Needing A Break

It's been pretty busy lately for me, both at work and outside of work. I feel like I haven't really had a chance to sit down and unwind for about the last week or so, which is not a good thing. I'll try to recap a little bit here, with some help from my phone camera wherever possible.

- Mother's Day, had the parents over at the townhouse for some dinner. My sister cooked a great meal, and I tried to chip in my part by grilling some kalbi on the deck. The food turned out pretty delicious, maybe a little too delicious. I was watching some of the videos we took from that day and realized that I look like kind of a slob when I eat. I know I've been eating a LOT lately (maybe this will have be its own blog entry), but seeing myself eat reminded me of pigs feeding from a trough, to be honest. So if I have offended any of you in the past who have had to watch me eat with no manners, I apologize. I will try to not be as rude in the future.

- Went to a Sox game last week, the one that ended up being postponed due to rain. It wasn't a complete waste, because we got to watch the Bulls game on the big screen (Game 5, where they were hitting all their shots and won) during the delay. Also got to eat some Polish sausages and churros, which are excellent at US Smellular Field. And the White Sox were nice enough to offer an extra make up game and refund the money for parking. I've heard that the White Sox are one of the more professional organizations, corporate wise, around Major League Baseball (certainly better than the greedy, money gouging Tribune company), and from personal experience, I wouldn't dispute that.



- Did some shopping for my sister's b-day gift and card. I noticed that the employees at Dick's Sporting Goods are not very helpful or knowledgeable. It's also much harder to find a green iPod nano than I would have expected.

Another thing was when I was looking for a birthday card, there was a section specifically with b-day cards "For Sister". Browsing through some of those was kind of disturbing actually. I don't know what kind of relationship other people have with their sisters, but I do not see myself getting her a card with a picture of some guy in a speedo, or a joke about buying her breast implants. But hey, that's just me. Different strokes for different folks.

- A few weeks ago, when the first round of the playoffs was just starting, Andy bought tickets for Bulls "Home Game #3" for the second round (since it was hard to get tickets to the other games). When the Bulls fell behind 0-3 to the Pistons, the chances of there being a 3rd home game didn't look too promising. But then they actually won the next two to force a game 6, so his little investment paid off and I got to watch a Bulls playoff game in person for the first time.



Too bad traffic was so horrible that it took over 2 hours to get to the city. Food at the UC is definitely not as good as at Sox games either, so that didn't help. And then the game was almost as miserable to sit through, with missed open shots and stupid turnovers all night long. It was definitely sad and frustrating to watch them get eliminated, but I think there's reason to hope for a better run next year. Especially if they get a little lucky in the draft lottery tonight...

- Weekend was pretty much tied up with activities relating to Brian and Grace's wedding. I wasn't in the wedding, but helped out as an usher. Rehearsal dinner was at one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in the burbs, House of Emperor of Naperville (I call it "HOE" for short). I love their Peking duck.

The wedding itself was really nice. The church was beautiful, ceremony was really emotional, and I think everyone had a lot of fun at the reception. I'm really happy for them and just want to wish the newly married couple the best, in case they're reading this on their honeymoon (Grace, you will definitely be missed as a housemate, of course).



- Sunday, ate a LOT (big surprise, note that food is a running theme in my life these days). My mom and dad are all about Royal Buffet around Darien, so with my sister's boyfriend in town, they took us there for lunch. Royal gets a lot of hype among the Asian community, and I agree it's a great deal for the price - but I can't say I'm personally a huge fan of that place. It's still a big step below the Vegas buffets if you ask me. I'd rather pay more for a little higher quality food, and a lot classier atmosphere (where I'm the only one eating like a pig).

For dinner, more feasting was had in downtown Naperville at Tango as the CCMC people got together for my sister's bday. It was good food, but I didn't do much to dispel my reputation as a sloppy eater. I have a shirt speckled with pasta sauce stains to prove it. Thanks to Jeni, though, I do have a newfound respect for that Tide to Go marker thing.



- Watched Spiderman 3 on IMAX. I thought it was a pretty good movie, cheesy at parts but that was expected. I wasn't that huge of a fan of the first 2 anyways, I'm a bigger fan of the X-Men series personally.

I think this was the first movie I've watched in IMAX. It was cool, but I kind of thought it would be more spectacular. Maybe I was picturing something more like the OMNIMAX theater at the MSI, which I remember being in awe of when I was a kid going there on field trips. I wonder if they've improved that technology at all since then. Considering it was at least 10-15 years ago when I last went, maybe I should check out OMNIMAX again sometime soon to see if they made it even awesomer. Then again, they probably only use it to show educational crap. What a waste.

- Took my sis to the Sox vs. Oakland game on her real birthday. It was half-price night, and I do think the crowd is noticeably more rowdy and less classy on these discount nights. If I'm not mistaken, it was also a half-price night when those guys ran on the field and attacked the ump a few years ago.



One thing from the game that made me mad is, I heard someone making fun of Oakland fans by changing "Oakland A's" to "Oakland Gays". Not because I care for the well being of opposing fans at our stadium (I don't). I was upset because usually I'm pretty good at thinking of obscene/derogatory nicknames for things, and I completely missed the boat on that one. I can't believe I didn't think of the obvious one (I was personally going with "Jokeland" for most of the night, which is still clever in its own right, but comparatively wack).

My sister, bless her heart, tried to reassure me by suggesting that "Oakland Gays" was too easy for my level of expertise. I'd really like to believe that, because I should really be in the prime of my derogatory nickname career at this point in my life. It's way too early for my skills to be declining already.

I'm Dumb

One of the problems I have is with mistaking the words to a lot of songs. I'm guessing everyone has had done that at one point or another, but I doubt yours are as dumb as mine. Not sure if it's because I'm getting too old to relate to the "hippity hop" that kids listen to these days, or if I need to clean out my ears. Maybe my brain just lacks a "common sense" filter.

Here are a few examples I can think of:

1. "Half a million for the scones" (stones -> stones) - Ludacris, From Fergie's song, "Glamorous"



First of all, I really doubt that Ludacris eats scones on a regular basis. Call me crazy, I just don't see him as a big fan of British pastries for some reason. Secondly, even if he did like scones, who pays half a million dollars for them?

Yet for a long time, I still actually thought that was what he said, until I stopped to think about how little sense it made. Amazing.

2. "Reminiscing on days when I had a mustache" (mustache -> Mustang) - Fergie, from the same song




Ok, so technically, I know she doesn't say she has a mustache in this song. But every time I hear that part, I half expect her to say "mustache". Honestly, out of all the examples I'm listing, this one might be the most realistic. I'm sorry to all the people out there who think Fergie is hot, but I must vehemently disagree. In the words of Austin Powers, "she is rather mannish". I could definitely see her having a mustache at some point in her life.

3. "I got a Ford Focus, man" (I'm full of focus, man) - 50 Cent, In Da Club



Most rappers brag about owning Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys, Mercedes, Lexuses, etc. I actually thought 50 Cent was just trying to be unique by bragging about having a Ford Focus. Who knows, maybe it was really souped up version, or a rare hybrid edition or something. Haha, I'm an idiot.

4. "Addicted to Hello Kitty" (Addicted to how we kick it) - Bow Wow, Shorty Like Mine



Not sure how I rationalized this one. Maybe his girlfriend was a really big Hello Kitty fan, and he really liked that about her.

5. "Ya'll can't deny it, I'm a pumpkin rider" (I'm a f___in', rider) - Nate Dogg, from Fabolous's song, Can't Deny It



This one wasn't my mistake, I think it was actually my sister or one of her friends. But I thought it was hilarious and had to share it here. Plus, I can't believe I actually found a picture of a pumpkin rider.

Update

Looks like it's been several months since my last update to this blog. Not sure if anyone still checks this page, but some of you out there may be wondering what happened to me?

Don't worry, you're not alone - I've been wondering the same thing.

The truth is, there's a lot that's been going on in my life during the past year, and it would probably take way more than one blog entry to cover it all. I'm not sure that I'm ready to talk about everything at this point, anyways. But I did feel the pull to write a little something here right now, for whatever reason.

I started this blog way back in 2002, and I guess in the 5 years that's passed since then, I've kind of lost track of the reasons why I decided to put the time effort into this thing to begin with. Part of it was to stay in touch with friends, to give people a little window into what's going on in my world. I also tried to use it as kind of a creative outlet for myself, to talk about random stuff outside of work and hopefully keep my writing skills sharp in the process. The last thing I wanted was to become another stiff enginerd with no sense of humor, no social skills, no clue on what's going on in the world outside of op-amps and transistors.

But I think mainly, I saw this blog as an informal record of my life after college, a way to store up some memories about who I was and how my life was developing throughout my 20's. Kind of like being able to look back at a photo album and re-live parts of your life, I'd hoped to be able to look back at my blog and recall what it was like to be "me" at different stages of my life.

Which is why it's kind of ironic (and sad) that I haven't written at all in since last year. Out of all the years of my life, I think the past 12 months of my life have been the most challenging and filled with changes. Yet, I have not really written much about it so far. The thing is, I can feel myself growing a lot as a person, and a lot of things about my life have been changing. But it definitely has not come without a lot of growing pains to go with it. I've been telling people that I feel like I've aged 10 years in only a matter of months, and that's honestly what it feels like for me.

I know it is annoying that I'm basically writing only in general terms, but as I mentioned earlier, I don't know if I'm ready to talk much in detail about everything of the past year or so. I'm still trying to sort out a lot of feelings on my own and hopefully in time, I'll feel comfortable being more open again to share my life and thoughts on this blog.

Anyways, for those that care and still read this blog, yes I am still here. I can't promise I'll be back to writing regularly like before, but I will try to post more again soon.

For now, here's a picture I took today at the Asian supermarket: