Life As Joseph Y. Chen

People often say to me, "Joe, you got it made. Good looks, millions of dollars in stock holdings, and Britney Spears stickers in your wallet." To this, I usually reply, "Yah, I know."

Actually, nobody has ever said anything remotely like that to me in my life. And I don't really have millions in stock holdings.

But anyways, since I havent written anything in about a week, I thought I would drop down some of what has been going on in the wild and wacky world of dudo509.

I've finished about 4 weeks at the new job already. Life is becoming routine, which is good and bad. Good, in that I have regular sleep and eating schedules, and I feel healthier than I have been in a long time. Bad, in that I miss the freedom and chill atmosphere of school. Basically, this is my day in a nutshell:

[6:30-7] Wake up
[7-8] Drive to work. Listen to morning radio shows, which are all basically made of a bunch of crank calls by the hosts with a little bit of music sprinkled in here and there. Kind of dumb and pointless if you think about it, but I listen anyways. Sometimes I learn interesting facts. Did you know that some civilizations used shells or corn cobs before toilet paper was invented? sweet...
[8-4:30] Work. Eat lunch. Talk to my coworkers about sports. Work.
[4:30-5:30] Drive home. Listen to my CDs or my Rio because I don't feel like hearing that Nelly and Kelly song or some Eminem song that is on every station every 5 minutes. Although me and Olivia are planning to go see 8 Mile because we are ghetto. Actually just her.
[5:30-6] Talk to people on IM, Check email, Read ESPN.com Page 2
[6-7] Eat dinner. Sit down and chill for a bit.
[7-10] Watch football/lift/write blogs/read blogs/talk on IM
[10-10:15] Make my lunch: a turkey or roast beef sandwich, a bag of chips, a pack of Capri Sun (or can of Sprite if I'm feeling extra spicy), and some fruit that my mom secretly shoves in my lunch bag when I'm not looking
[10:15-11] Shower and get ready for bed
[11-11:30] Sleep

(actually, this is my day in a nutshell: "help! I'm in a nutshell! how did I get in this bloody great big nutshell? what kind of shell has nuts like this? this is crazy...")

Basically, if I decide to do something with a friend on any weeknight, that wipes out pretty much anything else I would normally do on that night. Makes me appreciate weekends that much more, which is exactly what some working folk told me before. I am thinking that eventually I am gonna have to move closer, which will save me up to 2 hours a day.

The drive kind of sucks. I hate stop and go traffic, it makes me irrational and irritable. Like, I know it's not the fault of the car in front of me, but I start hating whatever car is in front of me because it keeps stopping. Unless the car in front of me is a G35 sedan, of course, but I haven't seen too many of those on the street. Yay for me, I like having a semi-unique car. I guess Maximas and M5s are also exempt from my irrational anger. But anyways, I am really surprised that more rear-end accidents don't happen. At least 2 or 3 times a day, I have to slam on my brakes because traffic suddenly goes from 60 mph to 2 mph. That ain't cool.

So this past week was the birthdays of 2 of my favorite people in this world, which was part of the reason for cramping my blogging flava. It's all good though. Thursday was Olivia's 22nd. Yes, she is a Halloween baby. I never celebrated Halloween before, it seemed like a dumb thing that white people made up because they were bored and scaring themselves seemed like a good idea. Then I realized when I went to Taiwan that Asians do that kind of crap too.

But yeah, I still don't celebrate Halloween, though the day is now a day of horror which I dread for weeks or months in advance. I suck at buying gifts, it's so hard figuring out what to get for her. I wish that her gifts for me sucked, so I wouldn't feel bad if my gift for her sucked. It's too bad she has to be the most thoughtful person in the world and notice things I say which I don't even realize I said, picking up all these awesome gift ideas along the way.

For her birthday, we went to eat at Rosebud on Thursday night. It's a pretty good restaurant, good food, nice atmosphere and not that ritzy or expensive. I hear that her friend who used to work there would see Italian mafia-looking guys come in and head towards the back room with some suitcases, that's pretty cool if it's true. Oh yeah, it's the original Rosebud on Taylor, don't blame me if you go to one of the other ones and it sucks.

Friday I went to dinner with her and her friends, then the Bulls game. It was the home opener against the New Orleans Hornets and we sat in literally the last row. So I couldn't tell if Candice was among the Luvabulls. She is on the website though, so I guess the rumor is true. Bulls won, even though Jamal Crawford and Marcus Fizer blow. It's been awhile since we started a season 2-0, but I don't think we should get too excited just yet.

Then Saturday was the P-man's birthday. We watched Jackass, which was hilarious except for a couple parts which were downright wrong. Watching a movie like that is twice as funny when you are with people who appreciate crass humor. I was kind of mad for getting asked for ID twice (once at the ticket booth and once by the guy who rips your stub), but then I talked to Caddy and she told me how she got carded for the Nutty Professor (PG-13) so I don't feel so stupid. Then, we went out for a bit and I saw a whole bunch of the old peeps from U of I. Pretty nice, made me miss school a little more.

It seems like a lot of people have birthdays around this time. I guess January and February were the times when our moms and dads needed to keep each other warm the most, twenty-some years ago. eeewwwwwww

I don't think the concept of a birthday is that meaningful, and I personally don't care if nobody even says happy birthday to me on my birthday. My ideal birthday would be to sit around and not be stressed about anything. But birthdays are still good to celebrate, because everybody has one, and it's like one day of the year where you can kind of show appreciation to a friend that you don't usually appreciate the rest of the year. Kind of in a Mother's/Father's Day sense. But it's weak if they try to milk it for all it's got, like make people buy them dinner and drinks for a whole week and demand awesome presents. Good thing I don't know anyone like that though.

Ah, I got off track from what I was originally writing about, like always. That's my life though, aren't you all jealous? Women want me, men want to be me...