- Happy Bdays to Amol and Anuj

- Thanks again to Rich, Vira, and Olivia for taking care of a spitting, puking 145 pound rock this weekend. I still don't know what exactly was in those 2 beers and 3 shots at Transit, but in my entire life my body has never reacted the way it did to those 5 drinks on Saturday. I'm not talking about just that night, but the entire day after and even up through this morning. Not that it makes it ok, but I know I have had 3 or 4 times as many drinks as that during more than a few experiences in the past, and not once have I ever:

1. Had completely no memory of significant portions of the night. I'm talking zero recall at all, and not even a sense of familiarity even when people tell me exactly what happened or specific things I said and did.

2. Continued to feel sick for more than 24 hours afterwards. It hasn't felt anything like a normal hangover either (I've had my share of those), but an entirely debilitating feeling of being bedridden for a whole day, while not being able to eat or drink much of anything at all.

So yeah, I don't know if there was something bad in those drinks (other than Miller Lite, 3 Wise Men, or Jaegar), or if I ate something bad earlier in the day, or if I'm just getting too old for any drinking at all. Maybe my liver is collapsed and shriveled or something. But honestly, I don't know how I could have avoided that experience. I think the only way to be sure that never happens again is to cut off alcohol completely. Or at least cut off taking any shots. I don't know what I'll decide to do, but I really don't want to ever go through something like this weekend ever again (let alone put my friends through it with me), so I'm definitely gonna have to make some changes.

- On a lighter note, I hate UPS. They tried delivering a package to my house 3 times and no one was there to sign for it, so they sent a notice in the mail telling me to pick it up. I get the notice about 2 days before the date is listed when it will get returned to sender. So I call the number asking them to forward the package from Westmont (near Darien) to the UPS center in Palatine (which is literally about 1 minute away from the townhouse here). The stupid lady on the phone tells me they can't do that. I'm like, how worthless can a shipping company be, if it doesn't have the ability to even ship a package from one of its own centers to another??

So eventually, I give up on that effort and ask if the lady can just hold the package there for a little bit longer than 2 days, since it's not easy for me to get to Westmont before their daily closing time. She says fine, and extends the Return to Sender date a week. Finally, I find a day when I can go to the stupid Westmont UPS center after work, driving about 50 mins to get there. This is when the high school kid working there informs me that the manager at their location is especially strict about not letting people extend the Return to Sender date. Thus she decided to send it back anyways, overriding my request to extend that date.

In the end, I wasted hours of my time with nothing to show for it. I've given up on getting whatever this package that "Citibank" wants to send me because of all the frustration that they caused me.

- One thing I've been wondering about Donald Trump, why in the world is he doing endorsements? What can they possibly be paying him, a man supposedly worth billions of dollars, to make it worth his while to do a Verizon commercial or whatever? You'd think that to a guy who's used to building huge skyscrapers and owning casinos, getting paid a few million bucks would seem like chump change.

- A quick update on Parry Shen, he says that he'll be at U of I to speak on April 27th (next Tuesday). I won't be able to make it (gotta work), but I'm just letting people know in case they are still interested in going.

Longest Voicemail Ever

A few days ago, I got the longest voicemail of my life. Apparently it was left by a bunch of my idiot friends using someone's conference call feature and then deciding to have an entire conversation with each other while on my voicemail. I deleted it right away, so I'm probably forgetting a lot of the message, but the following should be enough to give everyone the gist of how retarded some of my friends are.

You have 1 unheard voice message. To play your message press 1
[I press 1]
Will: Dudo...
Andy: Dudo....
Shubes: Dudo...
John: Dudo....
Will: We're going to Dakota's in Schaumburg, meet us there
Andy: Yeah meet us there you lil bitch
Will: We got a special appearance by your old friend Peepo tonight
John: And Barbario might be there
Shubes: Oh wait, isn't he playing cards at Dave's tonight
Andy: Should we go play cards first then and go to Dakotas after?
Will: No, I'm not gonna play cards tonight
Shubes: Why not?
Will: I only like cards on Thursday, people drink on Thursday
Andy: Ok no cards then, lets just meet in Schaumburg
Will: Alright whose house should we meet at
Andy: Who has a bigger driveway?
John: I don't know
[about a minute's worth of arguing about driveways]
Andy: Jim are you even coming out?
Shubes: I don't know yet, I gotta do taxes
Andy: Man, just have your mom do your taxes for you
Will: No just go to [some tax website], it's free
Shubes: Nah man, just call me later, I'll come out if I can get my taxes done
Andy: Shibby. You pussy...
[another minute of Andy trying to convince Shubes to come out]
Will: Yo we're still on Dudo's voicemail
Andy: Hahaha oh yeah... I think we should go to Dave's first, then it'll be easier to get Dudo to go out
Will: I don't wanna play cards yo
Andy: Why not you shibby
Will: I told you, nobody drinks unless it's Thursday night
[another minute of mindless arguing amongst themselves]
Andy: Haha we're still recording on Dudo's voicemail
Shubes: How long has it been
Andy: Like 5 minutes
Will: So what we doing?
Andy: Let's just go to Dakota's, where we meeting at?
[voicemail finally cuts off]
To delete this message, press 7
[fastest pressing of 7 I've ever done for any voicemail]

I look at my phone, time of call was 5:33. I still can't believe I listened through a 5 minute long voicemail.

*****

Since everyone else has been quoting Chappelle, I'll throw in my favorite from the Wayne Brady episode: "Ohhh no, no, noooo.... is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?"

Haha.... hilarious.

*****

I almost let myself believe that maybe this year, Billy Krotch would not suck. Sure didn't take him long to blow up, that's all I can say. Thankfully we came back to win that game, bless Joe Crede and his crappy skills. And as I'm typing this blog, Magglio just jacked one to give my beloved White Sox their second straight last-at-bat victory. I LOVE BASEBALL

Notes

- This morning I remembered that I get this Friday off. Short weeks always make me happier than long weeks. It sure is gonna be a "Good Friday" indeed. I'm going to be making some form of that lame joke every year, so better get used to it.

- Got home from work yesterday to catch the horrific end of the 2004 White Sox season opener. The adventures of Billy Krotch continue, and I guess his crappiness spread to Dumbasso Marte during the offseason, as I watched them two blow a 7-3 lead and go on to lose 9-7 by giving up 6 combined runs, all in the bottom of the 9th. Not a good start to the season, and why do I have the sinking feeling that there's plenty more of those groin-wrenching moments to come? Better get used to it.

- Barry Bonds is awesome. I can't say that enough. When he plays, it seriously is like he is the only pro and everyone else is a little leaguer. Now, maybe he's on steroids and maybe he's not, but I don't care how many steroids someone takes, you still need a ton of skill and talent to do what this guy does. And if he has been roided out all this time like everyone says he is, why hasn't he flamed out with injuries yet? Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, and Ken Caminiti all had good seasons too, but they couldn't sustain their success. Bonds is almost 40 years old, been putting up crazy numbers consistently for a while now, and still more dominant than ever. By the way, with baseball season underway, I will definitely be talking baseball and fantasy baseball here a lot more. Better get used to it.

- After about 4 years with a Capital One Visa as my only credit card, I decided to get an American Express Blue card too. This was partly spurred on from an experience a few weeks ago at Neiman Marcus when I was paying for Olivia's lip balm and they wouldn't take my Visa. What kind of backwards place doesn't take Visa? Well I didn't have any of the accepted cards the lady listed, and the only names I even recognized were Diners Club and American Express. It was only a few bucks so I paid it in cash at the time, but after that experience I vowed never to let those "hoity-toity" (Olivia's phrase) people get the better of me again. So I added American Express to my arsenal. The other benefit of this new card is that now I finally have a card where I earn some rewards (instead of getting absolutely nothing back for my purchases with that stupid Capital One Visa).

Unfortunately, the addition of this new card also means my wallet has grown even fatter and heavier than it already was. I already looked through it and there's not much I can take out. Definitely not getting rid of my Britney Spears stickers. So I guess fat wallet is here to stay. Better get used to it.

*****

Playing For Fun

Reading Rich's blog last week reminded me of what it was like to play kids games back in the day. And it made me think about how much our games and our idea of fun has changed since we got older.

Like when I tried to recall and explain the rules of Running Bases, we both pretty much realized that the game didn't really make sense anymore. Questions like "why wouldn't you just stay at one base?" or "how do you determine a winner?" popped up right away, and I didn't have an answer to any of them.

It's weird, because I always remember that playing Running Bases was always the most fun I had as a kid. But now that we think about it, it's kind of hard to figure out why. How can a game that doesn't have good solid rules, and where nobody wins, be fun?

I mean, you look at all the "games" we play at our age, and it's totally different. First of all, so much of what we do (cards, NCAA tournament pools, fantasy sports) seems to always involve at least some amount of money. Even if there's no money involved in our games, at least some amount of pride or bragging rights are still at stake. Whether you're playing video games or sports or whatever, the winners and losers are always clearly defined.

And because money or pride is at stake, the rules also have to be clearly defined too. So in poker, we have to raise blinds or else everyone would fold all the time. In fantasy baseball, we have to agree on a set system of scoring beforehand, such that there's no disputing who wins and loses at the end of the season.

When we played Running Bases, I don't remember anyone ever having to make a rule that said "no staying on one base the whole time", because we always ran no matter what. We just played on without ever thinking that you could avoid getting caught by simply not leaving the base.

Would this be the case if we had to buy in $10 per round? Or, imagine how different would the game be if they kept ladder rankings of the best baserunners and best defenders? I think the spirit of the game would be thoroughly ruined and all the fun taken out of it in the end.

This could kill a lot of other kids games too. What if the neighborhood kept stats like "Successful Find Percentage" of all the kids who played Hide & Seek? What if in TV Tag*, you could only save yourself by naming shows that were included in a national standardized list? What if they used Instant Replay to enforce the "no tagbacks" rule by checking elapsed time between tag and tagback? What if people kept track of individual "+/-" in Red Rover, like they do in the NHL?

I'm not saying that we shouldn't play for money, or play to win, or have rules in our games. I just wonder if sometimes we end up taking the fun factor of games away from ourselves by making it too much about money or pride or bragging rights.

It was kind of funny on Sunday, when Greg suggested the crazy idea of playing 31 "for fun", and by that he meant a game with no money involved. And in the end of the game, with one winner and 7 losers, we made the observation that 7 of us were happy with the result (no penalty for losing) and only 1 was unhappy (no monetary reward despite winning).

Contrast that to a hold'em tournament, where only 1 or 2 people at the end come away happy, and the rest are left with no more than a sob story of how they got beat.

Anyways, I'm not one of those idealistic hippies who believes that everyone's a winner and that any competition is bad. I still love playing poker, and fantasy baseball, etc., in which money and/or pride is involved, and I'm definitely not gonna stop doing those things anytime soon.

But, I do miss those days when I could play a game purely for fun, not worrying about anything else but having a good time. I think I just need to approach some of the things I do differently, and maybe find new non-competitive hobbies that can still be fun and fulfilling.

* I'm not sure if it's as universal a game as H&S or Red Rover, so I'll explain the rules: TV Tag was like normal tag, except if you were about to get tagged by "it", you could say the name of a TV Show and sit down, making you immune to being tagged. So if you were getting chased, you could say "Flintstones" and sit down until "it" left. As far as I can remember, there were no rules saying how long you could stay on the ground, but this usually wasn't a problem either.

Best Blog Ever

Not to brag or anything, but I'd have to say that this is gonna be one of my best entries of all time. I promise all of you reading this that you will not be disappointed.

*****

Last night, my roommate helped me change the brake pads on my car in our driveway. I'd never done it before, and I was leaning towards taking it to the dealer, but he convinced me that it was a simple job and to save myself the money and hassle.

Well, it turns out that it was indeed a simple job, which took maybe about an hour beginning to end to finish. Other than getting a whole bunch of cuts on my hand from ramming it into metal edges (my own fault), I'd say that changing your brake pads on your own is better than taking it to the dealer in every way. Dealers rip you off, make you do extra work that's usually unnecessary, wasting your time and overcharging you in the process. I hate those bastards.

If anyone out there needs new brake pads put in, and is thinking about taking it to the dealer, contact me first. I would be happy to pass on the knowledge if it means saving someone else from getting jacked by their dealer.

*****

I think my favorite cereal growing up was Kellogg's Corn Pops. Probably wasn't the most healthy of cereals, which is why my mom always bought us Cheerios or Total, but I had to have my Pops. The light, airy texture was good, with a nice sweetened taste, but in my opinion the best feature was that it didn't get soggy in milk very easily. Especially since I'm one of the slowest eaters I know, a big problem with Cheerios, Total, Wheaties, Frosted Flakes, etc. was getting to the bottom of the bowl and finding that the rest was disgusting mush. And since my mom is Chinese, she had conditioned me to avoid wasting any amount of food regardless of the circumstances, so of course I had to finish that disgusting mush.

On a side note, I think one thing that Chinese parents tell their kids (or maybe it's just my mom and my aunts) is that if you don't finish your bowl of rice completely, you'll grow up to marry a wife/husband that has "ma-lien", meaning a face dotted with marks like the bowl dotted with rice you left behind. Most kids are dumb and just believe everything adults say, but being the smart, critical minded boy I was, I argued that I wouldn't be so stupid to marry someone if she had ma-lien. But they countered with the argument that of course she wouldn't have ma-lien when I married her, but she would develop it after the wedding, and then I'd be screwed. That shut me up for the time being. Damn, outsmarted in the end by my own parents...

Anyways, as far as Pops goes, I decided to start eating them again this week. They were pretty much the same as I remember except now I think my taste for sweetness isn't the same. I guess as I got older, the appeal of sugary stuff somewhat faded. Still a great cereal overall though.

Here's a quick rundown of my top 5 cereal rankings:

1. Pops - Discussed above. Commercials were stupid though, when they always had someone freaking out cause someone else finished their box of Pops.

2. Cheerios - Didn't taste as good as Pops, but definitely more healthy and not too shabby of a breakfast either. Also, me and my sister used to like the commercials when they showed someone flexing their bicep and a Cheerio was on their bicep, so we'd try to imitate it by licking a Cheerio and sticking it on our arms. Man, were we weird as little kids, I probably shouldn't have shared so much. Anyways, there were other versions of Cheerios too, like Apple Cinnamon, but I only liked the original and maybe Honey Nut Cheerios too.

3. Lucky Charms - Surprisingly, my health conscious mom actually bought us these once in a while. Maybe she had coupons for them or something. I liked Lucky Charms, even though the commercials pissed me off. Why do kids have to be so mean to the leprechaun? The cereal itself tasted good and held up to milk pretty well, but sometimes it was frustrating to maintain a reasonable marshmallow-to-cereal ratio. And the worst part was that when you got to the bottom of the box, it would be all the grainy crumbs of crushed marshmallow and tiny pieces of cereal, which was really disgusting when added to milk.

4. Total Raisin Bran - I forget if this was actually a cereal, or if I'm mixing up Total with some other brand of Raisin Bran, or maybe my mom just bought Total and added raisins to it. Anyways, I didn't really like plain Bran but they were somewhat redeemed with raisins to shake things up. I don't believe in adding anything else to cereal, like they'd always show pictures of cereal with strawberries or banana slices in them and I'd be disgusted. Overall, this was never really my cereal of choice, even if it was good for you.

5. Wheaties - I really hated these. Like I mentioned earlier, the worst part of cereal is the soggy milky mush at the end, and Wheaties always left that. I didn't care if Michael Jordan ate it, or if it really was that healthy and could make me into an awesome athlete. The taste and texture weren't that great to begin with, and they only got worse as you progressed through the bowl.

When I think about it, I really haven't tried too many cereals throughout my life. That top 5 might as well be my bottom 5 too. I think other than those, I've sampled Kix and Life and that's about it. Maybe Trix as well. Sometimes I wonder what else is out there, if I'd like Count Chocula or Cap'n Crunch? Intriguing...

It's kind of interesting though, as I wrote about my cereal history, I noticed that pretty much with all of them I associated the cereal itself in some way with their commercials. Advertising is totally powerful when it comes to brainwashing 8 year olds watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I didn't even watch as much TV as other kids when I was little, so I'm sure there are probably people out there that are my age right now, who still hear stuff like "Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids!" in their dreams.

*****

I'm sure most of you out there reading this blog have noticed by now that it is not as awesome as I promised it would be. Well, it's too late for you to go back now, you already wasted your time. HAHA APRIL FOOLS BEEEITCH!!

Worry

One of the mottos I've always tried to live by is "Don't worry about things you can't control". To me, it's a motto that makes a lot of sense, one that I really like and believe in. And whenever people talk to me about their problems, I tend to tell them the same thing because I think it applies to a lot of situations for just about everybody.

I think my motto drives some people nuts at times, especially females, who seem to like to "talk" about everything. It might be hard for readers of my blog to believe, but I don't think of myself as a person who likes to talk about stuff a lot. More specifically, I hate discussing things like my feelings and emotions, purely for the sake of discussion. Rehashing the same thoughts over and over just seems like such a waste of time, and unless talking about something will bring about some actual change or progress, I'd rather avoid it entirely.

But lately I've been thinking more about my precious motto, and I'm starting to realize that it has its limitations and drawbacks. First of all, even for someone like me who is so adamant about not letting things out of my control affect me, I still can't deny that I base a lot of my moods and emotions on these kinds of things. The weather is one thing that I have absolutely no say in, yet I get gloomy when it's cold and snowy, upbeat when it's sunny and warm. Or in watching a lot of sports, that sets me up for a lot of disappointment or joy based on outcomes that, no matter what I try to tell myself as a fan, happen independent of my rooting or watching loyalty.

The other thing is, I think living this way has somewhat made me into the more passive personality that I am. I haven't really figured out if this is a good thing or bad thing. But since the definition of "things you can't control" is left up to the individual, I guess it's been easy for me to blow a lot of things off by simply saying to myself that it's out of my control.

For example, all throughout my life, I have never actively pursued a girl, even if I really liked her. My reasoning to myself was, I can't really control whether or not she likes me, and if it's meant to happen, it will just magically happen eventually. Looking back, it's kind of amazing to me that I somehow ended up with a girlfriend anyways, with that logic.

Or, when I was interviewing for jobs at the end of college and right after graduation, I tended to not be the aggressive job-seeker that people always say you should be. I just figured I'd already done all I could through my years of school, so all that's left to do was to make a good resume, give it out to some people, and let nature take its course. Never made any follow up calls, wrote any cover letters, etc. Again, looking back, I'm kind of amazed that I ended up with this job, considering how little I did back then.

Anyways, even though things worked out for me, I think in those cases (and probably a lot of other cases too), I used my "don't worry about things you can't control" motto as a crutch, as an excuse to avoid thinking about certain things. Which of course is a bad thing. If I were to be honest with myself, I would have to acknowledge that when it came to girls, the real reason I didn't talk to them was because I was afraid to, and not so much because I felt it wasn't worth worrying about. And the real reason I never did the extra stuff in my job hunt was because deep down I hated interviewing, I distrusted all recruiters, and I thought people who wrote cover letters and made follow up calls were annoying, fake, and suck-ups. I guess I'm not saying that I should have done all that stuff (maybe I should have, I don't know), but at least I should have at least been honest with myself instead of just covering it up and saying "it's out of my control, so don't worry about it".

When you think about it, we as humans were born with a natural instinct to worry. And I tend to believe that every instinct we were born with has a reason and purpose that has in some way helped us survive throughout years of evolution. Some instincts have more obvious function than others, such as our hunger for food or the desire to "mate". But even something like the ability to laugh can be important. I always wondered why humans would need to have a sense of humor, but the other day I heard a quote that I thought was a good explanation: "A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs - jolted by every pebble in the road" (credited to Henry Ward Beecher, American clergyman). In other words, if you can't laugh about certain things, you're not gonna be able to absorb the many bumps that life hits you with and thus you probably won't get very far before breaking down entirely.

Anyways, even though I've tried to condition myself to not be affected as much by my natural instinct to worry, there's gotta still be times when worrying about something could be important, otherwise we wouldn't be born with that instinct. Now, while I continue to hold my belief that it's pointless to worry about things that you can't control, I think where I need to change my attitude is in my interpretation of "things I can't control".

Up to this point in my life, I think I've had a very loose definition of this. From little things to big things, it's always been tempting to push aside responsibility and "let nature take its course". But I think by doing that, I put limits on myself and what I can have an effect on.

Like as a driver on the road, you can just obey all traffic laws and if someone hits you, it would be their fault. After all, you did nothing wrong, so you can truthfully say that you took full responsibility on your own part. But you could also go the extra step and drive defensively in addition to simply obeying all traffic laws (as if I should really be talking about defensive driving), and this would probably save you from some of those accidents.

Or (again with the poker philosophy), when you approach a poker table, you could just say that it's a game of chance and you win or lose based purely on the cards you get. But then you could also take the effort to learn the intricacies of the game and in that way put yourself in a better position to win. I'm getting off topic here, but my point of discussing these examples is that in a lot of cases, you can really blind yourself to some things by not critically thinking about what you actually can and can't control.

So maybe a better motto for me would be the active voice, "worry about the things you can control". I still like the way it sounds the other way though. Nevertheless, I think in the future I will really have to try to expand the self-imposed limits in my life. Hopefully, in the process I'll be able to take a more active role in controlling the things in my life.