Been stressed out lately. Mostly due to work and the house hunting, maybe I'll distract myself by writing blogs on other subjects.

1. Star Wars Episode III - came out today. It's kind of hard to believe that the series is actually ending now. I think it was 1999 when they released the first prequel, and back then I was pissed because their plan of releasing the movies 3 years apart seemed like it would take way too long. I was like "man, by the time they get to the last one, I'll be old and I probably won't even care anymore". Well I guess I still do care, but not enough to go line up and battle the crowds on the day it opens. (That, and my 4 year anniversary with Olivia happens to be the same day).

It's getting pretty good reviews, which is a good sign, but honestly it doesn't matter much to me what other people are saying about it. I thought Episodes I and II were alright, when almost everyone else I talked to hated it. But some didn't really even know what was going on, and others complained about the acting. Did they not realize that the acting in the originals was just as bad or worse than the new ones?

By the way I was reading an article about the original Star Wars and George Lucas said that Christopher Walken actually was second in line to play Han Solo (after Harrison Ford). Of course that reminded me of the old "Star Wars Tryouts" skit in SNL when they had Kevin Spacey playing Walken trying out for Han Solo: "Fast ship.. what... you've never heard of the Millenium Falcon.... she's fast enough for you... old man... I'm sorry that sucked". I wonder if they knew that fact when they were making that skit, or if it was just a random coincidence?

2. American Gladiators - For some reason I was thinking about this show the other day, wondering what happened to it, and remembering how I used to watch it all the time and think it was the coolest show. I think at one point I actually wished I had an awesome Gladiator name like "Turbo" or "Laser". Obviously all of that seems ridiculous now.

Then again, I turn on the TV today and there's this show on ESPN with NFL players running through obstacle courses that ends with climbing a wall, wasn't that pretty much the Eliminator? Or on MTV's Inferno 2, there's Brad battling Abe to dunk a ball into a can in the middle (great battle by the way, very intense). I could've sworn there was an event like that in American Gladiators too. Maybe it's not so silly.

3. Duke gets Scheyer - Any college bball fan who followed the recruitment of Scheyer during the past few months (or longer) probably should have saw yesterday's announcement coming from a long way back. We've seen the story before, most recently with Livingston: "Duke takes highly ranked recruit from the state of Illinois", so what's the big deal? Yeah, his coach is Bruce's brother, and the state team was #1 for most of the past year. But I guess when a kid grows up pretending to be Christian Laettner, reenacting the shot against Kentucky in his basement, you're not gonna change his mind easily.

Anyways, I mention this story here because it might be interesting to look back one day and see how everything turned out. Just like when everyone was mad we didn't get Livingston, I think we did alright. Will Scheyer become the next no-name guy on the end of Duke's bench or actually develop into an NBA star? Will Bruce Weber get Collins and Carlwell or whoever else and take this team to the Final Four again in a few years? Can Coach K make more commercials and become even more irritating?

4. Chaotic - I don't know why I still decided to watch the Britney Spears "reality show". I mean, I knew it was gonna suck. I saw the commercials for it, read the articles on what it was gonna be about, and pretty much knew for sure that I would not enjoy watching it.

And what do you know, it did suck. Honestly I changed the channel after the first 20 minutes and only caught pieces of the rest, in between innings of the baseball game. I never fully realized just how annoying the girl was, until I watched the show. My how far her star has fallen in my eyes.

I guess the lesson I learned is that hotness can cover many flaws. Which it did for the first few years I was a fan. But she is definitely not #1 in my hot list anymore. Probably not even top 10. I'm not sure when I dropped her, but it was most likely during the past year when she turned into a freak show.

Seeing the girl without her makeup, and close up, really showed how wrinkly her skin is underneath. Not cool. I might criticize her weight too but I'll try not to be that shallow, at least publicly. Let's just say the aging process has not treated her well physically.

But what really makes a girl most unattractive (in my opinion) is when she's all over the place with different guys. One day she's kissing Colin Farrell. Next she's getting married in Vegas to some guy she dated in high school. Then all of a sudden she gets engaged to a random dude who happens to already have kids with someone else. When I see that it's pretty much over right there between me and her. Goodbye.

It doesn't help that these guys she's with are all either trashy, dirty, or ugly looking. I mean it's one thing if you get married to Brad Pitt or something, I can't argue with that. Justin Timberlake I can even accept, reluctantly. The type of guys that a girl chooses to be with says a lot about her as a person. And I must say I am disappointed in the choices that Ms. Spears has made in the past year or so.

I guess it's her life so who am I to judge, all I'll do is just put her out of my life from here on out and live only in the past. Haha... Seriously though, I can live without watching closeups of Kevin Federline's butt and listening to the girl I once adored talk about how amazing the sex is with her husband. I'm just saying is all.

5. White Sox - continue to lead the majors with their surprising hot start. I won't say I saw this coming, but I did have a pretty good feeling about the season coming in. With all the hype about home runs, the most underrated things in the game are leadoff hitters and defense. We may have lost Carlos Lee and Magglio in the offseason, but improved both of those categories. Not to mention Dustin Hermanson's solid performances out of the bullpen and Jon Garland's emergence as a legit starter (finally!).

Obviously they aren't going to win 120 games or whatever they were on pace for, but at the very least they are fun to watch. I've been to 3 games so far and even though 2 of them were losses with horrible weather, I definitely liked what I saw on the field.

I'll probably write more about the team later. Baseball season is long.

I heard there might not be a 3rd season of Chappelle's Show. Don't know why that is, but whatever the reason, that ain't cool. It's bad enough how they delayed the 2nd season DVD for so long already, and then on top of that I think they cut out the Rick James skit too. How disappointing.

Last week I forgot to buy milk, which threw me off my normal morning cereal routine. I can't have dry cereal, I just can't do it. As I was thinking about what to eat instead, a jingle popped in my head, the voice of some guy on the street singing "trade in your breakfast for a Dannon Frusion Smoothie...." I guess advertising really does work.

Mother's Day, Poker, and the Oldies

First off, as I have done in past years, I should once again wish all the many mothers who read my blog a Happy Mother's Day.

For my own mom, my family had planned to celebrate Saturday by each of us (dad, sister, myself) cooking one dish for dinner. Unfortunately a headache started bothering me Friday night and then continued through Saturday. Having to go into work Saturday morning did not help either, but that is another story. So it ended up being just my dad who cooked, which was a good meal so it was all good.

The interesting part of the weekend started that night when my dad was watching me play poker online and I was teaching him the tricks of the trade. Kind of funny how he was getting so nervous about these little hands worth dollars and cents, considering he is a guy who has traded commodities for a living for over 20 years, and experiences ticks in the market worth thousands of dollars on a daily basis.

Of course, after watching me play, he wanted to play too, so the rest of us busted out some chips and the Chen family played some poker for the rest of the night. Entertaining moments ensued.

At one point my sister was humming the tune to that Gwen Stefani song "Rich Girls", and out of nowhere, my mom started humming along with her. This shocked both me and my sister, because if you know my mom, you would definitely not expect her to know who Gwen Stefani is (let alone know one of her latest songs). She thinks Backstreet Boys is rock music and their beats are too heavy, to give you some idea of her musical tastes.

Turns out "Rich Girls" is a remake of an old song from the movie/musical "Fiddler on the Roof", which some of you may already know, but I and my sister did not. The original version was titled "If I Were A Rich Man" by the way.

While we were playing, I had my laptop next to me so I could check on my fantasy baseball teams, and I decided to dig out some of my oldies mp3s that I knew my mom and dad used to listen to. Stuff like Frank Sinatra, Carpenters, Andy Williams, John Denver, etc.

When I played the Bee Gees' song "How Deep Is Your Love", my dad started telling us about how the song reminded him of his college days and his first girlfriend and breakup experience. It was a little weird for me to hear him talking about that stuff, but at the same time I was glad to hear him share and show us some a side that we normally never see. One of the first times I can remeber being able to look at my dad as a "human being", rather than exclusively as a "father". Not just the guy who put a roof over my head, food on the table, and taught me discipline and almost everything I know today, but a living breathing person that I can really relate to.

So as we played poker Saturday night, I felt like it was a really great time of bonding for my family. With my sister travelling most weekdays, and me having moved out 2 years ago, it's been especially rare these days for all four of us to spend much meaningful time together. I mean, we're still under the same roof most weekends, but it's mostly just a matter of having lunch together after church, or just me watching baseball as my mom plays piano and my dad studies the market for the upcoming week and my sister watches Apprentice on her computer.

Also funny and worth mentioning is that the big winner of our poker game that night was my mom. Fitting on Mother's Day weekend I guess, good for her. Normally she is the first one knocked out because she is too busy snacking on her Chinese treats to pay much attention to the game. That, or maybe she had something like pocket 2's but didn't notice that there were 4 diamonds on the board, and think that with the 3 other people in the pot, chances are good that someone might have a flush, calling an all-in for all her chips with her one small pair.

Anyways, I have to say here that even though it was a simple night of the four of us playing a game of poker for a few hours, it was a really great memory for me that will probably stick with me for a long time. I realized later that night in bed, that the opportunities for us to do things together like that will only get scarcer as we all get older. And obviously I should really cherish these moments as much I can while I still have the chance.

So the news is that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are dating. I heard they have a nickname already - "Tomkat". Spicy.

Work has been very busy. Since I am surrounded by other engineers I try to be constantly vigilant in preventing myself from becoming too nerdy. For example, no matter how convenient it might be, I refuse to use my front shirt pocket to store pens, pencils, highlighters, etc. I'll either just hold them in my hand or put them in my pant pocket. When there is a wall full of Dilbert cartoons at someone's cubicle, I limit myself to reading only one, instead of spending 10 minutes reading all of them. I also tell myself not to laugh too hard at them even if they are very funny and true.

Last week I went to look at townhouses. It was cool to walk into a place and envision where I would put the furniture, where I would watch TV, eat, play poker, etc. However, I was disappointed with the selection and surprised to see how much these places cost. There were a few that I liked, but every one had at least one or two significant drawbacks to it. It was like "this one's perfect, but it only has a one-car garage". Or "this has everything, but the property tax and assessment is way too high". "This one is cheaper, but it's too far from work and I don't like the area". "This one has great location, but it's too old." And so on.

I'm thinking about getting a new phone soon. The T-Mobile Sidekick looks kinda cool. Also a PDA phone or Blackberry might be nice too, but I'm not sure how charges would work for those. Kinda sucks cause if I get a camera phone, I wouldn't be allowed to bring it into the building where I work. But most of the newer nicer ones have cameras. What shall I do...

A couple weeks ago I was watching some NBA highlights on Sportscenter and one of them was a vicious block by Josh Smith on an Allen Iverson breakaway layup. I was like wow, that's gotta be a horrible feeling for AI, the veteran getting embarrassed by a rookie like that. Actually it reminded me of when Iverson was a rookie and in a game he faked Jordan out of his jockstrap with a wicked crossover move. A similar "changing of the guard" feeling about the moment. Not that AI (or MJ back then) is done yet, just a sign that the next generation is close to taking over.

One of my bosses was telling me about how he and his wife have golden retrievers and train them for those dog shows and stuff. Immediately I thought of the old original Triumph episode: "pekingnese, you suck!!". Classic. I asked him if they breed too, and he was like "well, we just got a bitch and we'll find out if she's ready in a few months." Does it make me a crass individual that I almost LOL-ed in his face when he said "bitch" and didn't even flinch? I guess that is really what dog people call females. Who woulda thunk it?

As a "gesture of goodwill", China gave Taiwan some pandas. Sweet, it's nice to know that we can all be BFF again...

Aches and Pains

Due to the physical nature of my job as an electrical engineer, the bumps and bruises are starting to pile up for me. Well actually, it's more from playing ball and lifting, but anyways, my body has been feeling beat up lately.

I've had this twinge in my elbow that I feel every once in a while when I shoot a basketball. A nagging pain in my collarbone that acts up whenever I lift something heavy, so I haven't been able to work out in weeks. Rolled my ankle playing ball this weekend, which had me limping around like a cripple for a couple days. And whenever I sleep funny, I wake up with a stiff neck and/or a sore back for a day or two.

In a lot of ways I feel like my car. A few years ago I was brand new, at the top of my game. Once in a while I'd get a minor scratch, or a bird would crap on me, but nothing that a little washing and Z5 polish couldn't take care of. But eventually, the scratches started getting deeper. Dents and dings started appearing out of nowhere. Overall, I'm still capable of high performance, but signs of age are becoming apparent. And you know these things aren't going away anytime soon.

The only difference between me and my car is, I use more expensive towels to wash and dry my car.

*****

If any of you use the internet to get driving directions and look up maps, might I recommend you check out Google Maps at least once. Specifically, type in your destination and origin, and click on the "Satellite" view. It's pretty cool, they use the pictures taken from space and zoom in on your route from above.

At the same time, it's a little scary to think that the government (or whoever it is that runs these satellites) has a pretty clear view of anything people do outdoors. Google doesn't let you zoom in all the way, but I heard that these satellite photos are capable of seeing license plate numbers at their highest resolution. Beware of Big Brother!