Hit 'em with yo Know...

Wow! Its been a really long time before I have written anything. What can I say but this holiday has been one of the most hectic I have ever been apart of, and I didn't even go home for it!!

Hmmm...where to start?

--went to this little holiday get together one night at my friend's AWESOME Condo in Belltown. Everyone was supposed to dress "sexy" but no one really did (though I did my best). And there were way too many guys there too. Check out the pictures here:

http://public.fotki.com/namofni/friends_holiday/

--speaking of photo albums, I update my album with my Company Xmas Party and pics from numerous Karaoke outtings. Check them out.

--did a "chick movie" nite with a bunch of girls I got stuck with after going to dinner with a bunch of others who wanted to go see Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. I already seen it and these girls didn't want to watch it. Ending up watching "Something's Gotta Give." Man, that IS a chick film!!

--went to a poker nite with a bunch of Microsoft guys and pharmacists. Lost all my money. Walked away with a $10 copy of Halo for the PC. Anyone want to play with me?

--the Sunday before Xmas, drove to Vancouver to meet up with my friend Josh from San Diego and his gf. Ending up walking around downtown Vancouver and eating Vancouver sushi. Then wanted to hit a couple of clubs before the nite was up. Ended up accidently hitting a goth nite club and gay night. This of course doesn't surprise me cuz Josh and I have NEVER HAD A NORMAL NIGHT OUT together. Oh, the stories I can tell...

--anyways, drove back to Seattle early Monday moring (3am) so I can go to work two more days before I get the rest of the holiday off.

--Xmas Eve. Supposed to spend it with Karen during the day and catch a IMAX flix before heading to Oiyan's place for dinner. Instead, Oiyan left work early and we went to her place sooner. Played Trivia Pursuit DVD all day long (I won it all too!!)

--Xmas Day. Drove to Vancouver to spend Xmas with Denny and his family. Was to spend my whole holiday there with plans to snowboard, a wedding, a movie (Paycheck), nightclubbing, shopping, strip joints and lots of eating.

--Did pretty much everything except for Snowboarding, during the first weekend. Unfortunately, I realized how tired I really am (and looking back, I haven't gotten much sleep at all...forced to stay up late and wake up early everyday). so I decided to leave Denny on Sunday and drive back to Seattle so I can sleep. Promised to come back the following weekend to finish partying with Denny.

--since I have been back, been sleeping for at least 12 hours a day. It felt really good. Also got to squeeze in "The Last Samurai". Not bad movie.

--today is New Years Eve and I am planning a nite out. I will tell you about it later but its has been madness to set something up because I wasn't planning to be in Seattle for New Years and all my friends like to wait for the last minute. Basically, everything we are planning tonight only came out like a couple of hours ago. Wow! Can't wait...

My *Funny* Lord of the Ring Story

So, last night I went to see Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at midnight and coming home around 4am. Great movie btw, and didn't even once wanted to fall asleep, despite how tired I was. Anyways, I almost missed this screening. This is why...

So, around 8pm before the movie, I went to dinner with Vivian's roomate Kale before heading back to their place around 10pm. If you recall, Vivian's place was where I was also up til 4 am one night trying to break into her house after we went clubbing because she locked herself out. Anyways, driving to her place I realized that I was running low on gas. Not too worried since the low gas light just came on so I had penty of gas to get a gas station AFTER her place. So I drived to her place and parked on her slanted sloping driveway.

So, I stay around 10:30 pm before I realized I need to get to the theatre and line up with my friends. So I get into my car to leave, when I couldn't start the car AT ALL. I thought it was battery but my lights was still shining bright. Turns out, because I was low on gas AND I was parked on a hill, the gas wasn't getting into the engine!! Man, Vivian's place is cursed!!

So, calling out the other ppl in the house, we tried everything we can to get the car up the hill, including pushing it up but there was no way (too heavy). So, luckily, I had AAA so I called them. 30 minutes later they showed up and gave me a couple galleons of fuel to see if that helped. IT WORKED! Woohoo! And the best part...it only cost me $2 (for the cost of the fuel)!! AAA rocks!!

After filling my tank, I drove to the theatre and got their around 11:45pm. Luckily, my coworkers saved me a seat and everything was fine.

The End.

Oh, I just realized that I have seen each of the LOTR movies in a different city (San Marcos, Toronto and now Redmond). Is that cool or what? ;)

Mom, Boat and Life

Point form...let's recap!

--so, my mom has come to visit and stay with me for about 2 weeks. A couple of things I discovered:
...mom doesn't like to do tourist-y stuff. She rather go grocery shopping or stay home and cook for me and clean my place (even though I already cleaned it before she arrived, but she still said the place was fifthy!!)
...mom thinks dim sum in Seattle sucks
...mom thinks Seattle's Chinatown is not even open when I drove her there. Yup, welcome to the deadest Chinatown I know.
...mom thinks grocerys are very expensive here in the US
...mom thinks that no one walks the streets here (I do live in the "suburbs" of Seattle)

--my sister and her husband came into Seattle around the 2nd week of mom's stay. This was very good timing cause I was running out of things to do with mom and that mom can also do things with them while I went to work. They mostly did outlet mall shopping at Northbend and Auburn, in which turns out, I get a pretty discount at one of them just cuz of where i worked.

--during our last evening together, after some last minute outlet mall shopping, I took them all out for dinner. Since everyone was sick and tired of Chinese Food, I took them to the most American place I know...Tony Roma's for some good BBQ ribs and chicken. They really enjoyed it!

--I was able to attend one of Albert Shen's annual singles parties. If you read back far enough, one year ago, in my blog, I went to his last one too. Its where I did that "speed dating" thingy. Anyways, that last one was where I met a lot of new people, who are now some of my most closest friends...so I knew not to miss this one. First off...no more speed dating at this one. Secondly, this party was JUST PACKED with people. Even though it was held at the same place as last year, you couldn't even move around in the crowd, which made it even harder to get to know people. Did meet a few new people, but nothing to write home (or this blog) about.

--this past week was also my company's holiday party. This year, it took place on a boat going around Lake Washington and just like last year, we had fake casino games to entertain us. I also brought my friend, Di along who had a wonderful time. Nothing dramatic to report. Just a good time on a 3 hour boat ride.

--afterwards (since it was only 10pm), we headed to a couple of bars in Kirkland. This night also marked the last night of co worker / former classmate Sheldon who, after 7 years of being away from his girlfriend, was moving back to Newfoundland to be with her. It was a great night of drunken fun. And I have pictures to prove it (coming soon!). You will be missed Sheldon. Good luck in whatever you do.

--next day, I got to have dinner with a few of the "other" Digipen class grads who work / live here because one of theirs was in town to visit. Doug was in town, so Vivek and Nate and Keith and Ryan and even myself and Sheldon came out for him. We ate at Claim Jumpers which is always too much food to eat.

--afterwards, I had a little social at Kona Kitchen for a little Toy Drive action. I brought the coolest toy too to give away, a dancing baby Winnie the Pooh. Anyways, this get together was okay. Not such a great turn out but had lots of fun Karaoking in front of perfect strangers. I sung a duet of "Time of My Life" with Li that knocked everyone's socks off! Yeah!!

--right now, I am completely exhausted from these past 2 weeks, especially with my mom's visit. Because when I wasn't out with mom, I was working very hard (and long hours) to make up for all the days off I took to be with mom. And then I had that xmas party! I am still very tired, wanting to go home early and sleep but its not going to happen anytime soon. In fact, tonite at midnight, I am going to go see Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King! I can't believe I agreed to this! I am going to die!!

My Life and Thoughts in Point Form

Okay...I got s'plainin' to do, mostly about my lack of posts. Well, my only excuse has been that I have just been really busy. Busy with work but also busy with life. I have done so much these past days. Let's summarize:

--went to 3 different Thanksgivin Dinners. And had 3 different types of turkeys, all prepared differently (one normal, one with bacon and one deep fried!). Made Jonny Ward's famous cobblers in which impressed them all! I am the KING OF THE WORLD!!

--played a lot of video games, but not games I played by myself (though Mario & Luigi for GBA has taken ALOT of time from me. IT SOOO DAMN GOOD!). Went to a whole bunch of parties where I brought out my Eye Toy and Karaoke Revolutions. Both are EXCELLENT party games. Also played Halo til 3am one nite. Though I never really played Halo that well before, that night I KICKED ASS, rivalling some of the more seasoned MICROSOFT EMPLOYED players too! SUCK IT!

--saw 2 movies. Gothika and Master & Commander. Both were okay and though both of them weren't that scary, there were a couple of scenes that made it great to be a man sitting next to girl *le sigh*

--saw the next episodic play, Sex in Seattle 8: Doin' it Again. This was by far the best, and most funniest (and longest) version of the play. Too bad the next one is in June, 2004!!

--once again went clubbin for only 1 hour. We went to the Baltic Room for some great live Hip Hop. Too bad we got there at 12:30am and last call in Seattle is 1:30am. Doesn't that suck.

--helped Linh moved into her new place in First Hill. Had a great Vietnamese dinner with her parents afterwards.

--got to visit and tour the BIG Nintendo plant in North Bend where we saw our game, 1080 Avalanche being packaged and ready to be shipped all across North American. It was quite amazing how efficient and how everything is video taped so that if there's any "missing" shipments, THEY WILL KNOW!!

--went to some geek party where we played Mario Kart Double Dash a la 3 Gamecube / TV screens and 12 players(!) and then watched / played Lord of the Rings Two Towers SE drinking games. That was a lot of fun, especially with these rules of when to drink. Here, take note and use it at your next geek party:

Drink Whenever
... you see the EYE
... the hobbits are eating/talking about eating
... something gets severed
... anyone is referred to as "son of..."
... an elf makes fun of a dwarf or vice versa
... someone speaks a made-up language
... Gandalf or Saruman say "Morrr-dorrr"
... someone other than Gollum mentions "The One Ring" or "The Ring of Power"
....Frodo gets aroused by the Ring.
... someone gets picked up
- twice if they're thrown
... a chapter title from the book is mentioned (once per title)
... a new (extended) scene is introduced
... Gimli is used for comic relief
... Gollum develops laryngitis or Treebeard "Hroom-Hooms."
... Treebeard says, "Hasty"
... someone looks longingly at Aragorn
... a woman other than a cowering peasant (once per scene)
... Eowyn bitches about not being a man
... someone screams, "Nazgul!" or "Black Rider!"
... a named character in the film or the books dies or seemingly dies
- again if they "come back to life"
... a dead character makes a cameo
... a ladder falls
... you see Peter Jackson's kids

--of course, with all the things I have done these past weeks, there were a couple of events I had to miss. The big one being Denny's Pajammy Jammy Jam 3 in SF. MAN, I really wanted to go to that but I couldn't find the time to do so. I also missed a couple of dinners with old friends and even dinner and dancing with a bunch of nurses :( . That one really hurt. :(

--but the biggest thing to talk about is my family (mom, sis, brother in law) have / are coming to visit me here in Seattle! This marks the FIRST TIME ANY FAMILY MEMBER have come and visit me here since moving to the USA like 5 years ago! I picked up my mom from Vancouver on Sunday and now she's staying with me for the next 2 weeks. And all she wants to do is cook for me! How cool is that!! My sis and her hubby come next week. This is great since I am not going home for xmas but kinda bad cause it making my busy work schedule even busier. Eeek...Oh well...

--on a sad note, one of my most closest friend in the world had one of the worst thing happen to him...something a great guy like him, should never had happened to him. When he called me to tell me about it, I was completely speechless and when he got off the phone with me, I was almost in tears. Love FUCKIN' SUCKS! My thoughts are with you, JTW.

Circle of Connections

I mention last entry that I saw someone at a party that I haven't seen in 10 years. Sam was a person I went to camp with, a camp in which I also made a lot of lifetime friends from, including those who were very good friends with Sam (which included Monica, Renee and Cindy). Now 10 years later, those friends of his are still very close friends with me but have totally lost touch with Sam. And it now looks like I will be the one reuniting them.

But those connections dont end there. Since meeting Sam, other freaky connections have occurred.

Rewind one day from the party I met Sam at. I was at a house party at Sylvia's when one guy there showed up with a friend of my from another group of friends. Priscilla, was just as surprised as I was to run into each other that night.

Now, fast forward to last night and I get an email from Priscilla for me to join her on her Friendster list. Though she found me through "other" friends, I checked her friend list only to be shocked to see that she was friends with my friend Yvonne from Vancouver (of whom is my Toronto friend Danny's cousin). This is the second person I met (Priscilla is from Vancouver) that also knew Yvonne (the first being Marie, Jon and Denny's friend, of whom I met in San Francisco one weekend, only to see her picture in Yvonne's room the next weekend!).

But it gets even freakier. Turns out Priscilla knows Sam too! In fact, Sam is Priscilla's chiropractor and they just saw each other the day before only to start talking to each about ME (I have NO idea how I got into their conversation).

Anyways, I hope to have lunch with Sam soon and catch up with him...and find out how many other people he and I know! You know its great to know so many people here in Seattle from only living here just a little over a year.

That Kind of Saturday Nite...

Yeah...a post! Sorry, for the lack of posting but really, I had nothing to write about. All I mostly did was work and work a lot and well, that's not very fun to write. Anyways...I went out on Saturday for one of the most "interesting" nites I had in awhile. And when I said "interesting", I dont entirely mean, I had fun...

9:30pm: meet at my friend's Vivian's place to go out clubbing tonite. I get there at 9:30pm but of course, she is not ready and we are still waiting for someone else. Ended up talking with her new roomate.

10:00pm: finally, we are all ready to leave. Oh wait....we need to go to a house birthday party to wish someone a happy birthday. Lets now take the time to find this house.

10:30pm: arrive at house birthday party. Of course, its one of those awkward parties in which I knew hardly anyone and still had to sing happy birthday for someone I hardly know. But we were only there to pop our head in and then leave in like 20 minutes.

11:30pm: ended up staying for an hour. Okay, there was one high note...there was this one person at this party who looked VERY FAMILAR to me. I asked him if he was from Toronto and he told me he was from London, Ontario. IMMEDIATELY after he said that, I knew who he was. I went to camp with him about 10 years ago and I like hanged out with all his female friends from London. He was completely blown away that we met!

11:35pm: okay, ready to leave to the club. We were late and ppl were waiting for us so this was the best time to leave. BUT WAIT!! We forgot we need to pick up 2 out of town ppl at a hotel to come with us. D'OH!

Midnite: FINALLY! we are at the club. We went to this club called Fenix (pronounced Phoenix) Underground. Before I could even enjoy the club, I had to wait near the door because it turns out Linh FORGOT her ID card and I had Sylvia's ID and I was waiting for her call to meet her outside, re-line up and hope she gets in with that ID (since all Asian ppl look alike). It worked!

12:30am: okay...I just re-walked into the club with Linh only to find out that everyone I went with hated this club and we were leaving to another. So, we all took off to Bohemian, minus Linh and Sylvia, who we couldn't find in the club but she was with a friend and she was dancing with some guy.

12:45am: so, we are at Bohemian when I get a call from Sylvia. Turns out she wanted to come with us too. So I meet her outside only to realized, I DONT HAVE HER ID card!! Linh still has it!! Sylvia now has to go back to the last club, find Linh, get ID and come back.....

1:15am: FINALLY, everyone is reunited at Bohemian. The music was good but the place was really ghetto and the ppl were all skanky (men and women). Though there was also a lot of shoving, everyone was still having fun. Oh...everyone except Vivian's roomate who really HATED this place. She was not having fun despite all my efforts. I even offered her to go outside and find another place but she didn't want that.

1:30am: Vivian's roomate finally gave it. She wanted to go home. So, we all went home. Yup...just like that...we all picked up and left. 1 hour of dancing. I think Viv was pretty pissed.

2:30am: after dropping off the out of towners, we headed back to Vivian's place. OH WAIT!! HOLY SHIT...Vivian lost her key to the house and she was locked out of her own house!! Even her roomate left her keys at home!! we spent the next 30min calling (and waking up) friends and trying to call a 24 hour locksmith.

3am: No one picked up!! Not even any of these "so-called 24hr" locksmith. Actually, we got a hold of one person and they were going to charge $250!! We actually were able to get into the basement of her house (by waking up the next door neighbour who had the key to the basement) only to realized the UPSTAIR was locked. Still not over yet. But at least this door (between the first and basement), was not very tough and we can probably use some tools to break off the handle of this doors. But where to find tools?

3:30am: we ended up calling Oiyan up, who lived very close by. Luckily, she picked up and I drove over to pick up a screwdriver and hammer (all she had). Spent the next 30 minutes hammering and wedging off that door handle.

4am: WE BREAK THRU. Actually, Vivian's roomate figure out how to get thru. (my breaking off the door knob was proving harder than originally thought). Everyone is happy and exhausted.

5am: Asleep...finally....slept til 2pm.

In Other News...

--Seattle is soooo fookin' cold now! I mean, really cold...like "frost on my car" cold...like "frost on my car and I have to spend the moring scrapping it off before I drive" cold. Boy, that's cold (for Seattle).

--once again, I had surgery on my left big toe again. The ingrown toe nail has come back (even though we all thought it was cured) and I had to go in under the knife again. This must be like my 5 time doing this because its not as painful as I remember it. Though I do limp while I walk, most of the pain came from the 4 needle injection I had to numb the toe before the operation. Especially when the doctor accidently hits the needle on the bone part of the toe...OUCH!

--and because of the toe, I had to wear sandels the first day after the operations...in this FREEZING weather. I put shoes the next day but it was really uncomfortable and I really couldn't walk properly.

--saw Matrix Revolutions last nite on the company's dime. I enjoyed the movie especially those big giant robots that the human's use (I want THE TOY), but I think I need to watch it again to truly understand "the message" of the movie.

--this movie is like the first time in my movie theatre going career that I have ever got up DURING the movie to use the bathroom. Must be all the free soda we got, but because I had a bad toe, try hobbing thru your aisle and then limping to the bathroom only to realized that the bathroom was upstairs. It took me awhile to go to the bathroom.

--I put up two more photo albums as follows:
1) John's Going Away Party: I had pictures but not enough to make an album. But then John gave me his and asked to put them up. So here they are...
2) Pictures from Fado, free Happy Hour. Co workers and I...in the Random Memories Deux album.

Enjoy

Halloween in SF!

My Halloween in San Francisco was great. Got to go to 2 great parties and most importantly, got to hang out with Jon and Denny.

Instead of writing a big blog entry about, just check out the photos I just updated. Check them out here:

http://public.fotki.com/namofni/halloween_in_sf_2k3/

In case anyone was wondering, the first nite, I was Bubbles, that guy on that Canadian TV show, Trailer Park Boys, NOT a pedopile or someone even called me "the Donger" from Sixteen Candles! The second nite I was just the typical nerd / geek.

Highlight: Seeing someguy on the street as "Greatest American Hero" and then we ALL break out in a chorus of the theme song. "Believe it or not, I'm walking on air..." Can't believe we all knew the words.

Lowlight: Running out a power on my camera which prevented me from talking pictures of these girls all decked out in incredibly awesome Kill Bill costumes. They were all REALLY good, especially Go Go...she even had a real metal spikey ball and chain. Just simply amazin.

My Weekly Blog

Okay...time to dwell into what I did this past weekend...oh the joy!

Thursday
--went to Wild Ginger in Downtown Seattle for dinner to celebrate Virginia's bday. Wild Ginger, I thought was an upscale Thai restaurant which turns out to be really an upscale Chinese restaurant. Oh at least I see Asian ppl in the kitchen so that must be a good thing(?). Watched as Virginia gets an iPod for her bday from her husband. Damn, I wish someone who love me enough to get me an iPod on my bday :(

Friday
--went to see a MICROSOFT production of Guys and Dolls, with all the performers being Microsoft employees and taking place in a Microsoft cafeteria. Despite having a very hard time finding this mysterious Building 31, I had a good time watching this play. Paul, someone we knew, was performing in this play which amazing enough had really high production value to me an amateur performance piece. Not only did everyone acted really well, they also all dance and sang, with even a live band performaning all the music. WOW! Why can't our company do that? :(

Saturday
--went to dinner with Di and Sunny (who's full name IS really SUNSHINE!!) at Wild Ginger, the EXACT same restaurant I went to on Thursday. Ate a lot while spending a lot too. Then Di and I headed to our concert, where we went to see The Strokes play at Seahawk Exhibition Center. Anyway, Di was pretty disappointed with the concert, for the amount we paid, we got to see The Strokes play for a hour while waiting for 2 hours just for them to appear. Oh, at least she had fun just hanging out with me (I think).

Sunday
--spend all day hitting Thrift Stores and Halloween Stores and Art Stores and Walmart just so I can "build" my Halloween costume for SF. I think it will be okay costume.

Syphon Filter

So, I am playing the demo version of the NEW Syphon Filter for the Playstation 2 and the coolest thing by far is the demo level takes place in TORONTO and its wonderful subway system. Sure, it doesn't really "look" like Toronto...it could be any major city with subway system, but who cares! Its finally good to see Toronto represented in a video games (not including sports game).

But then, I read this article about Toronto and Syphon Filter:

http://www.polygonmag.com/news/index.php?id=1041

Damn you Canadian government in which I no longer pay taxes to!

Randomness

Once again, its one week later, and I am finally writing a blog entry! Let's catch up!

--so I got Tivo running finally. Took it over to Oiyan's place over lunch, and hooked it up to a phone line there. It made two 20 minute calls before it had to "set itself up" the next 6 hours. I came back in the evening and it had to make 1 more 1 hour phone call before it was ready for me to take home and set it up using my wifi network at home.
--Tivo is AWESOME! I now can watch all the shows that I use to miss before and I got Tivo just in time for South Park and 24 season premiers. And it tapes stuff for me too! But for some wierd reason, its taping me a lot of children's cartoon shows and cooking shows. Very strange
--supposed to go bowling on Sat afternoon only to be called in for work. Not cool.
--invited to a bday dinner at this girl's place. Very lowkey dinner with ppl older than me.
--on sunday, was invited to attend this CANADIAN Thanksgivin' dinner by Linh, to meet her Canadian soccer buddies, who were hosting the party. Turns out, the host, who was from Toronto is the SAME GUY who hosted the last Canadian Thanksgivin' dinner I went to LAST year in Seattle! (see Oct 2002 posts) Wow...still thru different friends, I still ended up at his party! What a small world.
--watched Shaolin Soccer in this awesome theatre set up in their condos. Even though there were skeptically movie snobby people who didn't really want to see this movie, after they saw it, they couldn't believe how good it was and they absolutely loved it. Shaolin Soccer may quite possibly be the GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME!!
--you know, after being here for over a year, I can FINALLY and OFFICIALLY say that it is THE RAINY SEASON here in Seattle. For the last year, Seattle has been really sunny and dry which is considered a freak of nature here. And as good as it sounds for this place to be sunny all the time, it really hurt the skiing / snowboarding industry here with the lack of snow in the area and the less than perfect slopes. Oh well...welcome to Seattle.
--last nite, I took my co workers to the Fado Happy Hour Party that I won a couple of weeks back. Though I invited about 25 people, only 8 people showed. Though I was a little disappointed, it actually turned out great. 8 people was just the right amount of people to have a good time and eat the just right amount of free food. I got to bond with all of them.
--updated my photo album with following:

Mario Kart Double Dash Go Karting in our parking lot--we had a mini go kart track set up in the back to help promote the new Mario Kart game coming. Our division won it all too! It was fun.

More Tokyo pics: from the other cameras. Check out most the last few pages of the album. New pics from that Ninja restaurant we went to and a couple pics of me falling asleep in the subway.

John's going away party pics: just a couple of pics in the last pages of Random Memories Deux Album. Yeah!

One Week Later

As it was pointed out by Doodlegirl, I haven't been putting entries recently. Sorry...I haven been really busy. But here is a summary for your reading pleasure:

Thursday
--ordered a 80 hr refurbished Tivo online for 200 bucks. On retrospect, I dont know why I brought a Tivo since:
a) I am trying to cut down on spending money
b) I am really broke this month...like REALLY broke
c) I actually dont watch that much tv anymore since:
i) I am very busy
ii) Its a pain to record anytime I like to watch on TV because I have digital Cable
iii) Its a pain to flip thru channels and find anything to watch on TV because I have digital Cable
anyways, I bought it cuz I always wanted one and it was on sale. And Tivo will finally make it worth while to have Digital Cable for once!!

Friday
--went to see Kill Bill at night with the company. I noticed I dont write reviews for movies I watch anymore but I have to say I really enjoyed Kill Bill and rank it as one the best movie experience I have had this year.

Saturday
--book shopping with Oiyan pretending to be John so I can use a gift certificate that was under his name
--work in the afternoon
--at night, went Fado Irish Bar with Linh and Sylvia and friends. While Linh and Sylvia were too busy being hit on by other guys, I put my business card in a draw to win a free happy hour party for 20. Later went to Alibi Room bar where we bet Linh can't stand at a bar for 5 minutes before some guy will try to have a conversation with her. We won!!

Sunday
--dim sum w/ Oiyan and then to Fry's to exchange and return items (like my new computer RAM that didn't work...now they do!)
--started FINALLY unpacking my stuff in cardboard boxes from my initial move, one year. Lots of stuff I recovered.
--while watching Alias, all the power in my neighbourhood went out. I got bored sitting in the dark at home so I went to work to surf the net. People are still at work finishing up 1080.

Monday
--decided to take a "personal day" and stayed home finishing up my unpacking and cleaning of my apartment
--went to dinner with Oiyan at this awesome Chinese beef noodle restaurant
--met up with Linh and her hot sister for coffee at 10pm in the evening in Capital Hill. For a coffee loving city like Seattle, you would think there are more coffee shops opened late but this is one of the only ones. Listen to the girl talk about their past childhood.

Tuesday
--remember that business card I left at Fado to win that contest? I WON!! Decided to take some of my coworker friends to this party because they all deserved it for working so hard these past days finishing up 1080
--find out that Tivo was coming today so I decided to go look for a wireless USB adaptor so I can hook up the Tivo to the internet (since I dont have a land phoneline). What a pain that was since ONLY SPECIFIC models work with the Tivo. I went to like 4 different stores till I found the right one BY ACCIDENT at a Best Buy in Lynnwood (30 minutes away). Since I was in the area, decided to hang out with Justin who lives up there.
--FUCKIN' UPS came to my place at 6:11pm to deliver my Tivo at my place. Since I wasn't home nor was the rental office openned at that time, they had to delivered it the next day. Who delivers AFTER 6pm anyways?!!
--decided I want to spend Halloween in San Francisco this year, because there's really nothing to do in Seattle this year for Halloween. Bought my plane tickets and told Jon and Denny. Already invited to 2 Halloween parties there.

Wednesday
--wake up in the morning and ready to go to work when I discover that my washing machine was leaking water and my closet carpet was all wet. Took moring off so I can place all my towels on the poodle of water to soak it up. I got blisters from wringing out so many wet towels for over hour.
--at least I was at home when my Tivo finally came. Went to work.
--got home at 10 pm ready to set up my Tivo. Was setting up my Tivo for about 1 hour before I realized that I NEEDED A PHONE LINE INITIALLY TO SET UP THE FUCKIN' TIVO. Spent the next 30 minutes calling people to see if I can use there phone line over night. The answers I got were:
a) not home
b) no phone line
Guess I have to find someone to set up Tivo tomorrow :(

YEah...you are caught up.

What I didn't do this weekend

This past weekend was the 4th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival. I was planning on flying down that weekend just attend and help out with the festival (just like last year), but I just couldn't fit it into my schedule. I am really busy with my project, even more busier since I went to Japan last weekend and still recovering from that (mentally and workwise).

But I heard it was a great festival, getting better and more recognized every year. I just read this review of it at:

http://filmthreat.com/FilmFestivals.asp?Id=1312

and it only made me more disappointed for missing it :( Oh well. Next year.

But what I did do this weekend was fun too.

Friday was John's Goodbye party. John was one of the nicest person I have met here in Seattle and a person I spend a lot of time with (him and his gf). John is also a bonafide rocket scientist who has been out of work for the like half a year now. Now he needs to continue his rocket scientist ways and they only way he can is to take this awesome job in Phoenix, Arizona.

So, he will be missed and we had this party to show how much we will miss him. A lot of people showed up and it was a fun get together. I really didn't do too much with him at the party...I decided to actually let him catch up with everyone else, since I see him so often anyways. In fact, I was one of the LAST person he saw before he left on Saturday afternoon, after our last Dim Sum together.

John will be missed by myself, but I do worry about his gf. She seems to be taking it well that he's hundreds of miles away now, but I know she's become really lonely and anti-social. I am sure that will pass.

Saturday nite. Went to a party ALL BY MYSELF in which I KNEW NO ONE AT THIS PARTY! I still had fun and met some cool ppl who made me feel welcome. Later with the party crew went to the Showbox for this awesome FUNK NITE party.

The Showbox btw, is a famous Seattle concert hall where a lot of bands play. In actual fact, I didn't know what type of music they would play tonite and was really surprise it was a hip hop /R & B nite. But the music was great thx to an awesome DJ and the place with PACKED, despite how huge it was! This was the first time I have ever gone to the Showbox and this one was one of the best parties I have ever gone in Seattle.

Later met up with Tom (who was supposed to go to the original party with me) and his lady friends and spent the rest of the night with them. Ate a good breakfast, home by 4am. Good times.

Tokyo Album NOW UP!

Go there NOW!!

http://public.fotki.com/namofni/tokyo_2k3!/

3 warnings!

1) Over 300+ pictures to go thru!
2) Tons of pictures of cute girls. If you are offended by that, LOOK AWAY!
3) Witty comments become lame. You try coming up with 300+ clever things to say!

That is all. Enjoy...

NEW PHOTO ALBUM!!

Okay, NOT the Japan album yet...still uploading and working on it (and waiting for some pics from one more co worker), but I got up my White Water Rafting pics up. Check them out here:

http://public.fotki.com/namofni/rafting_down_the/

I really like these pics because they were all taken by a professional photographer with a telescopic lens and a really good digital camera. In fact, the actually RAW images they gave me were just TOO big for my photo album so I had to reduce them. There's one picture of our boat that was just fantastic and I will big printing out a big shot of it for framing.

Anyways, hope you enjoy the pics and I will be back soon with the Japan trip pics...

I'm Famous!!

I made it to Season 2 of Denny's Phone Message 101! I am so proud of myself :) But man, do I REALLY sound like that :(

Now if Denny would only finish my website layout *le sigh*

Post Tokyo Blog!

Back from Tokyo.

Very tired.

Tokyo is big and humid.

Transit system is annoyingly long, confusing and expensive.

Tokyo Game show is smaller than E3 but with much more hot booth babes.

Had about 9 hours of sleep this whole trip (4 hours being over 2 days). Usually got home around 7am.

Turns out that I am an asshole when I am drunk.

Horny white guys co workers only wanted to go to Roppongi (the sleazy "western" part of Tokyo), ended up going there ALL THREE NITES AT THE SAME FUCKIN' CLUB!! I hated it the first time I step into the club!

Got to check out Akihabara, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Roppongi and Ueno.

Bought some stuff at Akihabara, not as much as I expected (I refrained myself).

Japanese girls DO talked to you if you are white and sitting by yourself on the subway.

Got to see my friends in Tokyo, including ex roomie John Mac, Colin my friend at Square Enix and Nami, a girl I met in Seattle. I also got to meet a lot of their game industry friends (not Nami's).

One night went to this very cool NINJA restaurant, where the place is made to look like a cave and everyone is dressed like a ninja serving you. Night ended with an AWESOME Ninja magic show. Very expensive though (company paid). A definate highlight of trip.

Watch as one of our "never been with a girl / real human beings" co worker pick up a girl and start dancing on the floor with her. Though I am happy he was with a woman, it was VERY PAINFUL to watch him "grind" with this girl.

Went to this great DJ club with John Mac and his gf Meaghan called Yellow. Supposively, a very cool and large (for a Tokyo night club) where the world's best DJ play. $30 cover too but since Meaghan knew the DJ, I only paid $10. Afterwards, went to this really bad Japanese Tex Mex joint.

Ate a lot of Teriyaki burgers from Lotteria and crispy deep friend chicken cartilige. Yummy!

Took about 300 pictures (coming soon).

Pre Tokyo Blog!

This will probably be my last blog entry I make before I come back from Japan. So, there was a couple of things I wanted to post before I did. First of all, new Photo Album pictures:

--Karaoke Pics in Random Memories Deux!! Album
--More hiking pics from Snoqualmie Falls, Mt. Si and Mt. Rainer in my Nature Album.

Check them out.

Also, what I did this weekend...

Wet and Wild Weekend

--started the weekend by picking up Sylvia from the airport around 10pm Friday. She was in town to go visit Vancouver with her friend in town. I surprised her by telling her I will be coming up too, late saturday night after White Water Rafting the whole day. She was skeptically I was going to make it...so was I.
--woke up early Saturday to meet Justin to drive up near Yakama, WA to go White Water Rafting on Tieton River. We left around 9am and got there around 12 noon for lunch awaiting for us.
--this is my first time ever going White Water Rafting and I was very excited. But I was worried because the week leading up was very miserable grey and wet weather and I was concerned it would be the same on Saturday. But I was glad to be wrong because Saturday was just beautiful!
--I had the best time White Water Rafting!! We had the best team, a new boat and an awesome instructor and the most fun. I can honestly say, this was one of the most fun I had since moving here to Seattle. My friend Justin had a great time too, especially since this was both our first time. And the best thing? Since this was a company trip, the company paid for most of it which turns out to be only $25/person (normally $80) which included our wetsuit and booties and a huge lunch! Thx you N!
--I bought a waterproof disposable camera for this trip which I ended up never using. Why? Turns out the company also hired a professional photographer onsite to take our pictures as we travel down the stream. And the pictures were just AWESOME! As soon as I get copies of them, I will post them. Blow your mind.
--Took us 2hrs to go down stream (too short if you asked me) before we started heading back to Seattle around 5pm. We didn't get back til 8pm. There was NO F*CKIN' WAY we were going to drive to Vancouver and party tonite. I mean, we were really tired but the fact was we were going to get there by 11pm and then party til only 3am because I needed to drive back to Seattle to pick up Oiyan and John at airport the next day. I would be too dead somewhere along the proposed trip. I call Sylvia and my friend Yvonne and break the bad news.
--ended up just chillin' in Redmond, having a nice Mexican dinner and watching a movie (Lost in Translation, which is a cool small indie film which I really wanted to see before I went to Japan so I know what to expect in Japan!).
--woke up early next morning, got my oil changed on my car and went to Fry's before I had to pick up Oiyan and John at the airport around 1:30pm (I was airport bitch this week).
--Oiyan had tix to Wild Waves water park so we spent the rest of the afternoon there. This place was kinda ghetto and small but what do you expect being one of the ONLY amusement parks in Seattle (because of Seattle's climate, they wont dare build something bigger and better and not lose money on it).
--didn't expect to do any of the water rides (they did have rollercoasters) because of the weather but once again, it was a great sunny day on Sunday. Did a couple of the water slides and a rollercoaster before we called it a day.
--finished day with dinner at Claim Jumpers.

Anyways, Japan is a calling. See ya when I get back...

Greatest Sign EVER!

http://www.engrish.com/recent_detail.php?imagename=wingbag.jpg&category=Bags/Packaging&date=2003-09-09

I must go to this place!!

Ghostbusters?

Too funny!

http://technology.nzoom.com/cda/printable/1,1856,62313,00.html

Good News

Hey, just thought I tell everyone that I FINALLY get to go to Japan next week!! I will be in Tokyo, attending the Tokyo Game Show, between Sept 26th to Sept 29th. Yeah, yeah...I know, its a only a 3 day trip but dammit, the company is paying for it so I dont really care!! But I plan to try to squeeze in a lot in 3 days (no sleeping, btw) and seeing a lot of friends in which I realize are in Tokyo!

I CAN'T WAIT!! BUT I know I am going to spend a HELL of a lot of money...(and take a lot of pics too)

Anyways, if you will be Tokyo at that time, LET ME KNOW!!!

More Good News

I updated my photo album again. Actually, I have still tons of pictures to go thru but this was what I could have done this weekend. Check them out:

Oiyan's Surprise Bday!!: this time it's John's gf turn as we surprise the crap out of her yesterday nite. She was absolutely frighten to death by our surprise.

Sylvia's Bday!!: here are the pics from that Chuck E Cheese / Dancing / Drinking / Jalapeno Corn Fries birthday nite we had. I mostly took only the Chuck E Cheese part and stole the other "nite" photos from Yen.

John's Surprise Bday: The original surprise party has now more pics! Rejoice!!

Damn, that's a lot of surprise bday parties. Damn, that's alot of bday parties!!!

Sylvia's Chuck E Cheese Bday

This Friday, I got attend my friend Sylvia's (for the SF crew, this is ANOTHER SYLVIA) 30th Birthday. And because it was her 30th birthday, they decided to help celebrate it by celebrating each different decade she lived in. So, for her "10s", we all went for dinner at Chuck E Cheese.

I can't believe how GHETTO Chuck E Cheese! I haven't been to a Chuck E Cheese since I was in Grade 2 and sure, I am a much older now, but this place is totally lame with its (excuse the pun) cheesy throwback artwork, employees who have seem to have lost all hope in life, horrible and expensive and not too filling pizza and games that are just old and crappy. I mean, take a place like Dave & Buster (btw, there's no D&B in Washington :( ) in which is a very fun and cool place to be but basically is the same idea as Chuck E Cheese except Chuck E Cheese is still stuck in the 80s.

And what's even scarier, is that everyone got stamped with somekind of invisible stamp when coming in. When we asked what its for, basically, its used to stamp EVERYONE who comes together (parents and kids) with the same "code" so that you LEAVE together with the kids of YOUR "CODE". Its to prevent ppl from taking other ppl's kids! Now that's distrubing.

Despite all that rant, we still had an okay time together partying and laughing at how bad this place is. We played the redemption games til we ran out of all the free tokens they gave us.

So, to celebrate her 20s and 30s, we basically went and did what we normal do...dancing and drinking. Dancing at the Baltic Room in Capital Hill to some great music, including a LIVE Hip Hop / R&B band who were just awesome. Drinking later at the Capital Club (just down the street) for some martini's and other grown up drinks. We then headed to the Broadway Grill for an after party meal of those AWESOME Jalapeno Corn fries and watching the hammered birthday girl throw up in the restaurant. Yeah!

Pictures of the great event can be found here:

http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=chensium&AID=1016351

My pictures coming soon.

Chau Week

This past week, I also got to hang out with this awesome girl who was visiting Seattle. Basically, Chau, who doesn't live in Seattle, use to live in Seattle about the same time I moved to Seattle. In fact, she was one the first girls I have ever met here. But when she was living here in Seattle, I only met her twice and we never really talked. And then she moved and I never really saw her again.

But since the time she left, I started meeting and hanging and forming really good friendships with a lot of her friends here in Seattle. So much so that Chau would hear about me whenever she called any of her friends back in Seattle, and I too would hear my friends here talk about her. Anyways, by the time she came back, we were like long lost old friends reunited. It was wierd how our friendship formed but we truely had an awesome time together dancing, karaoking and eating during this whole week!

Chau, you are truely rock and we will all miss you in the NW. Come back soon.

A Dedication

Meggerz is the sweetest girl. She decided to dedicate one of her photo albums to me :) Check it out:

http://public.fotki.com/chubbycheeks
(its the Ikea album)

I feel so loved :)

LONG Labour Day Weekend

This long weekend I had a lot of fun and did horribly a lot. Not bad for a weekend in which I wanted to leave Seattle for but didn't and had nothing planned except for John's Surprise Birthday party. I love it when it all comes together:

Friday Nite: Afterwork, went clubbin with a bunch of co workers and some really cute japanese "exchange student"-type girls who were close friend's to Scott's japanese girlfriend. We went to Last Supper Club, which is oddly enough, one of the FIRST clubs I have ever been to when I first got here. What's even more strange, I only went once that only time and I believe its about a year since I came back. Anyways, we had a good time. Music kinda sucked to really dance to but it was good to hang out with some of my co workers who don't really club. Plus those girls were really fun to be with. Ended the night with one of the best "cream cheese" hot dogs I have ever had since moving here to Seattle!

Saturday: Saturday moring was John's surprise birthday party. My job was to pretend to take him out for lunch that day only to lure him back to his girlfriend's place in which was where the party was being held. Oiyan and I planned this for weeks and it was bout to come to effect today. Here's the breakdown:

0900h: get a call from John telling me he's at Frys buying more stuff from their Grand Openning sale. Tells me he might be a little late to meet me at my place at 1200h. I get worried, but too tired to care. Hang up and go back to sleep.

1030h: get another call from John that wakes me up. Sez he's finish at Fry's and needs to check out but will be there at my place in 1 hour. I also get call from his girlfriend, Oiyan. Everything is going great at her decorating of the house.

1120h: John arrives early to my place. Too early since I needed to get to his gf's place by 1215h. I stall for time by making him wait for me while I take a shower. I take a long shower while he plays my copy of Fzero GX.

1200h: John starts to drive us to the "restaurant."

Background story: we had to make it a point that we drive in one car and we had to somehow ended up at Oiyan's place. First off, we picked a restaurant very close to Oiyan's place. Secondly, I lied and told him that my car was in the shop and hence why he had to pick me up and drive me there. Not only that, I told him that I will be leaving for Vancouver that day after my car gets fixed, so I had to carry with me my "overnight" bag filled with change of clothes. But in reality, his gift was in that bag. Next we had to somehow drop by Oiyan's place before we went to the "restaurant"

1208h: Realized that I need something from Oiyan's place before I go back to Vancouver that day. I call her up and tell her I want to "drop by" to pick up the item before we went to the "restaurant because I probably wont see her after we eat. She "agrees."

1220h: Get John thru Oiyan's door first. SURPRISE!!

John was completely blown away, especially since he thought most people were too busy that weekend. Boy did we fool him!

After cake, we all went to the second half of his planned birthday...GO KART RACING! John, Alan and I did go karting twice and for bragging rights while everyone did only one race. Anyways, long story short, Alan was in the lead, I was second and John was dead last. But amazingly, he passed us both and eventually won the race! I CAN say that we just let him win, but really John was that good!

Later that night, a small bunch of us went clubbin'. Oddly enough, both John and Oiyan did not want to come, because they wanted to "be alone" with each other. Party poopers!

We went to Bada Lounge first for some drinks, and then went next door to Tila Lou's (sp?) for actually dancing. We all had a blast dancing with each other and trying to explain to Chau "What's a magic stick?" That night, we also learned what the sexual term "Emeril" means. Too funny. And I keep getting half drunken phone calls from Sylvia and Jon in SF.

Wanna see pictures of this great day? Check them out here:

http://public.fotki.com/namofni/johns_surprise_bday/

Sunday: Get a call early in the moring to go hiking with Oiyan and John. Why do people keep calling me so damn early! Declined offer to go Fry's shopping with David, who has never been to Frys at all! Of course David was blown away by the place. I ended up getting a $50 Bluetooth Wireless headset for my new T616 phone, which was originally $100! And I got the last one too! I was happy.

Spent rest of the day with David, dimsuming, and shopping at Ranch 99 and Costco. Then I went to Oiyan and John's place for dinner before watching a DVD movie (Top Secret! from my personal DVD collection).

I get another call from Jon in SF. Both Linh and Sylvia and Meg (I am assuming) was at Denny's and Jon's place eating pizza and watching DVDs. Those guys have all the fun, now with my friends!

Nice relaxing, though expensive, Sunday.

Monday: Woke up early AGAIN (AGRRRRRRRRR!) to go hiking up Mount Si. in North Bend. Mount Si is a fairly big mountain (hiking wise), about 4 miles up to get to the top. We started around 9:20am, and didnt get to the top till like 12:30pm. And we didn't get down til like 4pm! IT WAS A VERY HARD HIKE! Most hikes start off easy and then ramp up, but not this one! It started hard and STAYED HARD. Not only that, in order to get to the top, you have to free rockclimb it up, in an area known as Haystack Scramble (because I assume the rock formations were haystack like). But once you got to the top, what a sight. Just beautiful. Birds even flew right next to you, some even pecked some bread right out of my hand. Just wait till I post my pictures and see what it looks at the top!

It wasn't too bad getting up it but going down was a nightmare. It was VERY SCARY!! But once we climbed down from the top, I had a hard time hiking back down as well. Usually after hiking for very long and hard time, my legs get really rubbery and wobbily because its so use to climbing and walking really hard up a path, its doesn't know how to relax down it! It took me a very long time to get down because I really couldn't run down it. Luckily I had a walking stick I picked up from the top and it helped me going down easier. But I was SOOOO exhausted afterwards.

The rest of the day, I thought i had to go back to work and help out a bit. I didn't have to no more, so instead, just relaxed, took Oiyan to Frys and then went home, where I fell asleep around 9pm. I was dead tired.

My New T616 (or more reasons why I am such a geek)

Last week I got a new cell phone. The Sony Ericsson T 616. It seems like I get a new cell phone every year. Anyways, what is so cool about this new cell phone? Well...its a camera phone, so I can snap pictures whenever I can. Its good a really purty screen and runs Java based games. It has polyphonic rings, which means the rings sound more crisper and more like music. But the best thing about the phone? Its just so cool. It screams COOL from looking at it and holding it in your hand. And its the same size as my last phone, the T68i! Simply awesome!

But nothing is ever easy for me. I kinda jumped thru hoops to get this phone. Let me explain:

Wednesday Lunch: went to the ATT Wireless store at the mall (no idea how or why I ended up at the ATT Wireless store) and saw that the new T616 JUST CAME OUT!! I been eyeing this phone for awhile, ever since it hit Europe...and NOW IT WAS IN NORTH AMERICA!! I check the price. Too high to buy! And then I remember, my company has a special arrangement with ATT and I get a discount on phones as well. Turns out I get 20% off but still questionable about getting.

Wednesday Rest of Day: I go back to work and research internet for cheaper price. There were many $150 discounts on the phone, but only for NEW subscribers. I am sad.

Thursday Lunch: Decided to go back to ATT Wireless store to haggle the price of phone. Maybe I can use the fact that I am going to switch to a new plan (which includes making Canada LOCAL...ie. call to and even while IN CANADA!!) to get a good deal on the phone. No work. But still ended up getting the new plan.

Thursday After Work: Decided to bite the bullet and go buy that phone for the cost quoted (with 20% discount). So I dont look like a total idiot and keep going to the same ATT store, I decided to go to another one and buy the phone there. Turns out the other store has a bunch of dumbasses who had no idea about how to give me my 20% discount (they gave me the same hassle last year over my last phone) so I ended up not buying it :( I am sad.

Friday Morning: Before work, decided to look like a total idiot and go back to that ATT store and buy the phone. I get there and ITS ALREADY SOLD OUT!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! They point me to another store that I didn't know actually existed. Because it was close to my work, I deicide to go there. I must of drove around in circles for a half a hour. I couldn't find this store. I give up and got to be late to work.

Friday Lunch: Decided to call up ATT Store and asked them again where this store was. I WAS MISTAKEN. They were talking about this other ATT store up in Woodinville, about 20 minutes north of Redmond. So I drive up at lunch. This place was far! BUT I BUY THE PHONE!! Not only that, the guy at the store accidentally gave me a 40% DISCOUNT!! I am so happy! I grab a quick bite to eat and head back to work (I was going to be late). Though I went thru hell, at least it came out better than expected at the end. And I got the phone!!

Anyways, I really like this phone. Been downloading all these cool old video game music into my phone to become my ringtones and taken a lot of pictures all over the place. My only shortcoming of the phone is the screen is completely UNREADABLE in the sun and 2 MB of memory is NOT ENOUGH for Pictures AND Sounds AND Games. But the phone still rocks. Did I tell ya how cool it is?

Fry's and 60 Minutes

Fry's Electronics openned today in Seattle (Renton). Actually, unofficially it openned today. Its grand openning is actually tomorrow at 9am but I guess they openned today (for a shorten day too) to rehearse for the grand openning sale. And there was none of the big sales available today either. That's all being saved for tomorrow.

Anyways, being the geek I am, I had to go check it out at lunch. I must say, this is the biggest Fry's I have ever been to, bigger than the one in San Jose (though it looks very similar). And it was SOOOO clean too!

Sadly, I bought nothing (except lunch at their store restaurant, which btw is the only Fry's I have been to with a full COFFEE BAR--must be a Seattle thang), but I may be back tomorrow morning to take advantage of any of the major sales they may have. And plus I have no money till tomorrow (I get paid tomorrow too).

Also today, 60 Minutes, that TV show on CBS, was on site filming Digipen and NST. They were doing a story about going to Digipen and working up to working at a compay like NST. They filmed us in a mock-meeting discussing the game, and they even filmed myself "working." I can't wait to see that episode. I will let you know when it will air.

NUDE PHOTOS!

er...I mean, NEW PHOTOS (you know the search engine will be bringing NEW ppl to my site now! ;) ) in my online photo album. Check them out:

--Random Memories Deux! (page 2): has a lone pix of a small Digipen Reunion with Jeff R. who was in Redmond a couple of weeks back. Not only that, check out Persanna and his kid! Wow!

--Mariners vs. Jays: it my yearly trip to a Mariners game sitting in the dopest seats, provided by my company. But this time around, I get to see my hometown Toronto Blue Jays play! And, would you know it, this is the FIRST TIME watching the Jays play in Seattle so I really wanted people back home to turn on their TVs and catch the game and see if they can catch me sitting behind the dugout, only to have a MAJOR BLACKOUT on the eastcoast of North America! Just my luck!!

--Company Lunch: See what happens when a company comes together for free food and half a day off (on a Friday too!)

Asian Time

Amongst some of my friends, whenever any of us is late arriving to meet with each other for something, we always say that person is on "asian time", hence why he/she is late. I am sure that every other culture has a similar saying but because I am Asian, I always hear "asian time" myself. Anyways, this saturday was a comedy of situations of "asian time".

To start off, I get a call at 10am for dim sum at 11am. Though, I made every attempt to get to my friend's place at 11am, it was still very hard, especially with only 1hours notice. Anyways, I arrive 15 minutes late and I get all this shit about being on "asian time." Anyways, it was just the 3 of us, I am told for dim sum. So off we go.

So, about 30 minutes into eating and we are joined by two more of our friends. WTF?! Where's the "asian time" comment for them, huh? I was not on "asian time"...THEY WERE!!

Anyways, we ate and decided we were going to catch a matinee movie somewhere. But then we changed our minds and went for a nice nature walk (I would say hike but it was too easy of a trail to be a "hike") at Snoqualmie Falls because it was "so damn nice outside." That's what we did for the rest of the day (and its a beautiful fall too).

Later in the evening, I had to meet a bunch of these girls in Tacoma for an outdoor in a park movie screening of "The Never Ending Story." Tacoma is like 45 minutes away from where I am and I have never been there. Fearful of being late, I left a little earlier in order to make it at the park by 7pm. I get there around 7:15pm and thought I was late. The girls were nowhere in sight. I called one of them and she said they were going to be a little late, so I was told go and save a good spot on the grass to watch the movie, and wait. And I waited. I thought the movie was going to start around 7:30pm and they were going to miss it. But it didn't. It was actually going to start once it was dark enough.

They didn't show up until 8:20pm. And the movie didn't start till like 8:40pm WTF!!? Why did they make me come up around 7pm (probably to make me save a spot)? I didn't even eat dinner because I thought I was going to be late!! Well, one of the girls was nice enough to bring me pie because she knew I didn't have any dinner. And the funny thing was, they weren't as late as the last girl in our group to come see the flix. She came in half way thru the movie! Those girls were all truely on "asian time."

Anyways, movie was good. Brought back alot of memories of watching that movie over and over again in grade school. (thought that flying thing was still a dog, even though my friend kept correcting me that it was a dragon. Actually its a luck dragon but I still think its a dog!)

Sunday. Pretty much stayed home and started cleaning up my place and unpacking as well. But after a day of doing nothing but that, I realize, its going to take more than one day to clean and unpack my place!!

"Young, Fun and Full of Cum"

Last nite, I went to a friend's place for a mass viewing of Point Break, that old 90s surfing/bank robbery movie with Keanu and Patrick Swayze and Gary Busey. We had a good time watching this movie because IT WAS JUST SO BAD.

So, why would we decide to all watch Point Break all of a sudden? To prepare ourselves for Point Break LIVE!--THE PLAY! Yes, there's a play version of this awesome movie being shown in Seattle for the next 2 weeks, and I WANT TO SEE IT! There so much memorable quotes and sequences in which I just gotta see to believe on stage. And what's even more funny..."The action-packed play features a different, unrehearsed actor in the Keanu role each night, which should just about approximate the real star's performance." And based on what I heard, you will also get wet! This play sounds AWESOME!

I will let ya know if I get to see it.

More Pointless Time Wasting Funny Web Stuff

http://www.segwaychat.com/forum/stolen-segway.asp

Steal a Segway...you WILL get caught...on the internet!

Off Day

Because some of us worked all weekend long trying to get a proper build to Japan, I was given the day off on Monday. So what does a single, twenty-something male do on a day off? He goes to Ikea!!

Its funny. A couple of weeks ago, I resigned my lease of my nice little apartment for another year and the day I resign, I get the NEW Ikea catalog in the mail! ITS A SIGN I tell ya! Anyways, it got me thinking and doing. After a year, I am FINALLY starting to unpack the rest of my stuff (I still have boxes in my bedroom). And I have also been trying to clean up my place as well. And I even been thinking of reorganizing how my place is set up which includes getting new furiture. DAMN YOU IKEA!!

So, I went to Ikea. Didn't buy anything major but I really did seriously look at this new computer desk for me, which is much smaller (and cooler) than what I am using currently.

I also did some mass errand running, buying same items I needed for my place. I also bought a couple of games too, thx to Toys R Us BUY ONE and SECOND GAME FREE sale. I picked up Def Jam Vendetta for GC and NBA Street Vol.2 for PS2 (oddly enough, both from EA BIG!). This in addition to 2 other games I just got (Ape Escape 2 PS2 and Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution PS2) and 2 more I want to get (Soul Calibur 2 GC and F-Zero GX GC) in which I am seriously dont know if I will have the time to fully enjoy them all :(

Monday was also my last day in Japanese class that was being offered by the company. I had lots of fun doing this class but in reality, I dont think I got too much out of it. Its not a real class with test and marks, but something to just teach very basic and causal conversational Japanese. And its hard to remember what we learnt the last day cause I really dont have the time (or the discipline) to study what I did learn. But I always enjoy going to the class, because we really have a lot of fun just trying to make each other laugh (including the teacher). And it helps that we had two very attractive Japanese female teacher too (one was very cute, while the other one was just plain HOT!). But as much fun as that sounds, the class seem to drag on a little too long and I am glad its finally over.

KORE WA PEN DESU!!

Hmmm...I wonder if I will ever get to use this Japanese sometime in September? Hmmmm...

The Return

Hey...I am sorry for that last comment. Work has been really stressful and busy here and there was a little drama in my life as well. Emotions took over and everything snowballed. But I think I am over it. I just needed to get it out. Some other time prehaps I will tell you what happen...

Happy One Year Anniversary

Today marks my one year anniversary at the company. One full year living in Seattle and Redmond. Hoora...sorry...you know what...as happy as this occasion is, I feel like shit today. Like there's a dead weight on me. Like I just got stab in the back...

STD-ster

Just too funny to ignore!

http://dev.projek7.com/projekx/skunkworks/hosted/fun/STD-ster.html#"

Zodiac Fun with Megerz!

lovelyday26: when is your bday
naMofNi: March 9th
lovelyday26: hahha
lovelyday26: pisces
lovelyday26: fish
naMofNi: yup
lovelyday26: water
naMofNi: yes
naMofNi: why you asking, may I ask
lovelyday26: pisces makes a really good parent
naMofNi: you reading my sign
lovelyday26: i know it well actually
naMofNi: first I need a partner
naMofNi: ;p
lovelyday26: you do well with cancers
lovelyday26: and scorpios
naMofNi: I was just oging to say scorpios
naMofNi: when is cancer again?
lovelyday26: which oddly enuf happen to be me, jon, and denny
lovelyday26: june-july
naMofNi: hahaha
naMofNi: AWESOME!
lovelyday26: :)
lovelyday26: denny is a scorpio
naMofNi: damn, this shit is for real!!
lovelyday26: me and jon are cancers
lovelyday26: seee

Camping Trip! The Highlights!

Well, came back last nite from a wonderful camping trip in the Orcas Island off the coast of Washington state. Though it was kinda short, I had a fantastic time hiking everywhere and meeting some really cool people. I can't wait to see them again in more urban setting.

Anywhoo...the highlights:

--Yes, it did rain the moring of the trip there. And it did rain why we were setting up the tents. It rained as we started our first hike. But it cleared up beautifully as we hiked. Our only problem was we were all wearing rain jackets as we hiked and soon it got way to hot to wear (so we ended up carrying them around everywhere).
--even though it rained, I decided to bring my Super Soaker waterguns cuz I said, "You never know." Turns out, when the rain stopped and we need to clean off the picnic tables, the Super Soakers were perfect for clean off all the crap on it! IN YO FACE NAY SAYERS! (of course, we had a couple of water fights too!)
--we had sooo much food and it was all good, especially these burgers that Chris made. OMG, they were sooo good. Some kind of secret spices. Must get recipe!
--though I may have seem anti social to everyone else, I spent the majority of time with a no. of different cool girls. I had a great midnight hike with one of them, and even ended up crashing in a tent with 2 of them. Yes, I was in the middle :)
--no bad blood or incident happen between me and my ex friend. In fact, we hardly were near each other. Never made any eye contact either.
--got to ride in my friend's Mini as we illegally speed down a narrow windy road down a summit. We were passing cars on the opposite side of the road and ALMOST hit an oncoming van. *breathes a sigh of relief*
--of course, I took TONS of pictures in which I just added to my online photo album. And others had photo albums set up too. Check them out here:

http://public.fotki.com/namofni/camping_2k3/
http://www.tomtran.com/orcas/FrameSet.htm

Camping Trip

This weekend I am going camping with a group of about 45. Though I have been looking very forward to this trip for sometimes now, as we get closer to the date, I sense tension amongst the group, which also includes myself.

To start, we were just assigned our carpool list and from I just found out, this list has been ever changing because people want to ride with certain other people. That's okay, to an extent, but I am also finding that people are changing because they want to ride with "people they know", not with NEW PEOPLE. This I found stupid because this is a great opportunity for people to meet new people. C'mon, this was one of the main reasons for this camping trip. I was very excited to find I will be driving two people I dont know only to find out that, that was changed at the last minute.

Of course, with a group this big, there's going to be other tensions like with people not wanting to be around certain other people. I am one of those people. A certain person I broke friendships with will be at this camping trip. This will mark the first time we will see each other in like 3 months, so things may get quite interesting. I mean, I had a mutual friend between us (with I have no beef with) cancel our carpool arrangement so she can ride with her instead. Hmmm....I let you know what happens when I get back.

But I dont expect anything bad to happen. I mean, I wont be starting anything and I dont want to. I intend to have a good time and I KNOW WILL. I have plenty of great friends who will be there and I am really looking forward to meeting new people. It will be good. All I hope is it wont rain (based on the fact that it hasn't rain at all here in Seattle recently, only makes it more likely it WILL :( *fingers crossed*).

Labour Day Weekend

I come to the realization that I have nothing planned for Labour Day weekend, but I should REALLY plan to do SOMETHING for that long weekend. But what to do? I can travel somewhere but where? I can do something else, but what?

If you guys have any suggestions, please let me know. You can leave your ideas on my wonderful tagboard!

"Header file is not assing"

This was the error compile message we recently got. Oh those wacky Japanese! *end geek humour*

Traffic

I just went for dinner in the neighbourhood and I couldn't believe how bad the traffic is on the surface routes around here. In fact, the freeways around here is even worst. What's going on?

Turns out tonite is the Norah Jones concert at Marymoore Park, a huge park near my place. I can probably hear it as I drive home LATER TONITE!! There's no way I am going home now! What would normal take 10 minutes for me to get home would probably take about 1 hour in this traffic. Seriously!

Salsa

In my constant attempt to improve myself, I went Salsa dancing this past Saturday at the Century Ballroom in Capital Hill.

I always wanted to learn to Salsa and here was my opportunity to do so, as they offered $5 lessons at 8:30pm in the evening before the dancefloor openned for real dancing. Unfortunately, I was late, too late to actually participate with the class.

This, of course, sucked! For the first time in a long time I felt like very ackward at a dance (last time probably was that Angel Xmas party where Jing Jing danced circles around me and everyone told me the next day how bad of a dancer I was compared to her), like being a wallflower at a dance because couldn't really dance like everyone else. Though my friends made feeble attempts to teach me (I got the basic foot steps down and I can twirl a girl once!), it still sucked...I like dancing and not being able strut myself on the dance floor meant a part of me wasn't having fun.

But it was still cool to watch everyone else. The crowd was incredibly mixed with young people and old people, and people of different skills levels ALL dancing with each other. And it was also awesome to watch some of the really GOOD dancers go at it...they were amazing...it is as though they both could read each other's mind and know what to do next. Even, when they are with different partners, they always look good, making even the medium skilled dancer they partnered with look good.

I will learn to Salsa..."oh yes, she will be mine!"

SeaFair 2K3

This weekend, the SeaFair was happen, where a no. of "spectular" events happen on the waterfront of Lake Washington...most noticably the hydroboat race and the Blue Angels Air Show. I went to my friend's place, who lived in an awesome condo RIGHT on Lake Washington's shore for a little bbq to watch the air show.

I can't tell what a great view we had at his place. You can really see the planes fairly close doing all their tricks. Sometimes, the plane would fly directly over us. And it was LOUD! Really LOUD!! What was even cooler was they started broadcasting the air show LIVE on TV and we got to watch the airshow thru our windows AND a live close up of the planes on the TV! It was truely surreal.

The rest of day was cool (we didn't care to watch the hydroboat race). Ate a lot of bbq and met some really cool people. I brought my Samba de Amigo game and maracas and my copy of Coupling DVD and we all had a blast with them. I tried to go rollerbladin' afterwards on the shore paths of the area, only to realized how bad the path is for rollerbladin'. I did fall twice, which is good cuz I finally have fallen down while rollerbladin'. Yipee!

I was so pooped after these two days that I went right to bed around 10pm and didn't wait up til 9am. THAT'S 11 HOURS OF SLEEP!!! Boy was I tired.

Friday

Friday was an interesting day, filled with highs and lows. Lets list them, shall we:

Highs

--get an email from a friend I haven't heard from ages here in Seattle. We agree to dinner tonite.
--sent an email that I have been itching to send for awhile, and I finally did. It felt good.
--got something to work at work that was really cool and partly my idea, as well. It felt good when it all comes together.
--even though I had one more item to do at work, I needed to take off to see my friend. My director said she would cover for me.
--had dinner and catching up with friend at this great Chinese restaurant, ordering REAL CHINESE FOOD that most people would never order.
--go see Sex in Seattle: Episode 7 (FINALLY!) with her and got to see a lot of my friends there too.

Lows

--spent an hour on the phone with ATT about my phone. This time it isn't working again and I KNOW its the phone. Did much bitching on how bad the customer services was and how I really had no phone for the last week, yet am still paying for it!! Anyways, they finally agree to send me another replacement phone with no guarantee that it will fix my problem (WTF?!!)
--in reality, nothing was working that I needed to work to continue on doing what I needed to do at work.
--while I was watching the play, I get a call around 10:30pm FROM THE PRESIDENT of the company. Remember that thing that I was supposed to do but couldn't so my director was going to do it for me instead? TURNS OUT SHE DIDN'T!!
--this call took the form of a message on my phone, in which I didn't get to hear until AFTER THE PLAY, around 12 midnight!
--drive back to work around 12:30am, to do what I need to do, even though I could come back tomorrow morning to do it (which I am still am).
--its now 1:45am.

Geek Toys

I am a geek and as a geek, I buy alot of gadgets or geeky stuff that only a geek like me would appreciate. I recently made a couple of purchases in which I would classifid as geek toys. Let me count the ways:

GEEK WARNING: the following may contain information in which may be classified as "tech talk" or "very geeky" to some sensitive readers. Reader's discretion is advice!

New DVD Player: I have been in the market for a DVD player. Not that I dont have a DVD player already but I watch most of my DVDs on my Playstation 2. That's fine and dandy but I have all these great VCDs I picked up in Vancouver and SF and I have to watch those on my PC. I got tired of watching movies on my PC so basically, I wanted a new DVD player to play VCDs on my TV. What I picked up was the Cyberhome CH-DVD 500 Player which not only plays DVDs but CD-Rs and CD-Rs filled with MP3 or photos! AND it plays all kinds of DVD-Rs and DVD-RWs and DVD+Rs and DVD+RW. AND it has a hack to play ALL REGIONS too, which means I can now watch ANY DVD from around the world, PAL or NTSC and even removes Macrovision so I can record video off of DVDs onto VHS! AND it was only $80 bucks! AND IT PLAYS VCDs!!!

Namco Joystick Thingy: I got one of these for work. Its basically a self contained arcade console machine in a joystick in which can directly connect to the TV and play 5 classic Namco arcade games, such as Pac Man, Dig Dug and Rally X (the MAIN REASON why I bought this was for this game, a game which was the FIRST VIDEO GAME I HAVE EVER PLAYED!!). Its cool because it an ARCADE QUALITY (actually, more like arcade-like) joystick and button in which you control the action on the screen. Its really that cool! The only problem I have with it, though it may not be a problem to others, is it runs on 4 AA batteries so if it runs out of juice, you gotta get new batteries. I guess they could have put a AC plug with it but that probably clutter the feel of the joystick. *end geeky rant*. BTW, they also have an ATARI JOYSTICK version with 10 old school 2600 games. Debating if I should get that. *end geeky contemplation*

One of those Ionic Breeze Air Filters: I went to Sharper Image today and purchased a Sharper Image Ionic Breeze Quadra Silent Air Purifier. Basically, its a giant air filter that clean the air in my place "electrostatically" and silently. And it makes my place smell like a swimming pool, which is the smell of CLEAN AIR, I guess. Based on what I know and people who actually also have one of these, it works really well and really cleans the air, especially if you suffer from allegeries or asthma. I suffer from neither, but recently, I have been coughing alot in the house whenever the windows are all closed. This should help!

I am such a geek.

Foreign TV

Most recently, I have been watching a lot of TV shows from other countries on DVD. Let me count the ways:

Trailer Park Boys--from Canada (eh!), a brilliant show about trailer trash in Nova Scotia filmed like a documentary, even though everyone are real actors. Though the show may seem really low brow, but its very smart and clever. Every character is memorable and hilarious with subtle little running gags that never seem to get old. And great one liners too! Now, I need to somehow catch season 3.

Coupling--recommended by my friend Jon and Muscle Shirt wearing Denny from SF, this is best describe as a British version of Friends meet Sex in the City. Very funny and thought proking, with their "nudge nudge wink wink" yet frank discussions of sex from BOTH MALE and FEMALE SIDES! NBC is planning to American version on Thursday nite (possibly to replace Friends) and though, I have serious doubts if they can recreate the magic, but if they do, they have a certifide hit. Now, I need to catch season 2 and 3!

How's My Phone NOW!!

Looks like my phone works as normal now. MUST BE the network then. But then again, I haven't really used my phone too much yet...I mean, I can call voice mail and its works fine. But that's about it....Hmmmm....

Baseball

Okay, if you think trying to meet someone at a bar at night was difficult to do without a fully functional cell phone, try organizing and meeting a group of 12 to a baseball game in which YOU HAD ALL THE TICKETS TOO with a cell phone that worked only 50% of the time.

Surprisingly enough, we all made it with everyone not too late to the game and with everyone getting their tickets too.

It was the Seattle Mariners vs. the Texas Ranger. I had access to special discounted tickets from the company so I thought we all go for a day at Safeco Field. The seats weren't too bad. $6 a seat but all up in the nosebleed area behind homeplate...not as good as those dugout seats, but we still got to see all the action. And we had a good time doing it too, despite how horribly Seattle played yesterday (they lost)!

Afterwards, we hanged out in Chinatown for some bubble tea, to kill sometime to allow the post game traffic to die down. Then I went to dinner at Oi Yan's place where she cooked for a party of 6. Always good to have a home cooked meal whenever you can.

Fuckin' Phone!

Do you know how hard it is to meet someone on a Friday nite without a operational cell phone? In fact, I still dont know how I did it, but I did.

My phone on Friday, still didn't work properly and now I found out not even the text msging didn't worked either! Oddly enough, I can ONLY RECIEVE txt msgs, but can't send txt msg or call or recieve calls.

I had to meet my friend Justin at Bada Lounge in Belltown (same place that Denny was at last week while in Seattle) around 11pm, and though we were both late, and I only recieved a txt msg that he was in the area (which the msg could have been sent like 1/2 hour ago), we still manage to "run into each other."

After a drink at Bada, we had to meet our friend at Watertown, which is one of those niteclubs DJ/hosted by a local radio station. Though, mysteriously enough, she didn't show but all her friends were there. Anyways, I dont usually like going to these clubs hosted by a radio station, but the place was pretty packed and really hot (as in warm), and the music pretty good too. And the people I got to hang out with (all new, only met them that nite) were pretty cool guys and gals. It wasn't hard not to have fun at this place.

Anyways, the nite could of went anyway especially since my phone was working, but it all worked out, which is good. Not a bad way to start my first weekend in Seattle, in a long time.

Target

Never go to Target wearing a red t-shirt and your company ID card around your neck. YOU WILL BE STOPPED AND ASKED FOR ASSISTANCE AROUND THE STORE...TWICE!

Sleeping In

On Saturday, after spending a day doing JACK SHIT at work and then going to see Pirates of the Caribbean (which I almost fell asleep watching, though Sheldon, who saw it with me, ACTUALLY DID!), I had to go home to get ready to watch the play, Sex in Seattle: Episode 7 tonite at 10:30pm in Capital Hill. (OH, BTW, my phone works like 50% now...I mean, I was able to make some calls and recieve them during the day, but when I REALLY NEEDED TO CALL SOMEONE, it didn't want to work!!! FUCK!!). Anyways, I decided to take a nap before getting ready.

I didn't wake up till 11pm that nite!! For some reason, even though I set my alarm to wake me up, I forgot to actually TURN IT ON! I MISSED THE PLAY!! Actually, I drove down to Cap Hill in hopes of meeting everyone after the play, but I even missed that. The crew broke up into 2, half to a club and the other half getting something to eat in Chinatown. I didn't want to do either so I ended up just getting a burger from Dick's and then going home. Only in Capital Hill at 1am in the moring at a packed burger joint lining up, where you will hear the guy behind you "freakin' out" because the line was going way too slow and he had the biggest case of the "munchies".

Anyways, its like 2:15am, I am NOT tired so I am writing this blog. I guess I will watch a DVD or VCD or something but I have to remember, I do have a baseball game to catch tomorrow. I hope I dont miss that!

Fuckin' AT & T

For the last couple of days, I have had NO CELLUAR PHONE SERVICE!! I can't call out from my phone, not even to my voice mail. And I can't recieve calls...either the calls go right to my voice mail or sometimes, my phone actually rings with a indication of who's calling, but as soon as I pick up, the call gets disconnected.

Of course, this is bad enough, but what makes it worst is ATT DOESN'T KNOW WHY!! I mean, they dont know if its my phone or the cell network around Redmond. And everyone I talk to (and I talked to a lot of ppl and been on the phone with them like 1/2 hour at a time) tells me something different. Of course, no one else is having this problem with their ATT phones here so it could be my phone? Or the fact that I can check my voice mail ONLY REALLY early in the day means its the network. Hmmm....

In any case, I have no phone and I had no phone for the last couple of days.

And what REALLY pissing me off, is at work, NOTHING is working!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK!!! Today is going to be a really bad and stressful day for me!

My Friend's Mom

My friend Mike's mom, from Toronto, passed away this past weekend. I know she's been fighting it for awhile but now she her suffering is over and she is now moved on to a better place.

But what is so wierd about the situation is that after Mike emailed all us close friends about his mom, I get a bunch of emails the next day from my other friends (who may or may not have known Mike) tell me about Mike's mom and how its national news. Mike's mom is the nurse who was the second healthcare worker in Toronto to die from the SARS she recieved from helping those with SARS. Wow.

I just talked with Mike and he seem good, considering his situation. I mean, its hard enough to deal with a death in the family, but to also deal with the MEDIA too. He tells me that he's being "harassed" by the media. Her service is like on Tuesday in Toronto, with 500 people expected to attend, including the Premier of Ontario. And during the funeral of the first nurse that died from SARS, he was told it was a MEDIA ZOO.

Anyways, he send me some old photos of his mom when she was happier. I only really met her once but she was a very spunky person.

My heart goes out to Mike and his family.

Rollerblading at 9pm

My friend Justin asked me to go rollerblading last nite. We ended up not going til 9pm when the sun was about to go down. We all met up at Alki Beach, which is in West Seattle, an area I have NEVER been. But I am glad I did, because its a really great beach with a path that can lead you right to Downtown Seattle. And it was beautiful just to watch red horizon turn into the night sky.

Anyways, this was like my third time bladin' and I was doing much better. I feel much more comfortable on them now. We had a third person, Prisella who NEVER rollerblade before and we made her do it in the dark! But actually, she did quite well, better than when I first learnt. And she even fell once which is good, so that she knew how it felt to fall down hard. Me, on the other hand, have yet to fall once while on blades, which is NOT good. One of these days I will fall...