our own 10 year reunion

Well we finally got around to it. As planned, two of my friends from grade 8 and onward got together for dinner. We probably haven't seen each other since 2nd or maybe 3rd year university, so 95 or 96 when I started doing more co-ops than school terms and then ended up working full time. Even then it was mostly a hello in the hallway as we didn't share the same major and had started making different friends in university.

I brought my Montgomery Jr. High yearbook and we went through it to jog our memories about who we've run into or heard news about lately or figured the whereabouts of thanks to Google. It was kind of weird how we might look a little different but our voices and mannerisms largely stayed the same. After we got caught up on the last 8 years or so careerwise and relationshipwise, it was kind of like old times. It was nice to get some perspective on some of my current issues and worries from people who can be objective because I haven't seen them in forever, but who also know my character well enough to give sound advice. *sniff sniff* thanks guys. Many people we talked about still live in the Coquitlam area (I think I would've lost my mind if I did) and I'd say most are married, some with a kid. It was kind of interesting to trade stories. Although it would never be in my character to stick around my hometown and settle down so early, the fact that most of my peers have gotten married and even started families really makes my life seem unstable and unfocussed in comparison. Maybe that's why I've chosen to move to a place where there are so many ambitious unmarried thirty-somethings. Somehow they make me feel less "behind" in life. I guess my NY resolution will be to find some degree of balance day-to-day and worry less about things falling into place because worrying doesn't make it happen any faster. That said I'll be 30 in a little more than a year and I want to see some progress in my life by then!

tsunamis, God and conspiracies

I'm kinda glad I'm home to see Canadian news coverage of the tragedy in South Asia although I'm reading a lot about it online too. Someone pointed me to a forum where people are talking about Jet Li being missing and now found. My first reaction was that it is sick to see people so concerned about one person simply because he is a celebrity when there are close to 30,000 other people who are dead. No they're not celebrities. We don't know their names and I'm certain they don't do kung fu. Most of them were poor locals, many children, who were fisherman or who served the tourism industry in some small capacity. Their lives count too. I saw one American news report that cut in only shots of white tourists in shelters and completely left out any images of the local people. That is just selfish, ethnocentric and disgusting.

On that forum where people were talking about Jet Li, a number of arguments also erupted. One guy asked everyone to send good thoughts. He was blasted by some Christian who said they need prayers, not good thoughts. That person was lambasted by someone who noted that God allowed this to happen on Jesus' birthday and then went on a rant about how there is no Christian God. Interesting how that discussion evolved. I have to agree with the person who said that you can pray, send thoughts, whatever makes you feel good, but what people really need to do is send money. There's at least some sort of guarantee you'll be making a difference.

One other person on the forum submitted this link to an article on a Russian web site. It suggests that these natural disasters might actually be the work of humans. i.e. geophysical experiments by the US military in inducing natural disasters. Here's a snippet from the article. I find it a little hard to believe, OK really hard to believe, but ya never know:

It is well known that the USA and the USSR concluded an agreement at the
end of the 1970s. Pursuant to the agreement, scientific developments in the
field of geophysics for military purposes were banned. All the works in the
field became secret too. However, the works continued anyway, despite the signed
document. It was simply conducted under the disguise of the scientific research
or the development of the double-purpose technology. The point and the purpose
of those developments were rather vague and even mysterious. A lot of
specialists and scientists believe that a special American program HAARP is one
of those developments... It is an open secret that the USA (probably, not the
USA alone) has already constructed high-frequency transmitter facilities. Those
devices can heat the earth environment up to the state of plasma by means of
pumping ions. This makes it possible to control the environment, which might
show considerable influence on the atmospheric phenomena. The owners of this
weapon are able to program floods, twisters and storms, even earthquakes in any
region of the planet.

Sobe

Last night was a chill night. Got together with my closest friends for a night of Sobe-ing and feasting. We went out to Matsuyama to eat and everyone was really really quiet because we were all reciting our orders in our heads so we wouldn't forget when the waiter came. The food was really yummy even though I couldn't finish it. For some reason my forearm was cramping when I was using my chopsticks. I was complaining about this in my head, or so I thought. I found out later I had verbalized my entire inner conversation without realizing it. That combined with some really annoying time lapses made my evening a little tough to tolerate but I managed. We headed to Josh's to watch a movie after that. It was called In Da House and some guy named Ally G was in it. I have no idea how someone of average intelligence and in a normal state of mind could watch and enjoy that movie. Actually I'm not sure how such a character becomes so popular.

Today the plan is to go for oysters at Rodney's Oyster House in Yaletown. There's a special between 4-6pm or something. The skies are so clear it'd be so nice to be boarding but there was no snow last night. Which means whatever was on the mountain is just getting harder and icier. Pleeeeeease snow!

this is your life

Yesterday was an interesting day. Went up to Mount Seymour (which is about 1/2 hour away from my house) with Stan, his bro and his gf. Visibility was excellent and the view was spectacular (better than the lookout at Cypress) but it just hasn't snowed a whole lot here lately. It was pretty hard packed and I had an incredible wipe out everytime I got off the lift. (I hate pointing straight because I pick up speed and I freak out that I only have one foot strapped in). But it was pretty cheap ($28 CAD if you go with a season pass holder) and we almost had the mountain to ourselves because I guess most folks were out Boxing Day shopping.

After that Ray (Stan's brother) picked up me and his friend Pearson to go for dinner at Daimasu before hitting Barnone. I had a weird "I know you but I don't know how" moment with this guy Pearson. I went to high school with his big sister but we couldn't figure out the connection otherwise. Does anyone out there know how I know this guy? This "I know you but I don't know how" feeling continued at Barnone after I saw piles of people I knew from somewhere somehow. Luckily Joe, who has a better memory than I, re-introduced me to some folks whom I used to party with (no wonder I couldn't remember) and then more people showed up who've been a part of my life at some point in time. I felt like I was on Sesame Street, or was it the Muppet Show, when they do the "this is your life" skit. From ex-bf, to ex-bf's friends, to SFU classmates, to UBC friends, rave buddies, studying friends, friends' exs and friends' younger siblings, to my most recently-acquired Vancouver friends who now reside in SF. They were all there and it was really really eerie. Lucky I was sober enough (not entirely but sober enough) to know what was going on. Note to future visitors to Canada, well drinks are super watered down. Stick to beer if you don't want to get ripped off, or order a double to get something equivalent to a drink you'd get in SF. Squirl was on something like her 9th or 10th and her speaking volume had not increased in the slightest. Willy had something like 15 before he publicly announced that he was "finally drunk."

Not sure what I'll be up to the rest of this week aside from praying for snow, eating, sleeping and watching junior hockey (and any other hockey they put on TV to satisfy the needs of NHL-deprived Canadians across the country).

gloom and doom

It's cold and very damp out and the skies are a dark grey. No more blue skies, this is the real Vancouver weather I know and hate. There's something about the holiday season that drives me crazy. All the stupid commericals with disgustingly happy families cooperatively setting food on the table or excitedly unwrapping presents and all the other Christmas shit. I find it all rather nauseating. I don't think I've enjoyed Christmas since I realized Santa wasn't real. That was really the only highlight after all. Our family functions require quite the performance just to appear as though we all actually enjoy each other's company. I just tell myself I'm there for the food (except for that awful Chinese cake with the chestnut crap inside) and to hang out with my cousins. Even though one of them (and her entire famly) hasn't showed up for the past decade or so. How fucked up is that? I can't wait until all this is over and they quit playing those horrid Christmas carols on the radio.

reunions

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American people

I guess I was naive in believing that the people of America are generally reasonable and non-discriminatory. After all, there was a public apology issued to the Japanese Americans who were locked up in internment camps after WWII and I like to think the American public was generally in agreeance with the decision to issue such a statement. But then I come across an article which states that a survey found that nearly half of Americans think it's OK to restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans. It's a relatively small sample, 715 people throughout the nation, but still the results are telling. They are, actually, really scary. Here's a snippet:

The survey conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and
people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support
curtailing Muslims' civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less
religious.
Researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention
to television news were more likely to fear terrorist attacks and support
limiting the rights of Muslim Americans.

sun in Vancouver?

The skies are clear here. In fact the only rain I've seen is a light sprinkle on my way home last night. It's very eerie. It would be perfect weather for hitting the slopes if there were some snow on the local mountains. Since there isn't I'm not sure what to do with myself. My friends are either working or want to go shopping. I don't particularly enjoy shopping here because the selection in anything sucks and the taxes are too high. And right now, the malls are nuts. I went out for lunch with Joe and Jane yesterday for some awesome cheap sushi from Sushi Garden on Kingsway across from Eaton Center and then out to help Joe buy some stuff. After that we had dinner at his place and then worked up some munchies and ate again. I polished off most of a huge plate of nachos. In fact I'm still full. We were pretty much parked on the couch for at least three hours - Amazing Race, some show with the cast of Degrassi Jr High (they're all grown up and now teachers at their old high school, how cheesey), Russell Peters video I brought, then Dave Chappelle's stand up. I'm going to stick around at home I today before I head out for a big dinner to see old friends and their new spouses. My, how things change in a matter of 4-5 years. If anyone's in the Vancouver area I'll be at Jupiter Lounge after 9:30pm.

wheezing in vancouver

Got into YVR this morning at 9:40am, which means my plane left SFO at 7:40 am, which means I left the house at 5:45am. I don't understand people who get up that early to exercise. I consider that hour still part of the night before, not the morning of that day. Doesn't help that I couldn't sleep. Partly because I was depressed that I was spending my last evening in the Bay Area for 3 weeks at home alone and partly because I was paranoid about sleeping in and missing my flight. 3:30 am rolled around and I heard everyone come home and some wonderful puking noises, followed by the kitchen garbage can opening and closing repeatedly for what must've been an hour. Got up a couple hours later after rolling around awake in bed and saw the toilet plunger in a plastic bag and Min's toothbrush upstairs. Doesn't take a detective to figure out that someone must've puked in the sink downstairs. Just classy. Anyways after flying in and having some food at home, I passed out for a couple hours and then got up to test out the new DVD player ($44 at Target) with F9/11 again.

The one and a half hour nap on the plane and two hour nap at home just didn't make up for a night of lost sleep so I turned down a couple invitations to go out and stayed in to wrap presents. I'm suffering from some major Bunny induced asthma. I'm just not used to having such a large furry animal in my presence constantly. Still I am suffering from my usual lack of motivation to go out. I have measured my drive into Vancouver and it's shorter than my drive into SF from our place in Foster City but the highway only takes me part way before I have to endure about 1/2 an hour of shitty slow city driving. Maybe it's that, maybe it's the fact that I have to drive out alone all the time and maybe it's the weather. I have a real hard time getting out of the house here. Just not a holiday spirit kinda person.

last day

Finally it's the last day of classes for me this semester. Got a ride to the Millbrae BART station this morning so that I can be liberated of my car tonight thus allowing me to get shamelessly intoxicated with the other grad students starting at 4pm. Taking public transit is tricky. The signs are confusing and so are the ticket machines (or I'm just really dumb). Luckily there was a guy at the station wearing an SF State sweatshirt so I just followed him on the train, onto the shuttle and to school.

I am so damn full right now. Time did not allow for a hearty breakfast so I got a huge burrito when I got to school. I had wolfed down about three quarters of it when something told me there would be trouble if I continued. The rest of it is sitting on a desk behind me in my prof's office. I'm hanging out here killing time until my class starts. Having to kill time is kinda nice. Much preferred to not having enough time. 2 days til I have to head back to Vancouver to grey skies and rain. I have to get new shoes just for the occasion. Ghetto as it sounds, I have a hole in the bottom of the shoes I wear most. I have only had them about a year but I walk funny so I wear my soles down practically til I'm barefoot. OK this was the most boring post ever. I'm gonna go now. Oh last thing, Eva could you visit my hamsters while we're gone? :)

violence against Hmong

An email I got from one of the Asian media watchdog listservs:

I'm writing to you to let you know of a horrible sighting of hate speech this weekend at the River Hills Mall. A decal store called custom now (located in the herberger's wing) is selling a bumper sticker that reads, "Save a hunter, shoot a mung." (Yes, spelled m-u-n-g). When I tried to educate the management of the store by explaining the difference between usual bumper sticker politics vs. advocating violence I was essentially thrown out of the store. My efforts to have it taken off the shelf have failed so far.

It's obviously referencing a recent incident that involved a Hmong man who shot several hunters after being taunted with racial slurs in Wisconsin (not that killing for any reason is excusable). I just did a quick google search and found a press article on this too:
http://talk.workunlimited.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4671856,00.html

What the hell is going on in this country?

bad online purchases

Simon and I are parked in front of the TV doing some online Xmas shopping. I was browsing Overstock.com when I came across this pair of pants. Correct me if I'm wrong but do they not scream manufacturer's defect to you?


wtf

BTW, if any of you including those I don't know in person get into the holiday spirit and feel the need to buy me a gift, check out my Amazon wishlist. :-)

diving the dives

Had a really fun night of Nob Hill bar hopping last night despite volunteering to be the DD. We started off at Swig, which looks like a big room with a fireplace and a large bar along one wall. It was really crowded with really tall people and didn't exactly boast of ethnic diversity, and strangely every guy in there had the standard patterned/striped shirt not tucked in look. Veronica commented that the place gave her a feeling she'd run into a co-worker (she works at a law firm). S had a long list of bars within .1 miles of this place so we set off to hit as many as possible. James decided the goal would be 7. Bar #2 was called HiTide. It smelled funny and there was a really drunk guy in there with a plastic sword down his back and his fly undone. He inched closer until he was leaning on my shoulder so I moved. We downed our beers and moved on to #3 Le Colonial up the hill. It was pretty dead save for the tone deaf spastic dancers on the floor, one of whom was not wearing shoes. We did our standard one drink and bathroom visit and moved on. #4 Who's Your Daddy we discovered is a Korean owned bar where there was a private party going on upstairs. The highlight there was a Jagermeister machine that keeps the stuff nice and chilled. We did a shot. S and James played a game of pool and we went outside. Next door was a small bar downstairs from an old Victorian looking hotel. The place was called White Horse. There was an old white guy tending bar who was extreme welcoming and friendly, as were the other patrons at the bar. We found some seats and the liquor got aflowin'. Some young Asian kids outside, whom I assume we don't know, looked in the window and saw us. They came in and asked that we help them to settle a bet. It was the birthday of one of their female friends and she was to take a shot with every guy in our group. I saw James, Veronica, Johnny and the bartender do the shot. I'm not sure who else did it. I advised S to hide behind the wall as he had just finished a tall glass of some other nasty liquor. He escaped unscathed. From there most folks headed home. Cec and E joined the people in my car at some Thai restaurant for some really tasty grub. James miraculously kept the contents of his stomach in his stomach all the way home. That was pretty eventful in itself. Some guy who must've been wasted was weaving back and forth in front of me. He was so all over the place it took me a bit to decide how to cut around him. Suddenly, he swerved hard to the right and hit the concrete barrier on the side of the highway and drove the car up the wall a bit before crashing back down. I pulled to the far left and sped up to get the hell away. I debated whether to call 911 on his ass but he pulled off the highway and I didn't get his license plate. He must've been the most out of control driver I've ever seen on the road.

finally Friday

Realized last night that after jumping through all those hoops to register for school I forgot to jump through the most important one, paying for my tuition. At SFState they have this stupid system where you must pay for all your credits before you can register. If I say pay for 13 credits but only manage to get into 12 credits worth of classes I have to pay $20 to get the difference refunded to me. How STUPID and unfair is that? Anyways, due to my own stupidity I forgot to pay after I got my health insurance block removed, so I freakin have to drive up there just to submit a cheque. Hopefully I can get my projects done tonight so I can have a normal weekend where I can go out or sit around and do nothing.

I love Nordstrom RACK

One of the best things about this country is the fact that goods are supplied in mass quantities (for a mass population), which means loads of overstock items cheap at places like Nordstrom Rack (my favourite). I scored a pair of Saucony Aura TR6s for $39. They're selling on Zappos for $63.



I didn't want to spend money on anything because of my obvious lack of it, but my current pair of Asics I realized are worn down through the sole such that the cushioning part is exposed on the bottom. Yes that bad. How ghetto. While trying on shoes, it became evident that I'm no longer a size 6. I suspected that my feet have been growing and this confirms it. My big toe hit the end of every pair of 6s I tried on. Luckily we're past the era of foot binding and such. I would be a horrible embarrassment for my family at size 6.5-7 and only 5' tall. How messed up is it that my feet are growing at my age? (I checked and I haven't gotten any taller, just grew longer feet). Isn't it true that our ears continue growing after the rest of our body stops, which is why old people have huge ears? Can anyone confirm that? It seems for me it's my damn feet.

take my remains

Yesterday was my jumping through hoops day. I have to do a bunch of stupid shit in order to register for classes as an international student. The main thing was getting a fax from Blue Cross to prove I have health insurance. It took me two calls to Blue Cross for the idiots to finally fax the thing over last wee. Anyways, I lined up to submit that and the lady tells me a little known fact - I need to buy additional insurance in order to register. I'm thinking, I pay $83 a month which is already inflated cuz having a stupid inhaler jacked up my rate like $6 a month. What more do I need. Well I forgot that SFState or INS, not sure which, requires I pay another $18/semester for repatriation insurance. Basically paying for people to collect my remains in case I decide to off myself or get run over by a truck at the corner of 19th and Holloway where everyone else seems to get run over. So I had to leave the office, go buy the insurance online, print the thing out, and line up again to get my approval to register. Pain in the ass I tell you!

I hate Lowe's

Haven't had time to get to this but I must bitch about Lowe's before I head to bed tonight because they have wronged us too many times now. We moved into our apartment and it was in somewhat bad shape with some really old appliances and stuff but our landlady is excellent and has pretty much replaced every appliance we have. She runs a company and Lowe's is one of their customers so I believe she must get some sort of big discount with them. Here's a rundown of the hell we've dealt with:

new stove and microwave - the delivery guy said they'd come but didn't show on the daythey said they would. This tends to make a mess of my day. When they did show up, they said that our old microwave and stove were not the type that they can remove for me (even though the delivery manager assured my landlord they'd do it). Those guys left my place with the old appliances still in tact and the new microwave and stove sitting in a giant box in my f*cking living room. My landlord called Lowe's and raised hell. Second pair of delivery guys came and scoffed at the guys who said they couldn't do the job and ripped the old appliances out of the wall in minutes.

new washer/dryer - the delivery guy said they'd come but didn't show up. This happened I think about 4 times (Simon stayed home a couple half days waiting for them) until the delivery manager realized that our appliances had not yet arrived from Europe where they were made. They didn't finally make the delivery until 2.5 weeks after the original date promised and we spent many days waiting for the damn delivery as they kept promising it would come the next day, the next day, the next day.

new fridge - said they'd deliver Monday and even promised between 10am and 1pm. no show. Simon called and the delivery manager said they had no deliveries at all scheduled for that day. Apparently they got the dates mixed up. They actually meant Tuesday but assured us Monday. On Tuesday when we called to confirm again just to make sure they didnt fuck up again, the deliver manager (whose job I assume is to look at a calendar and schedule stuff constantly) asked Simon what the date was. WTF??? He finally agreed to noon to 1pm that day, while a voicemail on my phone said between 2pm - 4pm. After much yelling they showed up at noon.

If you totalled all the missed work hours waiting for these idiots from Lowe's these appliances would cost a hell of a lot more than a few hundred bucks I tell ya. NEVER buy anything from these idiots unless you plan to bring it home in your car. I'm quite convinced this "delivery manager" is just sitting in some back room on a pile of papers listing the week's deliveries smoking a huge joint.

they never learn

You'd think that retailers would smarten up after the protests and semi-related class action lawsuit against those biggots at Abercrombie.

*****************************************

Reposting an email from Asian Media Watch.



Jun Zuniga needs your support of his petition to have Burlington Coat Factory remove three offensive Asian-themed t-shirts from their stores:
http://www.petitiononline.com/burlcoat/petition.html
The petition includes links to images of the t-shirts and an account of his correspondance with a company representative.

Editor's note:
- The t-shirts are novelty t-shirts marketed to teens and young adult. They are sold for $4.95 under the house brand "GI Apparel" and feature derogatory references to Asian people, culture, and religion:
1. “Get Lucky By Rubbing Buddha’s Belly” - This t-shirt depicts the religious figure, Buddha, while making a sexual reference to "getting lucky"
2. “Madam Wong’s House of Tang Good Eats Guaranteed Fresh” - This t-shirt contains a repulsive sexual innuendo (the slang word 'Tang') while referring to Asian women as prostitutes. 3. “Red Monkey - Who Flung Poo Chinese Food Delivery” - This t-shirt depicts Chinese food delivery people as monkeys and Chinese food as dirty.
- The t-shirts are reminiscent of those sold by Abercrombie and Fitch in 2002 that triggered a nationwide protest by the APA community and were symptomatic of the company's bias and lack of diversity in employment and marketing practices ( related articles http://www.asianmediawatch.net/news.html#17Nov04a and http://www.asianmediawatch.net/archive.html#14Jan04a )

lip balm and stuff

Over the last few months, I've managed to acquire quite a collection of free lip balms. A couple handfuls of lip balms from some roofing company they were giving away at Zen fest and a bunch more from the SF Love Parade. They taste kinda like coconut or suntan lotion or something, so I don't like them a whole lot. But what I like less is using the ones I got from the Love Parade in public. They're from the Herpes Vaccine Study for Women and it says so right on the thing. There's something not right about smearing stuff on my lips in public that says Herpes in really big letters multiple times on the packaging. So I keep it in my desk drawer for use at home. The people who work for this research study really should've thought about giving something else away other than lip balm, like handouts or something.


Herpes lip balm

*******************

So most of my days this weekend have been really unexciting, homework, papers, presentations. Lucky for me, somehow Adobe Acrobat crapped out on me. The only thing I can think of that I installed recently that might have messed up my Acrobat is Adobe Indesign. Yes another one of their products. I'm guessing at a potential software conflict here only because I can't fathom what else I could've done to my computer that would cause this. Since then I haven't been able to open PDFs. So tonight I uninstalled Acrobat Pro 6.0 and just installed the free reader. Still doesn't work. Shit. I'm going to have to read an article on my laptop I guess but still, this is not a good long term solution since my printer is hooked up to my desktop.

My evenings actually allowed me to escape a bit. Friday night we headed to a couple bars I wanted to test out for a bar hop with the other grad students next week. Steff's was really dead but the guys got to eat corndogs. I realized why I don't like those things. The batter is corn bread. Duh, I didn't realize that the corn in corndog stands for corn bread and I don't like corn bread. Something about the sweet and gritty combination. We headed to House of Shields where they usually have a DJ but they were charging cover and we didn't feel like coughing up $5 for a bar so a we headed over to XYZ strikingly underdressed and drunk. But I have no pride so we got our Chimays and grabbed a seat downstairs where we ran into Keith and Enlai. I believe from there we just headed back home and stopped at some pizza place in San Mateo for some nasty salty all meat pizza. Maintaining my homeostasis on the way back on the 101 was really challenging. Sitting in the back seat of a car while buildings pass by made me awfully dizzy.

Saturday night I flaunted my poker skills by splitting a pot with Eva first round ($25 each) and taking the $10 second place in the second round to Oscar (even though I was kicking his ass for several rounds dammit). The big gamblers were the first ones out. It's the recklessness I say.

Back to putting together some presentations for this week in both my classes.

new hammies

Couple photos of the new dwarf hamsters we got a few weeks ago. Snowy, the white one and Fatty McChubbs, the fat one.


Fatty leaning on Snowy in the lookout tower

Fatty McChubbs 

slow

Getting down to the wire and I've got two presentations and a term paper to work on. Today is a day where I have until 4:30 to get stuff done but I'm having another case of slow start syndrome. I've so far eaten breakfast, crushed food for my sick toothless hamster, read email, discussed some events with a friend whom I'm organizing with, edited an evite, stared blankly at my computer screen while lamenting the direction my life is taking (again) and now I'm updating my blog while wishing I could just go to bed for a couple days. It's like I want to hurry up and get this semester over but at the same time I want time to stand still because its passing just brings me closer to graduation when I'll likely be faced with yet another potentially life changing dilemma. Is stability really too much to ask for? &%$#@ Can't concentrate