Category Archives: Journal

Valentine’s Day, Gnomeo & Juliet

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day! We had a tasty lunch at Del Taco before going to work. I received a homemade dinosaur card, and I bought a children’s book and a paint-your-own-dragons toy set thing.
After work we saw Gnomeo & Juliet with Jessica across the street from Barnes & Noble! gem had already seen it, but she talked to Jessica about seeing it again. It was really good! I wasn’t expecting to like it so much, but it was very cute. If you’ve seen it, my favorite scene was when the rabbits were being totally awesome. Also, the music was great; I didn’t realize until it was over that Elton John was the Executive Producer and did the music. Interestingly, I was wishing that it starred Ewan McGregor instead of James McAvoy, and apparently he was at one time slated to be in it. Perhaps it’s just the awesome music and dance scene that reminded me of Moulin Rouge.
You know what’s odd about Valentine’s Day though? More than anyone talking about sappy things, I noticed people complaining a lot about the day. When I was single, I never moped around being lonely and wishing to be in a relationship. I may have felt lonely from time to time, but finding a girlfriend was never something I cared about, and Valentine’s Day was a day I largely ignored. Ignored, not hated. Look, I don’t hate Hanukkah just because I’m not Jewish. So if you’re single, don’t whine about Valentine’s Day.

Poison Lady

Allow me to whisk you away to a strange world where doctors and lawyers are out to get you. I wish this was a fictional encounter; While I am paraphrasing, this conversation did take place.
A woman approaches me as any normal customer would.
“There are people that pose as doctors and lawyers and social workers, and they follow me, but they’re not really those people,” she exclaims in a slightly panicking voice. “I’ll call the cops on you if you’re with them. You’re not with them are you? I need security or something. Those people follow me everywhere and harass me!”
“…uh huh,” I stupidly respond in place of running.
“They say that I harass others, but I don’t! Really they’re the ones who are harassing me! And sometimes they try to illegally drug me! They try to give me the drugs. I’ll call the cops! They follow me and harass me!”
“Oh, wow,” I reply.
“One time during therapy they slipped drugs into my foods. They won’t leave me alone,” she continues. “They follow me around pretending to be doctors and lawyers, and they try to drug me!”
“Wow, that’s terrible.”
“Do you want the proof I have? I can show you papers I have with their signatures on it! The signatures of my family! It shows what’s happening!” She pulls out some slips from pieces of registered mail. “I won’t actually show you their names, of course!” And of course, they’re not proof of anything except that she had some mail.
“Yeah and they won’t leave me alone. They chase me and try to drug me!”
“That’s really terrible.”
“They even tried to poison me. Is my drink poisoned?” She holds out her drink from our cafe to me. “Can you check it for poison?”
“I don’t really know how to do that, but it looks okay to me.”
“Maybe you could get security for me.”
“Um, I could call a manager,” I reply. “But I can’t really call security.”
“No, no, I don’t like bothering people. You know what I mean? I don’t want to make people go out of their way or anything.” Yeah, sure you don’t.
“Well, I don’t mind calling my manager.”
“Can you just assure me that my drink is poison? Can you assure me?”
“I don’t think there’s any poison in your drink.”
“But can you assure me?! Can you promise me that no one slipped any drugs or poison in my drink? Can you assure me? There aren’t any drugs? Can you assure me?”
“I can assure you I didn’t. I don’t see how anyone could have reached your drink, and the people in our cafe wouldn’t do that to your drink,” I reply.
She looks a little relieved. “Okay, thanks. But if I find drugs or poison in my drink, I’ll call the police! And I’ll sue you! I’ll call the police! If there’s poison, I’ll call the police!” She seems to repeat herself a lot. “I’m going to go sit down in the cafe and enjoy my coffee, but I’m going to call the police if you try to follow me or drug me or poison me!”
“…Okay.”
She finally walks away.
And she had a horrible camel toe.

Various Things

Hello world!
Today felt like a good day for the most part! That’s always a plus. The store was super busy for a while, and I spent a while in music. Things went fairly well though, which is always a confidence boost.
I played Agricola a few days ago with some friends. It’s a board game focused on farming with the goal of having a balanced farm. I scored 25 while my friends scored in the 40s. Oh well! Next time I might actually know how to play, because I didn’t grok it until a couple hours into it.
I finished Daredevil Visionaries – Frank Miller Vol. 2, collecting issues #168-182, which was really good. I never realized how totally awesome Daredevil was, and I can thank Kyle at work for getting me interested.
Lately I’ve felt in the mood to watch some movies or television but wasn’t sure what to watch. I prefer funny over serious usually, and the only thing funny I still had was Sex and the City. I watched two episodes and thought it was pretty bad. I think it’s supposed to be empowering towards women, but the show trivializes sex. Then last night I started asking for suggestions for movies and watching more Sex and the City. Three more episodes into the series, and I think I’m liking it, although I dislike how it portrays sex. I know, that’s kind of weird considering that’s what the show is about.
Anyways, recommended movies were But I’m a Cheerleader, Little Miss Sunshine, My Best Friend’s Girl, Couples Retreat, and Private Benjamin. I had seen the first two but not the last three, so I’m going to try to watch those soon. (Side note: After getting the recommendations, I claimed that I thought Little Miss Sunshine was okay. And just now I checked my movie log, and I gave it a 10/10. It doesn’t seem to hold up in my memory, but I must have enjoyed it a lot when I watched it. Odd.) Today when Andy found out that I had watched more Sex and the City, he gave me a stack of DVDs – Social Network, Archer Season One, Community Season One, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season One, and Inception. I’ve already seen Inception, but the rest I want to see. I wasn’t too interested in the Social Network, but everyone keeps raving about it, so I’ll give it a go.
So what did I watch? Well, tonight I actually watched But I’m a Cheerleader. Every other time I’ve watched it, it was on television and I was interrupted, so I wanted to watch it straight through. Evening though I knew where the story was going, I still felt kind of sick about some of the shit in the beginning. But then love blossoms and it’s okay. I like that movie a lot, and it’s also important to me because of the circumstances surrounding it when I first saw it in high school.
And last night I hit level 85 in World of Warcraft. Now to grind dungeons so I can start grinding heroics so I can raid!
Edit: Been using Tumblr even more. Damn it. Also logged into Deviant Art for the first time in years. Over 9000 (*giggle) notifications.

Sushi dinner and long-winded ramblings

Why, hello there.
Did you know you should follow John Scalzi’s blog (and read his books, starting with Old Man’s War to boot)? It’s true! I really enjoy his writing.
If you’re still reading, you obviously didn’t click through to his site, because if you had, you wouldn’t want to read anything by me.
Anyways, today we had dinner with Blair and Kyle! We ate at Kura Sushi in Costa Mesa. It was a fun evening! Favorite food + socializing = win. As we left we found the sky had decided to start raining, which was nice. Unfortunately it didn’t rain very hard. I miss walking in the rain through Middle Earth when I lived on campus. After dinner we watched Space Balls at Kyle’s place and played with his dog. Cute dog. Funny movie.
gem hit 85 in World of Warcraft tonight. I tried, but I’m still 84 with a little over 30% XP still needed. Shucks.
It feels like I’ve been away from work for a very long time, but it’s only been one day. I’ve repeatedly panicked a little at the realization that I don’t know what time I work tomorrow only to recall that I actually have it off as well.
I’ve continued to explore Tumblr. I took the plunge (or second plunge if signing up at all was the first plunge) by browsing some pages not owned by people I know. These new Tumblogs are on thin ice though. They better prove interesting. Also, I think people should post more content right around this time, because this is when I need it, damn it.
Also there are other feelings and thoughts in my head! Lots of them! They’re like, in there, I assure you, but they have trouble moving down through my fingers and into my keyboard. Some of these can’t be represented my language, and others shouldn’t be expressed in such a public format, and still others should be kept all alone inside. But they’re there. They’re having a party in my head just behind my face tonight.
Should I review MaXplosion tonight? Yeah. Will I? Ehhh. Disjointed blog entry seems more likely.
I bet if you verbalized all of your secrets – the thoughts you purposely hide, the memories you regret, the bad habits you can’t break – and I really mean all of them, that the person listening wouldn’t want to talk to you anymore. But if you could really express everything, not verbally express but something more exact, then you’d understand completely.
Come on people! I’ve been writing this for a long time now, and there have been no new blog posts or social networking updates. Don’t fail me tonight, Internet!

Friends, Dreams

Two of my roommates left for a cruise yesterday! Hopefully Sumo and Angel don’t poop everywhere. The house ended up full anyways because Andy, gem and I had some friends over last night. Nicole and Blair came over and hung out for a few hours. We didn’t really do much, but I had a great night. Hopefully they did too! gem made spinach/artichoke dip that was super thick. It tasted good even if it wasn’t very dippy.
Then last night I had a weird dream. I was in a tall hotel, and I think we were about to leave. Then I went to balcony and there was some joke-filled (I just checked a dictionary for adjective forms of joke, oh god) discussion of urinating from a balcony. Don’t worry, we didn’t do it. Then I heard a bunch of yelling. Apparently my dog, Nina (who was my childhood dog in actuality) had mounted some other guys dog and was going at it. Apparently they were convinced Nina was going to impregnate their dog. I think this would be quite a feat for my female dog that hated other dogs, but I was unfazed in the dream. This was taking place in some sort of roofless super balcony that connected two buildings. The angry guy was huge and scary, but we argued and it got physical anyways. And then I just walked away and went inside. Nicole had a VHS tape that she wanted to watch of cartoons. I remember thinking that using VHS tapes was weird, but I watched regardless. I can’t remember a thing about the cartoon. Then we were reminded that we all had to leave, so we hurried out of the hotel. (That’s the end now.)

Aging Out



Aging Out, originally uploaded by theuser.

I saw Aging Out, a musical about kids in foster care who "age out" of
the system, at UCI the day before yesterday. It was a lot of fun! I
hadn’t seen a play or musical since Fiddler on the Roof in the summer
of 2009, so it had definitely been a while. It felt odd walking up a
path that was so familiar but that I hadn’t taken in so long. We also
sat in the same seats in which we always tried to sit at Live Nudes.
My friend Melissa was in the show, and she was really great. It’s too
bad her character had to be abused though. I ran into someone I knew
who also watching the show, too! There were a lot of good
performances, and I had a great time.

Today I continue my effort to write a little more often. I had a pretty awesome day today. First, I had an email from the Capcom Mobile PR guy yesterday about a new game, MaXplosion. This morning I got the code for the game, and I’m always happy with new Capcom Mobile games. The store was relatively slow, so I was able to get a lot done. I hadn’t zoned two rows since about a week before Christmas, but managed to zone most of them today. Also, all of my breaks were synchronized with friend’s breaks, allowing me to hang out with her.
After work I had tasty In-N-Out and then went home to hopefully do some instances. I began to login when the power in my neighborhood went out. I left my bedroom to playfully yell at Andy, and I wasn’t wearing pants. I figured it wouldn’t matter since it was dark, and I guess Duncan had the same idea. But then I went and found pants anyways before going downstairs. We lit a bunch of candles and talked for a while, but once the power came back, I went back to my room. It seemed too late to play WoW, so I played a little Beat Hazard and Super Meat Boy. Both those games are pretty terrific.
Finally, it was time for bed! I love bed. It’s so soft and comfy and filled with stuffed bears. Not that the bears were my idea, but they are indeed there. I went through Google Reader like I usually do, but these stupid Tumblrs don’t work well through Google Reader, so I signed up to follow people. It’s interesting. It seems to promote reposting rather than original content, but there are definitely some neato features. It’s more social than a regular blog. It could never replace something like WebPageless to me. But it might be interesting to screw around with.
And I’m going to a musical on Sunday night! Looking forward to it. Oh, and something Tuesday night too. I’m not really sure to what I agreed. But it’ll be fun.