn.

Accomplished one of my "goals" from way back!  I can now play SNES, NES, GENESIS games directly off of my WII!  I revisited some of my favorite games: Tetris Attack, Zelda: Link to the Past, Super Bomberman 5, and Rivercity Ransom.  Nostalgic funblastastic!

Thursday:
Lazy procrastination's got the best of me.  I gotta stop staying up till 3-4AM! I wanted to go down to Sunnyvale to finish step 2 (verification of UI benefits) and step 3 (talking to career counselor about the PM program), but apparently you have to show up before 10:30AM.  Otherwise they run out of time slots for the counselors.  I pretty much wasted my time and gas today for like 2 minutes to complete step 2 blah.  So.... who thinks I can wake up at 7AM tomorrow? hahaha

Sunnyvale and Warriors

Today, I went down to the NOVA center in Sunnyvale to try to enroll in this Project Management certification program that my cousin told me about.  Apparently, his buddy got laid off not so long ago and went to NOVA for this project management training program which is totally government subsidized. It'll be sweet to get certified for zero money, because I checked out SF State's similar program and it was like 500 bucks a course.  It's usually night and online courses, so during the day he just sits home and plays online poker and makes enough for his $1200 rent!  He also gets to collect unemployment insurance at the same time!  Anyways I'm trying to see if I can enroll in this program too, so I can get a leg up on my management qualifications while I have the free time.   So far it doesn't seem very fruitful, because the place just seems like some job search help center.  Cousin told me it's because they need people to sign up for the job search service to increase their funding for that center.  So they make people jump through hoops to get to the good stuff.  I'll probably go through the process for a week or two and see if it's legit.

Warriors!
I just came back from a Warriors game and they demolished the Timberwolves.  But, I knew they had to win for sure since the wolves suck ballz.  So, I dropped Azubuike from my fantasy league because he wasn't getting consistent minutes like two days ago.  and today, he decides to score 31 points!  Every single shot he made was like a dagger to my heart.  I was so conflicted sitting next to Henry in his Azubuike jersey! I didn't have the heart to tell him I dropped his main man during the 1st quarter.  But I eventually had to tell him, because I had to unload my guilty conscience haha. 

Fitness Fun, Fight Quest and The Fight

K, this one's going to be all about fighting, because I just came back from Gary's house and we were messing around on the Boxing gear that I got from a few posts back.  I'm glad that everyone that I showed them to were really into it, and I'm sure they'll get a lot of use.  Heck Andy, Henry and I were boxing buzzed after we left Supper Club haha, it was funny.  The first thing that comes out of everyone's mouth (including me) was "wow this feels great!"  Haha, I'm sure everyone has wanted to punch something sometime in their life, and it does feel great to let it all out without any consequences of injury.  and the cardio is a nice side effect :)

Fight Quest

I just finished all the episodes (13) of Fight Quest, a show that was on the Discovery Channel.  I don't know why it got canceled, but it's a great show.  The season follows two guys: Doug (Iraq Veteran) and Jimmy (former math teacher and MMA fighter) across the whole world trying their hands in different martial arts.  They pretty much get a 5 day crash course where Masters train the hell out of them, and they end each episode duking it out with a native fighter.  It is really fascinating to learn about all the unique technical and cultural differences between each fighting style.  What I like best is that these guys have such humble attitudes and aren't out to "show up" other styles in their native settings.  They really put their hearts into learning each art, and have a never-give-up attitude.  The fighting is so raw and educational at the same time!  My favorite styles from the show are Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Wing Chun, Kajukenbo, and Hapkido.  If you're into MMA, I would definitely recommend this series. 

The Fight 
So the fight is coming up soon during Christmas between me and Dillon.  I don't really care right now what the outcome is, but I'm really happy about the lead up to the fight.  This is because I have never worked out so consistently in my life.  It's always been 2-4 weeks on, 1-2 months off (repeat).  I want to have a fight to look forward to maybe like twice a year haha.  I talked about hundredpushups, twentypullups before, and I'm actually sticking to the 6 week program! Sure it's taken me like 10 weeks to get to week 6, but I'm there now!  I haven't tried maxing out my pushups, but I made my personal best in pullups a couple days ago.. 17! I was stuck at 12 for the longest time, and I really wanted to get up to 20 (so I can get a free Marine's T-shirt at one of their booths haha... maybe when that happens there will be another blog contest for the t-shirt?)  But yea, I feel really good right now and I think by Christmas I should be in the best shape of my life!

DSL drama and Bizarre Happy-Ending!

OIAHF:OEIFAEF:OAJFI!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about that. But it's 4AM, an ungodly hour to scream in real life.  I just can't contain my excitement right now so I'm having trouble sleeping.  So....Here's what happened (Warning: lengthy nerd talk ensues):

DSL Drama
So the past few days, I've been having a shitty unstable DSL connection that would crap out ONLY at night.  My DSL has had random periods of solid connection, but spurts of disconnecting for many years now and I have never been able to resolve it completely.  The only thing I've noticed is that it always happens at night. 

So I call the Sonic.net support rep a few times, and every time they keep telling me: "Sir your line seems fine"  "please check your filters blah blah"  "reset modem, reset router, reset computer" (reset this <^>(-_-)<^>!!!) and we could never figure the damned problem.  On Monday, support guru "John" tells me I should probably switch out the modem and see what happens.

By now, my patience has worn thin, so I head to Best Buy the next day and buy a complete set of Modem and Router.  I never buy electronics from retail stores, but I was fed up and needed a solution QUICK.  Luckily Angel's cousin was working there and I got a discount to lessen the pain :)  It was a nice router though, because it had NAS support (Network Attached Storage) so that I could access a USB harddrive from anywhere in my house (and maybe outside my house too!)  I was so happy.   I plug everything in that night, and man everything was so snappy, solid connection, cool features = BLISS.  I've never had a network up and running by just plugging things in.  This was a great sign, and money does buy happiness haha.

The Belkin N+ router, the answer to all my prayers?

wtf.
So this setup is running great until Wednesday, when the guys were over after we went to the Exploratorium.  We exhausted our burritos, boxing, and Mario Kart and got bored as hell, so...let's just look at stuff online! (SCREEEECH!) Internet is dead again.  wtf.  I just dropped 100+ on a new network and it conks out on me.  I'm just floored.  Morgan tells me about his similar DSL problems, and said it was due to worn out rubber around the phone lines outside his house.  Hey! maybe that's it!  I call Sonic again, so that I could have them send a guy over, but they are assuring me that there's nothing wrong with the line.  At that time, the DSL is working again so I just hangup and give up for the day. 

Then God said, "Let there be Light" and there was light, but my DSL got the died.

Today, I finally found the problem to all my white hairs and pimple outbreaks.  I turn on the ultra-bright Halogens in my room downstairs before I went to sleep, cus they're right next to my bed.  That way I can turn them off with my foot once my head hits the pillow.  Internet Dies. (oh here we go again).

Then a crazy idea pops into my head: "what if the lights are causing the DSL blackout?"
I turn off the halogens. YouTube Loads.
Turn on the halogens. YouTube freezes.
Halogens Off....  Hilarious cat video.

...oh my god.

The halogen lights were like death rays to my DSL connection.  Like an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) just like in The Matrix! or Starcraft!

haha reminds me of the light switch Friends episode:

Fast forward to 3:20 for relevancy

Retrospective Reflection and Research

• Felt like I wasted my 100+ on the new network, but hey, this new router is pretty cool so I'm gonna keep it.  Still happy! Plus, my old modem was borrowed 10 years ago from a friend.
  
• Parents tell me this DSL problem started happening again only a few days ago.  The room that I'm sleeping in now used to be used as storage.  I used to sleep in the top bunk of my brother's room until I got fed up with his 5:30AM alarm clock that he doesn't hear until 7AM!!?  So I cleared out this storage room, set up my bed, and unknowingly turned on the Death Rays. 
• DSL gets flaky not just b4 I sleep, but also around 7:30PM (dinner time).  We also use Halogens with dimmer switches in our kitchen. 
• But how do these Halogen dimmer lights affect the DSL?  It took me so many years to find out because the lights were never in the same room as the modem or router!
  

The Answer: Science
Here's what I found researching online:


Some DSL modems are overly sensitive to RFI (radio frequency interference). Lighting dimmer switches and/or electronic (non-magnetic) power supplies for halogen lighting are a common source of such interference. The result can be a degradation of DSL performance or even a complete loss of DSL sync, even when the source of the interference is not in close proximity to the DSL modem (because the interference can be not only radiated, but also conducted through building wiring).



Old phone lines? nope.  Moisture at night affecting the external phone lines? nope.

Who woulda thunk it?

As Bill Nye the science guy says it: Science Rules.

So... if you guys have erratic behavior with your DSL, it could be your lights!

Exploratorium Day

Went to Exploratorium on a whim today with Morgan, Mark, Jason, and Andy.  I rarely hang out with those guys and it was a great time out.  Plus, it was free (1st wednesday baby!)  Exploratorium is just one of those places that you can let loose, have fun and explore.  Another great place like that is the Antique arcade (http://www.museemechanique.org/) at Fisherman's Wharf (yep they moved it from Sea Cliff).  Just going once in a while is refreshing and nostalgic.


Favorite and Notable stations:
1. Getting your fingers shocked station (this is my long time favorite, I just like getting shocked for some reason o_O)
2.  Lie Detector station  - this was a new one! it reads your sweat level from 2 fingers and shows if you're getting excited or not.  Pretty hilarious when we told someone to picture Andy naked and the excitement graph shot way up! haha
3.  The mirror float station & wall snapshot station - oldies but good clean fun!
4.  Scare Station - You sit in a booth that does something to startle you and you get to watch your reaction, pretty hilarious.  Too bad Andy ruined my session by scaring me b4 the actual scare thing.
5.  Reaction Time game - Competition is fun!
6. Oh yea... the Toilet Bowl drinking fountain really did make me hesitate.  It was saying how even though its completely clean drinking fountain, you'll want to yack just because you have certain preconceptions about toilets. Not Andy though. Not Andy. He drank from the bowl, impressive!

Shoulda brought a camera. The End.

Post-Halloween Post

Been on a mini-blog-posting hiatus because life has been hectic, but good hectic.  Now that I finished taking the GRE's I can post again.

(10/29)Drove back from Eugene starting at 10:30PM !! and we got back to sweet ole' San Franciso at 6:30AM (its great to be back).  The drive was a lot more fun with Dillon and David there.  We actually saw the moonset! I don't think I ever noticed the moon setting before and I wish we had a decent camera.  It just sat there on the horizon getting flatter and flatter; kind of like a ball slowly losing air, pretty cool and funny.  There was also this one stretch of road where there were no cars so i just opened the sun roof.  It was pitch black and the stars were amazing, you could almost get lost in them (not trying to be poetic or nothin', it really felt like that!)  Too bad it was dangerous to look at them for more than a second while driving.  Lucky Dillon and David!!

Spookfest EVIL105

Dillon was cookie monster!! I wanted to be cookie monster last year, but didn't know how.. Angel was Quailman, I was Odlaw >:] and David was a Sumo wrestler.  They were all huge hits amongst the peoples but David's was freakin' golden:

It was the first time my cousins have been to an event like this, and they were stoked!  And boy were they in for a big surprise...when we were waiting in line, we witnessed this one girl in leopard print relieving herself IN LINE 3 FEET AWAY FROM US.  I'm sorry they had to see that, and I'm pretty sure that set the tone for them for the rest of the night.  We finally made it in and saw everybody else, it was good to see everyone again and in awesome costumes nonetheless.  Andy and V's Mickey and Mallory was superb! 

Right when we walk into the palace, I just realized that it was pretty much a Rave haha.  So I turn to Dillon and David "uhh.. welcome to your 1st rave?".  Then almost immediately after that, a druggie comes up to David..:"Dude.. you got any pills on you? any Acid?" lol it was gonna be an interesting night for them.
Later on...
Druggie #2 looks at David in his Sumo costume: "Hey man! you got any drugs in there?"
David: "nope"
Druggie#2: "Man, thats too bad.  You coulda fit a shit load of drugs in there" lol
Dillon also tells me he saw some guy freaking out in the bathroom yelling "OMG somethings wrong with my hands"

Yea, it was pretty shocking stuff for them haha, I hope they had a good time.  I'm sure David did.  That sumo costume caught so much attention from girls it was ridiculous.  It would take forever to walk across the place with him, because they all wanted pictures with him.  Dillon on the other hand, attracted much attention from guys haha.  There were these 3 guys that thought he was the DJ from Crystal Method (cus he was also in cookie monster costume) and wanted pictures and autographs from him haha.

Henry was my arch nemesis, Waldo.  He told me that he got pinched in the ass many times.  I, on the other hand, had recognition issues. No one knew who the hell I was! haha I guess I can't blame them, cus I didn't even know of Odlaw until a month ago.  Some funny quotes of the night:

"OmG! you're a bumble-bee too!! :)" umm.. sure?
"Look its BEE MAN!! BEE MAN!!"  I'm not a bee!!!
"You're the most awesome Waldo in this place!" Thanks! Not waldo tho.
"Dude.. so.. are you supposed to be like.. the Asian Waldo?"  -_-'

Finally, someone who gets it :)

Best music of the night was definitely Infected Mushroom.  I saw the cousins get into it rocking out, and saying "yea you were right, they are awesome live."  Then in the car ride back Dillon goes: "To be honest, the music the whole night sounded exactly the same to me" (face-palm).

Oh yea! forgot, favorite costumes we saw:

Isn't that awesome? a group of friends dressing up as Street Fighters, they looked great.
And the next night, I saw this guy in a laundry basket with dirty clothes.  I dono why, but it was my favorite for the night haha. 
But my facebook favorite, or favorite of all time was Szeto's Sriracha. awesome.
http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs063.snc3/13047_863994011923_1211500_48542444_3412629_n.jpg