Work today was pretty hectic. Hell. . . work for the past few days were pretty hectic. It's been a non-stop action sequence for me. . . dashing in and out of the tech bench, helping customers find solutions to their questions. . . geez. . . its almost like I've been cloned, and I'm controlling all my clones. . .

After the frenzy at work. . . I decided to relax. . . by holding a practice DDR tournament at the recreation room in the complex. Attendees were Christina, Rus, Katherine (Rus's wife), a few innnoncent bystanders, and me. Rus and Katherine actually didn't show up until a couple of hours after Christina and I got started, but it was fun. Christina offered a fair competition (granted, nowhere near Yan Yan's capability), and Rus and Katherine got a big surprise as this is their first time playing. But the couple really enjoyed themselves, and Rus was all for more DDR sessions in the future. Its always fun introducing people to the world of DDR. Almost brings a tear to my eye. . . oh wait. . . it was a speck of dust. :P

All four of us got a full workout though, and I even ventured out to boast my mad DDR skillz by launching into double-pad madness. Afterwards we jumped onto some foosball action, with Rus and I playing 2-3 balls at the same time. It was far more fun for me to play with multiple balls than just one ball. But we all had fun nonetheless.

After work I find out that Yan Yan's friend Zhang Wen cooked up a feast, so I joined Yan Yan and her friends in sampling Zhang Wen's culinery skills. It was quite good, even though it had subtle differences from mom's cooking. It was an interesting experience immersing myself in such a large of group of asians, and I tried my best to follow the conversation from different people with widely varying accents (speaking in chinese, of course).

Yan Yan and I left Zhang Wen's place around 9PM to go to Austin's birthday party. That boy is only turning 20 this year. . . makes me feel damn old. Only drink I had last night was an apple martini, since they didn't have Midori to make my midori sour, and the martini was a little bit too strong but manageable. Several games of sand volleyball ensued, in which I was just not doing well for some reason. Yan Yan served up a storm in the first couple of games, and it was fun hearing smack being traded between opposing teams. At the end of volleyball Al, Alice, Yan Yan, and I jumped in the pool for some water fun. Apparently Yan Yan has never successfully floated horizontally (without swimming) in the water, so we spent a great deal of time practicing that, but otherwise just generally enjoyed each other's company. I tried to do one cannonball, and of course I fail miserably by having leg cramps after landing in the pool. Fortunately Yan Yan was nearby and rescued me by helping me to shore. Stupid leg cramps. . .

Yan Yan and I returned to the party (Al and Alice having left the pool before we did) to find that Austin was passed out and depressed. Apparently his GF (not sure about the validity of that) left with another guy during the party. Yeah. . . if it were me I would be depressed too, although I'm not entirely sure about the drunken stupor part. I saw Miriam again, and she now knows NOT to get as drunk as last time; it was still fun picking at her though.

It all went downhill for Dan from the point where he lost his original buy-in, and began pouring cash onto the table to continue playing. What made it humorous at the time was Dan using his reserve of quarters (laundry money, apparently) on the table, and literally giving it to Ben at the rate that he was losing. Dan's strategy was playing big in order to get his money back, but as most gamblers would expect, it failed miserably.

In other news, repairs on Engima One should be nearing completion. I'll soon be contacting the chief engineer assigned to that project and see how close we are to deployment (magic eight ball says sometime this week). Yet another thing that I am excited about.

Fortunately for me, we did things classic ACM-style. . . meaning even though we met up at 11AM, we didn't actually depart for the toobin' place until 1PM. This was compounded by the fact that for some reason, traffic southbound on I35 was ridiculously slow. I would say this was a textbook example of where ludicrous speed would have been very helpful. The trip took far longer than it should, and we finally arrived at the toobin' place at 2:30PM.

Oh. . . but it took another 30 minutes to get everything packed away, everyone lathered up in suntan lotion, and more or less comfortable with the unusually cold river water, before we set out on the nice and long four hour journey down the river. This was filled with lots of water splashing, people flipping over, toobin' down rapids, me and Yan Yan getting separated from the group, and uber amounts of tanning in the sun. The only bad thing I can hold against the whole experience was me getting toob burns on my arms and chest (in a particularly sensitive spot, no less). But, everyone had lots of fun, and it was a very good indication of how things will turn out when we head to Schlitterbahn later this summer.

Roughly four hours later, we ended up back at base camp, and the group parted ways. Blake and Crystal headed home because Blake had to work tomorrow, while Dan, Ketan, and Long proceeded to plan some more StarCraft games. Yan Yan and I took the easy route and spent some time in the hot tub. Our interlude happened to coincide with Angelina's birthday party, and it was quite amusing to see her in her inebirated state. Obviously she won't remember any of the chinese we taught her tonight (at her insistence, of course). Then Angie had to ruin the mood and question whether Yan Yan and I were a couple yet. This put Yan Yan and me in an awkward position (for various reasons, not available upon request), from which we eventually gracefully extracted ourselves. By this point Yan Yan was literally falling asleep on my futon. . . so instead of fixing something to eat, I took her home.

We concluded the evening with a bountiful dinner at Yan Yan's place, followed by some semi-deep philosophical meanderings (which can only be induced by the fact that we were both dead tired). As we walked out to my car (since it was time for me to go home), we were intercepted by a REALLY REALLY loud kitten. . . hiding in the wheel well of a huge Chevy truck. Damn that cat was loud. . . and it was tiny little thing too. . . hard to believe that such a small package and make so much noise. After trying for several minutes to coax the kitten out, I gave up in futility when it hissed at my hand as I tried to get closer.

Three games of pool were played between Long, Wen, Yan Yan, and me. Apparently either none of us were great pool players, or we were all just sucking it up tonight (my bets are on a combination of both). By the end of the third game, Yan Yan and I were up 2 to 1, only because Long and Wen were scratching the 8-balls. By then, Dan had gotten back to Austin from Houston, so we all scooted down to the ACM house for some mischievious board gaming.

Since Yan Yan and Wen were relatively new to the states, Cranium and Scattergories were out. Scrabble was iffy, but we had six people, and Scrabble only accomodated four. We finally settled on some weird version of Rummikub where the rules were altered beyond all recognition because we had more players than usual. Much confusion ensued, but it seemed like everyone was enjoying themselves, which was the whole point of the exercise. The game ended after three rounds, with Ketan in the lead, and me not too far behind. Yan Yan, Wen, and Long made up the van, while Dan brought up the rear, with -300+ points.

So instead, I checked to see what Yan Yan was doing, and it turns out she's played a little DDR before. After picking her up from her place, we scooted over back to my place for some dinner, before heading out to what I thought to be a fairly easy game of DDR. Unfortunately for me, I assumed incorrectly, again. . . she knows how to play alright (shake it girl! shake it!). . . she's just too modest to admit it. In the beginning she didn't score all that well (24635 vs my 14593860), but by the end she was easily keeping up with me, AND kicking my butt every other round. What I had assumed to be a Level 1 Recruit turned out to be a Level 79 Amazon Huntress, and she was giving me a good run for my money. Geez. . . I believe I have finally met my match. . . :P

It was nice spending time with someone and not being alone. We tried not talking too much about what had just happened in each of our respective lives, but just generally enjoyed each other's company. The highlight was her discovering the wonders of a coke float. Seems like there are lots of things she have not been acquainted with, and it will be interesting if I get to introduce her to all the fun and exciting places in Austin.

But. . . I don't think staying up till 3AM was a good idea though. I almost did not get up in time for my lunch appointment with Blandy (who's helping me out with a little side job search).

But in the light of recent events. . . its acting as a decent crutch in my current condition. . .

You know. . . just when I had finally gotten over things and ready to stand up again, life (Bonnie) chops off my legs, again.

Just got half-way through Arc the Lad series, and the end of episode 13 got me to start thinking (which isn't a good thing, in case anyone is wondering). If the continued existence of someone you loved dearly meant the end of the world, or their death meant salvation for the world, which would you choose? That someone could be your significant other, close relatives, very very close friends, et al. All that matters is that your life would crumble if that person died.

I was glad that the producers of Arc treated this question seriously, and I did not feel totally short-changed by the way they handled the matter. Nonetheless, it got me to ponder on how my reaction would be. Someone whom I've spent lots of time with, laughing and crying side by side, seeing the wonders of the world at the same time, and yet forced to choose whether their continued existence would be allowed. *sigh*. . . I know what my choice would be. . . although I am quite sure that my decision would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Lunch was provided courtesy of SkiShores. As much as I can't say no to free food, it was kind of uncomfortable for me to accept lunch (for 6 people) on the house. The waitress was ultra-cute when she told me it was on the house, so it was even more difficult for me to say no. At the end of lunch dad and I thanked Jeff personally, and I gave a nice big tip to the waitress before we left.

Lunch went fairly smoothly, as everyone agreed that the burgers at Ski Shores was quite good, and worth the minor excursion to get out there. The place was nearly empty when we arrived at around 2:30PM, and Jeff wasn't there, but the food was still good.

After lunch we regrouped back at the ACM house for some StarCraft fun. Now, it has been years since I last played SC, and Ketan, Dan, and Long are just beginning to start the road to SC Masterhood. So it was quite enjoyable (for me) to bring these three raw recruits and lead them through the chaos of battle. I had thought that the guys were having fun and learning how to do stuff, but Dan decided to go traitor on me. We were playing 4 humans vs 3 CPUs (one of them decided to stick its head in the ground osterich-style from the start of the game, while the other two were of the infamous "insane" difficulty), and I got off to a late start due to external factors. Plus I was in a little corner all by myself, while everyone else was in relatively close proxmity to each other. Great start, I know.

So during this battle, the 836th Battle of Big Game Hunters (for me), my 1st Protoss Assault Fleet was fighting tooth and nail against the invading computers, while the other guys were holding their own and providing backup. It was quite brutal, and heart-wrenching to see my beautiful fleet torn up like that, but damn it, they kicked butt all the way. So it was with my severely understrength and badly battered 1st Fleet that I sweeped through the enemy bases and almost secured a victory. "Almost" because towards the end for the computers, Dan launch several nuclear warheads at me.

Now see, I play fair. And I hate it when allies turn against me. Fortunately for me by this time I had the 2nd Protoss Battle Fleet at full strength, and with the 3rd Terran Strike Fleet being mobilized (I mind controlled a Terran SCV). 2nd Fleet was directed to rout Dan's rebel troops while 1st and 3rd Fleet were ordered to deploy against Dan's base. It didn't take long for Dan to realize his folly, but then Long decided to turn against me as well. By this time my main Protoss base was in ruins, and my Terran base was being threatened. Undaunted, I finished Dan off with 2nd Fleet and directed 1st and 3rd Fleet to begin the assault on Long's base. It was touch and go at this point, since I had to mop up Dan's troops, deal with Long's treachery, and also prepare against Ketan, who by this time was completely confused by the full fledged rebellion (and also possessed a decent contingent of warships). Unfortunately for him, he threw his lot in with the rebels, and sealed his fate. Within 10 minutes of Ketan's betrayal, all rebel troops were eradicated, and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Fleet were in parade formation, albeit with numerous battle scars. While it was an unpleasant surprise having my allies turn against me like that, their shouts of horror and moans of despair as I turned my fleets loose upon them evened things out in my book. I was especially proud of 1st Fleet though. . . seven out of ten carriers survived through both the initial invasion and the subsequent rebellion.

So I thought I could wrap up the day with a leisure evening by playing board games with some people from the apartment complex, right? Wrong again. Since there were only four of us, I made the mistake of suggesting we play Risk 2210, with house rules. Thus begin the long four and a half hour ordeal that start with simple gunboat diplomacy, but ended with mutually assured destruction. The three other players were somewhat new at the game, so I withheld launching a massive assault while I walked them through the rules of the game. Lo and behold one of them decided that I was becoming too powerful, and all three of them allied against me. Like I need two of these situations in one day as much as I need a hole in my head.

To make the long long long story short, I used every trick in the Art of War (and borrowed some luck) and proceeded to eliminate each faction one by one (there was a point where my entire battle plan was threatened when I lost control of Australia, but this was soon rectified by taking over Europe and North and South America within two turns). Fortunately for me, this time I remembered the painful lesson I learned the last time I played, that the French Maginoit Line was NOT a good defensive tactic. Towards the end of the game, I controlled the entire planet Earth (both land and water territories), and was in the final stages of pacifying the moon before the last player surrendered.

Feeling somewhat invigorated from the meeting, I mosied on down to the ACM house to see what Dan & Co. were doing. A small debate regarding dinner ensued, until we finally decided to grillin' meat. Which turned into a three course meal (stuffings made with turkey juice, gourmet hamburgers, and green bean casserole). It would've been a fourth if we had room for ice cream.

A little StarCraft action followed, but I mis-judged their experience and soon found myself fighting alone against overwhelming odds (when do I NOT find myself fighting alone against overwhelming odds in SC???). Fortunately we had already decided before dinner to go watch The Hunted (Tommy Lee Jones, Benecio Del Toro) at the dollar cinema, so the SC game was cut drastically short (I could've won it. . . given time. . .).

However, the movie didn't turn out as expected. Since Jones was in it, I had some pretty high expectations. But it turned out to be a clone of US Marshals and The Fugitive (even down to the usual Jones fast-talking and a quick scene at a river dam). Realistically speaking, the movie should win medals. The director and crew did an excellent job at portraying what would happen in real life if a professional SpecOps soldier went postal in a civilian environment. Artistically (and plot-wise), it was woefully lacking. One big positive and one big negative equald one big nothing. We walked out of there disappointed, but not too disappointed since we weren't gouged by the mega-cinemas.

"the word 'love' designates a subjective condition in which the welfare and happiness of another person are essential to one's own happiness"

Although Heinlein writes some pretty good SF, I have this sneaky suspicion that deep down inside he's a lecherous old bastard who was always tempted to rob the cradle. I mean. . . just read his books. . . its overwhelming. . . Knowing my luck he's probably turning in his grave while I'm writing this. :P

Why this topic for today? Because I said so. Its been sitting on my mind for quite sometime now, as in my last relationship there was alot of minor quibbles about what the exact definition of love is. This happens to be the one that I agree the most with.

For whatever dumb reason, I kept on sleeping at the wheel on the drive back. I tried listening to loud music, singing to myself, and rocking myself around in the chair, all of which to no avail. Almost swerving my car off the side of the road did put a stop to my sleeping sickness though. I think I have to get my brain checked out soon. The hyper-heuristics programming seems to have a memory leak.

The evening ended with a long long long game of low-stakes poker at the ACM house, involving Ketan, Long, Blake, Joe, Crystal, and me. I was doing a fairly good job of keeping things even until Joe decided to screw up the game by introducing straights and flushes in huevos before calculating the proper statistics.

Basically, in huevos, everyone antes in one unit of bet. Then they are dealt three cards, and make the best combination they can out of the three cards (obviously, this basically means everything above a three-of-a-kind gets thrown out). Everyone is given a chance to opt out, and the losers pay the winner the pot. Repeat process until pot is taken by the only person who didn't opt out. So, in plain-ol-vanilla poker, straights and flushes beat a three-of-a-kind, right? But what are the statistical possibilities of a straight and a flush in a three card combination? Do they weigh more or less than a three-of-a-kind? A pair? Does a straight weigh more than a flush?

So basically, before this screwup I was ahead by more than a dollar. Within three rounds I had lost my earnings and then some (pair vs flush, straight vs flush, pair vs straight). By this point, it was apparent to everyone the total bullshit this was, but I was the only one getting screwed. Obviously, I wasn't happy about this.

I decided to keep silent, since everyone else was in a good mood and there was little point to ruin the evening for everyone. Fortunately for me, Long noticed my obvious distaste for the way things turned out, and voiced out my concerns that future rule changes like this should be calculated out beforehand. The preliminary calculations performed after the game ended indicated that a flush would occur at the highest frequency, followed by a straight, then a pair, and finally a three-of-a-kind. I'm not sure where straight flushes would fall, but hopefully we'll figure that out before we try this again.

I know. . . I know. . . its only a dollar or two. And frankly, I should know better. Maintaining good company is well worth a few dollars (maybe not a few hundred, but one has to draw the line somewhere). But its just that the way I lost the bets left a bad taste in my mouth.

In any case, upon further reflection I decided that its not worth holding a grudge over. All things will even out in the end. In general, it was a pleasant evening. Beats being alone on a Saturday night.

So until I get this thing fixed, the ACM Debriefing Party pictures are Out of Order. I think I may have to just bite the bullet and get a new set of photo gallery script. Except I was quite happy with this one since it was nice and light. . . until it broke, that is.

Grrr. . . stupid script. . .

So what happened in the past twelve months? Let's see. . . I sacrificed life and limb (and love, while I'm at it) for a job that ended up leaving me hanging butt-naked when I was about to graduate and was looking forward to a promising career. My love left me because she had a "crush" on someone else, at a time when I needed her most. I had a minor motorcycle accident that left me crippled for four months. I graduated from college at the worst possible time, into an economy that's too ill to support even my most basic needs. Oh, and I was also defrauded by a few immoral bastards who decided to take advantage of the unemployed in the current economic times. Yup. . . I think that about sums up everything.

How did I survive this? I don't know. A close buddy that I play street hockey with asked me this question, "How the hell have you not committed suicide yet?" Honestly, I don't know the answer. All I know is my time hasn't come yet, and there's still much for me to do.

So where do I stand now? I'm revitalizing my little dream of creating a IT/IS consulting firm, and expanding to include a software developement branch. I'm also working at Best Buy again, and things seems to be going well there. My motorcycle is in the final stages of being repaired, and my new car is meeting all my needs at the moment. I moved from the crap hole from hell to a relatively decent place, a place where the management actually cares somewhat about its residents. But I'm still single (I think I'm probably scarred for life). Yet I'm still alive.

So. . . here's hoping that this marks the end of a catastrophic year. . . and that whatever I may face in the time to come I will be better equipped to deal with because of this "character-building" experience.

A interesting voice from the past spoke to me last night. Laura, whom I have not heard from since she left Four Hands, found my ICQ listing and we proceeded to catch up on each other. Seems that her kids are doing quite well, and she's getting back together with her husband (who's returning from Iraq). All's well that ends well, I suppose. Best luck to them for making things work, especially for the kids.

That said, I decided to forage on the net for a bit looking for the OST for the anime, and have come up rather dry. But, of the few songs I did find, I can't get them out of my hand. The music is a mix of military march, jazz, and heavy bass beats that pumps lots and lots of adrenaline through my veins everytime I hear it. I am so moved by a couple of them that I can almost feel a kinship to those pilots fighting for their lives against a menace that knows no limits. *tears welling up in eyes*. . . fight on, ye of so much to live for, yet so little time to live. . .

Fairly busy day at work today. . . I had the pleasure of closing the shop today with Rus, and afterwards we celebrated the end of the day by chowing down at Kerbey's on 183. Apparently he's been stuck at home for most of the time since they moved down here, so I'll have to see about prying him out of the house.

And of course, I finished off my day by soaking in the hot tub. Ahh. . . such a nifty gagdet. . . the hot tub is. . .

Afterwards, I stopped by the ACM LAN party for a little bit, and socialized a bit before heading out once again. This time it was to Alice's birthday dinner at Sushi Sake. For a fairly upscale restaurant, the food was quite good, if a bit expensive. Once again, the company was quite pleasant, and at the very least my stomach was content for the day.

Meanwhile, I'm going to steal some pictures from Crystal's site which were taken last night. One of them I'm kind of proud of. . . in a childish immature kind of way. :P

Now. . . when an accusation like that is made, in public, in front of a dozen people, some sort of justification is warranted, right? I mean. . . if I did indeed make a mistake, its usually more productive to find out what I did wrong, so I won't repeat the same mistake, right? Instead, I get nothing. I was trying to investigate what had happened when a fellow co-worker usurped me and took over the investigation (this was the same person who made the accusations, by the way). So I'm getting the impression that no info is going to be found, and I'm being accused for something I have no idea of.

The party. . . ahh the party. Supposedly the senior officers of the group were suppose to have a debriefing for the year, which dragged on and on until people threatened to leave to play volleyball. And (sand) volleyball we did play, in which my team smashed an overwhelming victory (2-0) over the opposing team (names don't matter, since we had too much fun laughing at each other).

Then it was time to chill in the relaxing cool waters of the swimming pool. In which a wacky game of keep-away took place. We tried other games, like Marco Polo and freeze tag, but it just didn't have the same thrill. Basically, it was trying to keep Crystal away from me. For whatever reason I decided it was fun to pick Crystal up and throw her in the pool (probably because she took it so well). So Blake and Matthew decided to play the bodyguard roles. Blake is half my size, but Matthew is at least twice my size. So even with 2.5:1 odds, I still was able to get through and throw Crystal in the pool. Then again, that's probably because I had the help of other people in the pool to keep Matthew busy while I dunked Crystal with Blake hanging on to me for dear life. Everyone had fun (maybe except for Crystal), and nobody got hurt, although at one point it looked like Matthew was ready to tear somebody apart. :P

At this point everyone was quite hungry, so we all made our way to the food. Which consisted of sushi and bubble tea. Except there were no raw fish, and the tapioca was 90% cooked. After that Dan graced us with his legendary fire-breathing talents on flaming Dr.Peppers, in which a couple of shot glasses were overheated and broke apart. One participant happened to get some of the glass in the mouth while chugging the alcohol, but fortunately there were no serious injuries reported.

The drinking games began inside while the rest of us headed back to the volleyball court for more. . . volleyball! But by this time everyone was tired and there were more fouls and faults than there were points being scored. But its all good. . . we laughed our way through it.

Towards the end of the night one of the girls showed signs of drinking too much, and sure enough there were incidents of reverse bowel movements. Long had the luck to get the first shift in nursing back to health, and I handled the second shift when he went home. Crystal brought me food from IHoP, which I hungrily ate (since I didn't get enough to eat from the sushis). Some small talk occured about current events in our lives, but I think both of us were too tired to talk about anything else meaningful. By the time I left, the girl who got drunk was more or less back to her old self again, so at least that's one less thing to worry about.

All in all a fun day. . . although felt a bit lonely with all the couples that were there during the party. But hey, that's life.