generation x has their own holiday!



during a nice warm shower too early in the morning (the time and location where my most profound thought generation occurs) i a question arose… xmas. why do they call it xmas? christmas = xmas, hu? well… i’m an engineer, and engineers think in terms of logic and math. we know that the following is a fundamental concept which we use to describe nature:



if: (x)9 = (y+z)9



then: (x) = (y+z)



with this we can conclude that christ = x from the statement [christmas = xmas]. what does that mean?



i didn’t stop to answer that question. my brain was then bombarded with questions… so i resorted to what i knew… the “facts”. christmas is dec. 25th, when baby jesus was born to the virgin mother mary. three wise men gave jesus presents. no room in the inn… a manger (what is a manger anyhow? in all those nativity scene’s it looks like a crib with hay in it… but who has one of those in a regular barn?) and lots of animals watching what’s going on. flash forward 2000 years and what do we have? an old fat guy who lives in the north pole, flys with a sleigh that has reindeer [flying ones no less], employs an army of elves to manufacture toys which he in turn gives to children who are good. of course he monitors these children yearly and keeps a detailed list. to top it off, we put a tree inside the house and decorate it in hopes that the presents will be left underneath it.



what did i miss? god gives his only son in turn for everyone’s sins and we evolve it into this. so what did we do when this guy jesus died? oh yea.. easter!! don’t get me started on that holiday! rabbits?!? eggs?! baskets?!



since we’ve totally bastardized christmas –hence the word “christ” is in front of mas, the spanish word for “more”… we replace it with an x. xmas.



i did a bit of searching, and found an intresting page about the history of santa claus. here’s my rundown:

st. nicholas of turkey was a good guy, shit he was a saint. some poor girls couldn’t afford dowry [money a dad gives the guy who marries his daughters] so good ol st. nick gave them the money anonymously. he didn’t do a good job at doing this so anonymously, but he tried. by sending 3 sacks of gold down the chimney… which happened to land in the 3 daughter’s socks, which were hanging by the fireplace in order to dry out. he died on dec. 6th, which is when his day was later celebrated. after the church banned the celebration of this day, a backfire to their plan occurred thus meshing the two (christmas and st. nick’s day of death) into one. i think jesus got the short end of the stick in there, but he made up for it with the whole b.c. and a.d. year count switch over and all. sinterklaas is how you pronounce st. nick in dutch… that was later bastardized into santa claus.

so then, christmas has been modified, changed, altered, and mutated into what it is today- no wonder we call it xmas. i love when the puzzle pieces all come together!



i wonder what 9/11 is going to be 2000 years from now? maybe we’ll celebrate it on 11/9 instead, and have a majic sperm wale named talsama talbina that brings everyone frozen chickens which we dance around with for 10 mins then cook over an open flame which we have to set up in our family room along with a formation of rocks that symbolizes the fallen buildings. don’t tell me it couldn’t happen!!!

waiter can we have the bill please?



what’s the deal with going out to eat? Why is the bill always short? With the amount of schooling that we take, it should be a snap for us to calculate the total of what we ordered (especially since there’s a printout “receipt” right in front of us) and then on top of that, tax and tip.



I think that’s where people get tripped up. Once some math comes into play, especially percentages, people get all flustered and crazy. Tax is about 7.5%, and a generic amt to tip is 15%. “What’s 7.5% and 15% and how do we tip and what do I do?! I’m so confused, here take my 20 dollar bill and give me back how much you think I need in change.”Beware, anyone who throws a 20 at me and expects their math to be done for them will find that they have also paid for ameer’s number crunching service.



Here’s a quick lesson (for those of you who whip out your cell phone tip calculators which I find extremely embarrassing!). If you get a burger and fries for $5.99 and then a soda for $1.49 your total is about $7.50. but if you throw in a $8.00, you’re shorting everyone and the inevitable “hey guys, we’re short” phrase comes out. So what does one do in order to correctly figure out tax and tip? I have an easy formula for all you. It’ll make your life, and mine, much eaiser.



$7.50 is your food. Approx 7.5% for tax, and 15%ish for tip. How does one take 22.5% of their total? It’s not easy to do. So then, we simplify:



10% of anything is just a decimal point move to the left. Ex: 10% of 19.59 is 1.959! easy!



Now then, allow us to apply this mentality to something we can use in daily life. 7.50 is our total for food, and we use our 10% trick, to find that 75 cents = 10%. Afterwards, multiply that by 2. and viola you’ve just figured out 20% of your food’s cost, $1.50.



Here we go: $7.50 + $1.50 is $9.00. if you threw this in you’d be giving a bit less than 15% for tip, since 7.5ish% goes to taxes, you’ll be tossing 12.5%ish to tip. If you feel that the waiter/waitress was awesome, then give them a buck more, and you’re up to 33% tax + tip. That’s a bit much, you want to aim for 23%



There we go. Using our heads, and some simple math… we’ve solved the age old tragedy of someone paying 16.00 for a meal that cost them 8.99 (78% tax and tip). As far as remembering what who ordered, that’s still a mystery to be solved. Finally, for the record, there are only two times which are acceptable for the bill to be bill is split evenly among the number of persons at the table. Those two instances are if the meal was eaten family style (everyone shares everything), or buffets. Other than that: DO THE MATH!! It’ll keep your neighborhood engineer sane.

stress ball



i'm in no way stressed out these days (besides having no job and an unsure living situation). I was however spending a bit of time squeezing a stress ball, when it occured to me that everytime i squeeze this ball, it comes right back to the exact shape and form no matter how hard i try to contort it.



the ball is tennis ball sized, with the globe printed on it. dig your nails into this ball and in 30 seconds or less you will see it come right back to life, as if you hadn't strained every muscle in your hand squeezing the shit out of the "world".



this started to aggrivate me, and after a bit i had to just toss the ball away and take a few breaths. what madness this is. when i'm stressed, i want to destroy something, and see it break. the feeling of exerting lots of energy and effort into something that won't see any results is frustrating and can only add to one's stress. i've just discovered a market for stress balls you can actually break.

mexico, teriaki, computer, freeway



i’m not special. i am unlike those that i admire and have been caught red handed aspiring to be just like. when it comes to communicating, i fail big time. “i failure big, uhhhh english only speak.”



it’s those bilingual/ trilingual/ quadlingual/ quintlingual/ hexlingual/ billion-lingual individuals that i admire. for each language you speak, i feel that you are another person. in a sense these people have split personalities, but in a non-schizophrenic, good, way. becoming a cultured individual is something that i’ve yearned for since i was young… hell, my name is ameer!!!! how could someone with a name as ethnic as mine be a monolingual ignorant uncultured american?



if i were bilingual, i would be able to answer my question for today. i personally don’t speak 2 languages, thus impairing me to make the correct decision. the question at hand is regarding words, and how they are pronounced while speaking another language.



for example, if i were to say “let’s eat a carne asada burrito” do i pronounce carne asada burrito as someone who was born and raised in minnesota would pronounce it? or do i slap on the accents that i learned from mrs. le’cakes traumatic spanish class? i’m speaking english here, not spanish. so do i do the switch over? do spanish people bust the switch when they are asking for a burger with fries/pizza/hotdog?



on the other hand, i heard my chinese friend talking to her mom on the phone the other day, and i caught “*chinese babble*lilly doo-ah-eh downtown *more chinese babble*” and distinctly heard the words “lilly” and “downtown” in the american english accent. this is where my confusion sprouts.



when people speak english, and then switch over to another language, they rarely use the accent of that other language. however, when people are speaking in a language besides english, they’ll say the english word with the english accent, instead of with the currently spoken language’s accent. is this different where english isn’t the primary language? does everyone in germany bastardize all words in french with their german shiza von newton accent while speaking primarily german?



this is the stuff that needs to be settled and standardized… one could spend hrs debating what is correct and what is not! one already did, instead of practicing spanish as to better myself and become that bilingual person i’ve so aspired to become.



but i’m only really learning one thing at a time, back to photoshop cs for now

in woken dreams



i met san francisco back when i was in college. a few buddies of mine and i drove up in a white corolla and we spent the weekend in san francisco. the year was 2000. i didn’t tell my mom or dad that i would be going to see san francisco that weekend, i just up and went… a typical college impulse decision. little did i know what was in store for me due to that weekend.



the actual weekend didn’t have a significant event or epiphany that i’m able to reference, but something stuck… i knew this wasn’t the end of san francisco and me. oh no, there was more to this story for certain, but i had no idea, and neither did anyone else at the time.



fast forward (or chapter select ahead 4 years if you’re using the dvd version of this blog) and here i am… 50 miles south of my new found object of affection [san francisco]. i now live 350 miles closer than our first encounter in 2000. the year: 2004, and that impression that she left on me back in 2000 that i couldn’t forget, has since blossomed into a crush. full blown puppy love is what we’re talking about here, and it’s the kind that hurts when you see each other because you know that you can’t be together. yet.



it’s rough to be so close, and so far at the same time… i go see her weekly and there’s a tingle in my spine from the bottom up to the back of my neck that gives me goose bumps and forces my hands to shake when i drive up the freeway and see the noble lights of the financial district buildings next to the lights of the bay bridge. that view at nighttime is 100% gorgeous, er… maybe it’s only 99%



why 99%? a crush of this magnitude should be 100% or the unattainable 110% that football coaches demand. simple explanation: i’m not a part of that 7 mile x 7 mile area that we refer to as san francisco. i gaze upon her from the highway 101 bridge and have no place to point at and say “that’s where i live”.



her and i see each other once a week at minimum, but i live in san jose… the antagonist of this story i call “my life”, yes the evil san jose. feard by all, known by middle class computer creating geeks, and current residence of our hero for the moment, san jose is the orange county equivalence of northern california. the lovely san francisco sees us together and turns her head, she knows not the depth of feelings that i’ve developed for her.



i will prove my love to her, and we will be together one day. it started as a weekend fling, evolved into a crush, and now… yes boys and girls, it’s true love. i fell in love. and if i learned on thing from numerous viewings of the princess bride, i’m certain that nothing can defy true love! my love and i will soon be united, although first things first i gotta work on getting a job!

my phase



i’m sure this isn’t something new to the world but it’s new to us. this new phase i’m talking about, is it really new, or maybe it’s just come round again, cyclic they say? what phase am i talking about? why this phase, the one i’m sitting in and soaking up like a new sponge. allow me to define the phase of topic: out of school, in the work force, and free! free to do as i please!!! (within reason of course)



i feel that the generation before me was not given this opportunity. i feel that most of them got jobs, got kids, and got grown up right after school. i don’t know if there was an “out of college, making some money and enjoying it on stupid things like bars and cars” phase for people a few decades ago. back then (in the old days) they were fighting off sharks and pirates in order to make it to the land of opportunity, the land where they’d have children in order to give them a better life. to the generation before me, i have that better life, and i’m lovin’ it. thanks!



how else was i able to drop my entire life in search for a new one simply because i wanted a change of scenery and had a dream to live in a certain city?? if i had a girlfriend/kids/house/established career it would have been much more difficult if not impossible to do what i did. no way no how no sir no ma’am, that’s a negative captain. i’m in the phase!



this phase was no piece of pie to achieve. it started with my parents, if they hadn’t done well for themselves i’d be sticking around to make sure that they had a roof over their heads and food on the table for themselves, but they’re on top of things and can sustain on their own. they also prepped me to do the same for myself, that’s right, momma taught baby how to be independent! pushing me to go to school and do well at something i was horrible at [studying] and hated just as much, was also part of the process. college and a few grand of debt, viola! here you have it… a well equipped, no responsibility, young gentleman able to do whatever wherever however, only condition is that i’ve got nothing else coming from those two who’ve started me out…. m & d. and why should they fork over anything else? they’ve set up the pins, moved the line closer, showed me where to throw the ball, and are now cheering my name with pomp pomes from the sidelines… all i gotta do is knock em down!

a list of things i like compiled in 5 [timed] minutes:





hoodie sweatshirts,

vans shoes,

gel pens,

external harddrives,

performance tires,

frosted pint glasses,

stackable containers,

knit beanies,

rechargeable batteries,

music videos,

teflon fry pans,

state parks,

silver rings,

argyle socks,

crushed pepper,

acoustic guitar,

vitamins,

girls with short hair,

journals,

pocket watches,

concerts,

instant messengers,

headphones,

messenger bags,

gloves,

sappy romantic comedys,

remote controls,

real leather couches,

paper towels,

vests,

car stereo amplifiers,

thick guage wire,

adidas shoes,

skateboard videos,

skipping rocks at the beach,

quoting movies with friends,

t-shirts,

vintage wood furniture,

downloading mp3's,

shag carpeting,

window tint,

adobe photoshop,

japanese anime movies,

air conditioning,

technics 1200 mk3d turntables,

belts,

turbocharged reciprocating engines,

powertools,

ergonomic keyboards,

sd memory cards,

shiny pocket knifes,

nalgene water bottles,

used sketchbooks,

subwoofers,

and talking on the phone.

love that love song



i’m like every other romantic sap punk loser who’s got nobody significant in their life and as a result is strangely attracted to every sappy stupid romantic comedy. wait, is every punk loser like that? (if not then i totally retract my earlier statement)



sitting at home looking for a job, and of course downloading and listening to thousands of mp3 files, (i recently was given a few thousand mp3s from a fellow electronic music fan friend of mine and have been listening to these files all day however, when i’m not listening to the dark and energetic sounds of jungle/drum & bass/breakbeats) i’m watching some of my female roommate’s sappy dvd’s and listening to the radio’s sad sappy love songs.



i’m not a hopeless romantic by any means, but the thought came into mind that real people were the inspiration for these songs. the artists (or paid songwriters in almost any pop-song’s case) are writing about someone in their life that made them feel this way. and i thought that there are quite a few girls in my life (ahem, were in my life) that i could write songs about expressing how i missed them, how they hurt me, how i want them back, how i don’t want them around at all, etc… but then i flipped the table…



turned the table, fipped the coin… whatever.



what if… (big what if) one day on the raido, i heard a song and it was about a girl who missed a boy. and later found out that the song was written by an ex girlfriend of mine. and later found out that i was the person she wrote the song to/about. and later found out that she was single, rich, more beautiful than before (honestly, would i be caught with an unattractive girl?), and wanted me back!!! would i take her? (she’d prolly be the girl who treated me the worst, yet i would have liked her the most. yup the girl who i caught cheating on me, the one who’d not answer her phone when i’d call, that one girl.. the one who’d i’d catch eating the last french fry, you name it… she did it. yea, that one.



now this song gets big, like mtv big. like, all the 12 year old girls/boys are jamming the songs like no tomorrow and the 18year old kids have heard/memorized/and now hate the song, due to it’s popularity it’s uncool to like. would i then be persuaded to take this girl back?



lots to weigh out here… she’s going to the mtv music awards and paris hilton’s next party while i’m just a nobody-loser-nonworking-engineer guy who likes house music and computers. girls like her get bored with guys like me. stop, check that, reverse, regular non-popstar girls get bored with me. girls like that treat me like the geek in every brat pack movie ever made.



but her song was about me? so then… what to do? eh, i guess i’ll just have to cross that bridge when i get to it. until then i’ll bother my mind with larger life issues- like how to get good mexican food in northern california!!!!!

independence day!



last night i found what i have been looking for. balls? guts? some would say “you just don’t have the plums!” well i found them last night! and it feels good, it feels great!



i’ve always admired those who are independent, the people who are able to go to a movie, dinner at a restaurant, or even a club/bar alone. they have no friends meeting up, and nothing to do besides have a good time by themselves. there’s something about how these people carry themselves and talk that i admire. there’s something about them that tells me that they’re in control and it’s attractive to me, i want to be seen by others as i see them!



there’s only one way for me to do so, and that is to enjoy a dinner at denny’s or the random persian restaurant (yas restraunt) down the street by myself. bring a book, or a newspaper… and enjoy the fact that i don’t have to engage into conversation for a meal. initially i felt very sad and sorry for those 1 person tables when i spotted them. eating alone in public was a depressing sight for me to see. until i talked to someone who actually had done so 1st hand, he told me that he enjoyed doing so every once in a while. the absence of conversation and company allow you to clear your thoughts and reflect on yourself. he said that he learned a lot from being alone, and doesn’t fear a few hrs without a companion.



my admiration for these people has always been great, mostly because i haven’t done what they have done. they have accomplished feats that i have yet to conquer… oh contraire!! yesterday i ventured into the pig and whistle bar off of geary in san francisco. and i did it alone. that’s right ladies and gentlemen, i’ve lived to tell about going somewhere by myself! i contemplated a movie, but that wasn’t going to happen just yet. i need to take baby steps here. i do feel an accomplishment, and that’s what i’m doing up here… accomplishing things.



i talked to the bartender wearing the shirt with a small school bus that said “let’s get retarded in here” and asked him if this pig and whistle was somewhat connected to the pig and whistle in hollywood. he said no, and mentioned that pig and whistle is a famous name for a pub. in my amazement i asked him why and where and how he came up with that… i’ve seen 2 pig and whistles in my life, and this second one i have known of for about 1 and ½ pints. he went on to tell me that back in the uk, in the medieval times wine was called piggins, but then the piggins was placed in a vessel. so pig and whistle is a bastardization of the words piggins and vessel.



i did not spend the entire night at that bar, i can’t give myself 100% credit for being independent, a friend picked me up and we hit up some bars, but the night was more of your typical night out with friends, which was fun by the way.



point being, i have started becoming more independent. hey, i got no friday plans, maybe i’ll go out to dinner alone! becoming an independent person sure can be lonely.

working and blogging



mac and cheese,

peas and carrots,

peanut butter and jelly,

ham and cheese,

socks and shoes,

rims and tires,

mouse and keyboard,

ameer and hot chicks,

shirts and ties,

sweet and sour,

fat and tall,

pizza and beer (somehow it's all about 2 foods)

burgers and fries!!!



these are couples, compliments of eachother. like husband and wife... they're married and will be going together forever...



now for all those technical people wondering why it is that i named this blog "working and blogging" when all know that i am indeed not employed. well my friends, i have become a voulnteer for the WCG which is the world contest, yielding the world's best of the best at the latest video games. ironically, i don't like video games! ha. wait is that irony, or is it just lame? i don't know.



but i've managed to get myself in front of a computer, even as a voulnteer! and of course, a computer at the WCG will most definately be connected to the internet. so i'm here, and i'm helping out, entering in data, logged in with admin priveledges, and checking emails/blogs.



so what do i do? i gotta work, and blog. the fact that working and blogging happen in matramony almost brings out tears of joy. and yes, i assure you that there are tears.



more on what's going on later. it's time for me to converse with some fellow WCG people intrested in games.

moving up!



i normally don’t post “this is what i did” entries on this website. i’ve saved that for the millions of other bloggers mainly between the ages of 10 and 17. i guess their readers are interested in what flavor of cold stone ice cream they chose to buy, and how boring class was.



well i did embark on somewhat of an adventure within the past week, and i feel that needs to be documented. it all started out tuesday around 2pm in costa mesa (my place of residence at the time) a friend of mine showed up to the house with his pickup truck and guitar.



before anything was to be done, fank’s philly cheese steaks had to be consumed. and i’m talking good ass cheese steak sandwiches!!! more on that later down the road, (literally).



packing your entire life into a car and a pickup isn’t the most fun/easy thing to do, but things gotta get done and moreso things need to be thrown away! and throw away i did! it’s tough to go thru the sentimental box of stuff that you haven’t touched since you last moved and actually throw stuff out, but i did it.



at around 11pm on tuesday night my life was packed away with room to spare, a quick powernap and we’re off!!! my friend and i left the costa mesa dwelling at 1am, bound for san luis obispo. with walkie talkies, ipods, and plenty of beef jerky we made it to my sister’s apartment in san luis obispo at approximately 5:30am, asleep by 6.



9am general hospital had to be watched so the girls were up (my sister and her roommates) luckily they all had 11 am classes so peace once again settled in the 2 bedroom appt, and more sleep was acquired.



about 4pm we headed up again, this time we were san jose bound. vicki and karen readily awaited our arrival. who wouldn’t be ecstatic about me moving into their living room with all my bins of clothes, turntables in boxes, and bigfat computer with desk… about 7:30 we showed up, just in time for “supper club”, a weekly wed meeting that vicki, karen, and 3-4 other girls meet up and eat then talk about girly things. this week’s topic was a highschool friend’s recent proposal.



after packing my room into the commonspace of the 2 bedroom appt i received a call from a friend living in actual san francisco, not san jose, and if you’ve been in a hole for the past decade, san francisco is where i’m planning to reside. she invited us to come up, and offered a drink at a bar. 1 more hr of driving? we’re down!



all the while i had one thought left in my head. i left something in costa mesa. and it irked me to this day… how could i be so careless? that frank’s philly cheesesteak sandwich sitting in the fridge, that’s right, i ordered a large one, ate half, and left the other half to rot in the fridge i left in costa mesa. tragedy indeed.



got to sf about 11pm wed night. our journey started around 1am wed and ended at 11pm that same day. this 22hr excursion has changed my life in almost every aspect: job, friends, living situation, weather, etc… at least i can still call my mom and get some reassurance that i’m doing a-ok.



i’ve been up here for 5 days and feels as if i’ve been jobless for 3 months! i really have a heavy weight on my chest to find a job and get something settled. not to mention the fact that i left in order to live in sf and not in san jose. i’m basically in the same situation as i was in so-cal. i desired to live in la and instead i was in orange county. so i decided to move up to sf and here i am, 60 miles south of the city that i moved here to live in. but this time i’ve got a different plan of attack. not that i 100% know what that plan is, but it’s i for sure am going to attack something!



once again i apologize that this post was the “this is what i did wed” post, but in the last few years, this has probably been the most momentous wednesday that i’ve had. and i hate wednesdays!!! (see some previous post in the archives)

so whatcha sayin'?



i can recall many instances when i didn’t know what to say. so i just said something, anything that came to mind. and what comes out is usually not a correct depiction of what i would like to actually say and how i feel. but these words come out either because i’m not 100% focused on what it is that i am doing, or because i don’t feel that i want to give this person 100% of my attention for fear that they in turn will end up partially zoning out on me while i’m full focused and attentive.



so while i’m giving people half assed answers or zoned out advice, up until now i have simply assumed that i’m the only human being on the planet that practices this concept. when in fact i am not, i’m sure i’m not. and now comes the part where i have to comb my memory banks and play detective on what who said when and where from the beginning of ameer time till this moment.



did she mean that? was he just talking isht? why did so-and-so say that?? i can write most of the conversations i’ve had with acquaintances under this category!



with friends it’s different. the people in my family and the friends that i have deserve a second shot. a second shot is when i do one of these zone-outs and catch myself. then i give them a “what was that?” or a “hu? what did i just say? i’m sorry”, and then focus and speak. i do this for them because they deserve my attention. sure it makes me sound like an idiot, but they love me unconditionally so they let it slide, and for all i know, they could be daydreaming while i’m talking anyhow. i didn’t say i demand friends/family to give me 100% attention, i just stated that i give it to them…

i’ve been busy



the world these days (my world that is, which consists of family, a handful of friends, and the all knowing internet which follows me at all times) everyone is busy as a bee. got things to do, got people to see, got tv to watch, and got noses to pick. i hear people use and abuse the word busy, it’s a not-so-secret code for “i just don’t have time for you, or your needs”. i can see how this post all of a sudden can be interpreted as the generic ‘complain about a girl situation’ post that i usually compose on this site, but it’s not. this spans a much broader population than the few females on this planet who i’ve conned into dating me.



for example i called my dr the other day, then i called again, and on the 3rd call i was told that she was busy and couldn’t help me as promptly as earlier promised. this was completely unacceptable. saying that you’re “busy” is a brush off, it’s a widely used cover-up. if she said that her facility is understaffed or that she has some time management issues, then i would have accepted that, and then thought less of her as a professional. but she doesn’t want to look bad, so she masks her incompetence with the “i was busy” line.



i don’t get away with this. if the boss comes to me and asks me why i haven’t got something done that needed to be done, and i say “i was busy”, he won’t give me the thumbs up and instruct me to continue as is. no way! i’d be booted out so fast my head would spin, and most likely catch a glimpse of the foot that’s kicking my ass on the way out.



now in social conversations, “i’ve been busy” is totally acceptable. this is used with acquaintances as well as with close friends. the difference is in the follow up. with acquaintances a nice and quiet awkward silence will follow, maybe even a non- convincing *sigh*, but with close friends an explanation of the “busy” events will follow and hopefully some compassion from the listening person.



now when i say i’ve been busy, i mean this in the most sincere way only. whether i know you, or i don’t know you very well, and we just talk when it’s awkward not to talk. i in no way am similar to those who i speak down on in this post. because i understand the magnitude of the word “busy” i myself have been very “busy” still i managed to write this and post it for the world to now reference.

what’s so best about the best?



a group of close friends and i were talking the other day about each other’s best friends, and close friends, and the hierarchy of friends, for our different friends. i found that there’s quite a constant trend, which gave me somewhat of a 120 volt, ac, 3.5amp zap! (that’s a big ass shock for those v=ir illiterate).



someone was asked “who’s your best guy friend” she answered “*best guy friend’s name*”. the next question posed was “would he call you his best girl friend?” the answer was “no”. initially, i couldn’t understand how they could have a best friend relationship without both being best friends of each other. then another person was asked… “who’s your best girl friend?” and his answer was a girl who also does not consider him her best guy friend. two! this happened two times in a row? have i stumbled upon something here? did i discover a bizarre best friend triangle? (<-honestly i thought that was super funny 80’s reference, and i’m positive nobody else did)



when i was asked who my best girl friend was, the answer was known already by the friends i was talking to. furthermore, if she was to be asked who her best guy friend is, my name would be the answer. so how do people have best friends that don’t reciprocate the “bestness” of the friendship?



in a relationship (the intimate kind between two lovers, not the “just friends/best friends” kind) it has been my idea that both the boy, and the girl, must hold each other in the same rank among people. this is in order to make things work out successfully. also, that rank has to be at the top of the chart for 80% of the time at least (everyone needs some sort of break). if the girl has a friend who takes precedence over her current boyfriend, then sooner or later things will turn sour. this is assuming that the boyfriend holds his girl at the highest friend status (ie. he plans weekends around her, she’s automatically invited when he is invited, his friends take a back seat to her, etc…) but what if each member of the intimate relationship has some external “higher up on the totem pole” friend that they hang out with more, then would the relationship last? hold the phone... i think i just described everyone’s first middleschool-and-or-highschool relationship!!



i was asked who was my best guy friend… and thanks to a blog that i wrote a while ago, i had already enstated that my father is my best friend! everyone’s father or mother should be their best friend, but that never works out does it…



now i’m wondering if someone considers me as their best friend and i don’t consider them as mine. am i as contradicting as the term “jumbo shrimp”?

are you serious!?!?



stress is a killer, no really, fish commonly fall dead due to stress. not i'm not calling humans fish (fish have more integrity) but i am saying that stress is like smoking, it's bad yet people quote nike and "just do it".



so i try to live stress free. it's not easy, it's hard to not worry. when the shit hits the fan, i think it takes a lot to look at why that wasn't such a bad thing that just happened. some people step in shit and throw their shoes away, i step in shit and find a reason to buy a super duper shoe cleaning brush with vacuume attachment.



sometimes people mistake me for not caring. i care about a lot of things and a lot of people, but i don't want wrinkles and grey hair as proof. i guess it's weird to not get bent out of shape when something mildly out of the ordinary occurs.



maybe the reason i avoid stress, like that pimply faced girl in 6th grade that thinks it's funny to kiss all the boys in gym class, is because i deal with stress so poorly! when i'm stressed out i'm much more intolerable than most people are when i'm stressed out. i lose appetite, and may even snap at my very own dear mum. that's right, it gets that bad!!

reading



I’ve been reading a bit. I normally dislike books, but will be frequently found reading garbage on the internet. i realized why I hated reading school books as opposed to different web pages or magazine articles. As soon as I find something boring my mind starts to wander. So this action of my eyes going over the words, and my mind going over my thoughts always catches up at a paragraph break or a page turn. “wait, what did I just read?” crap! So I go back over it again, and this time read it the right way, the way that I read when my mind is focused on the words that my eyes are browsing.



I figured it’d be a great movie scene tho. Have a character reading a book, and hearing his voice (the voice in his head) and then all of a sudden switch to his fantasy, but here’s the cool part, still keep his words from the book audible! Then do a switch to the characters in the book that are totally different than his daydream, and back again to him reading and hearing his voice when all of a sudden he stops and says “crap!, what did I just read!”



Maybe that’d not be so cool… eh, I’m an engineer, that’s my excuse! What’s yours!

F is for Fantastic!



There is an infinite number "million dollar ideas". most of which we come up with at work during down time.... and as I’m looking around at different companies that do different things, it’s mind blowing how much money they make doing what it is they do.



All it takes is someone with some the balls, or lack of fear to go through with their idea. My dad once told me that he came from nothing. His shoes would be re-soled as many times as possible, instead of simply trashed and new ones bought (and as I was cleaning out my crap yesterday I threw away 3 pairs of shoes that I hadn’t worn in about 10 months). He told me this and said that in america there is one difference that stands out to him, and that difference is: “it’s ok to fail”.



It’s the fear of failing that keeps many people from trying out their ideas. People with realistic ideas for their own success are suppressed daily by the fear of not recieving a paycheck every 2 weeks like they're used to. But failing is ok, I sure found that out early in life and have failed many times ever since. Whether it be school, work, girls, sports, or video games even… failing is an option and it’s not as bad as many people make it out to be.



I’ve failed classes in school. And I feel that I learned quite a bit from that experience. some never do fail a class… and when they inevitably fail at something in life, the concept of simply failing overwhelms them and they don’t know how to react! That’s when people bring machine guns to work. (well I mean it could be an example).



The great people of our time failed. It takes quite a bit of failures in order to achieve success. Thomas Edison is one of them… He busted his ass and failed, many times, but you all know him as the dude who invented the light bulb. success-full.



“Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward.... “ –Thomas Edison



so here we have, the man himself said that even if you fail 10,000 times and make it big one time… that’s all you need. RE: the eminem song from the 8 mile soundtrack (not like I know the lyrics and scream them at the top of my lungs when KISS FM plays their hourly rotation of the song) but he says it only takes one time, and sometimes you only have one time.



The wright brothers must have failed many times and learned from their failures. And each time became closer to the “first flight” by mankind, not to mention going down in history as the pioneers of what's now a phenominally huge industry! Finally, they got it, and they’re heros. But during their wild adventures they must have been looked down upon. Imagine quitting your job, telling your boss you want to go fly, and to add more to that, nobody had ever accomplished that before. Then telling your mom, dad, friends, neighbors… every body gets conservative around times like that, and shed their wisdom of how being conservative pays off.



well orville and wilbur didn't have cool names but we'll remember them for forever because they failed and didn't give up. i really want to wrap this up somehow but i can't. maybe i need a million dollar idea coupled with some balls/guts to go thru with it.

those in between areas



talk to any engineer and they like their stuff how? Black and White. but then there's those areas... where things aren't clear cut. the areas that are a big hazy, foggy, iffy.... the "____" areas. what areas are we talking about?



that's right "the gray areas". not to be confused with "the grey areas".



or maybe the two are to be confused. gray and grey are both in the dictionary. (and both on dictionary.com!) it appears that gray is the more widely used but the fact that they both exist, both have the same definition, and both represent something that is not clearly defined, is just awesome to me.



i'm sure it's some evil ploy by the government (when are they not behind an evil ploy) to brain wash us and turn us into a gray/grey confusing race. and with that accomplished they will then start subliminally combining more definitions of words spelled differently, and soon we'll live in a gr(a/e)y hazy world with a foggy essence that will make us feel iffy all the time.

i got gas



on my way to work i noticed that the arco had 87 gas for 1.97/gallon. WOWIEE under 2.00/gallon for gas, would i ever see it again? i wasn't sure... till today!



now as a mechanical engineering student, i took two thermodynamics classes in college, and i learned about the (R + M)/2 equation (R stands for Research Octane Number , and M stands for Motor Octane Number) that determines the octane of gasoline (it's on the yellow sticker that says (87,89, or 91) the octane rating on the pump at your local gas station.

my professor (Dr. Samuelson) was the guy who they asked to come up with the equation. (yea he came up with that easy equation) but how you get R and M is the hard part i swear!!! ok ok not impressive. regardless, i've concluded that gasoline octane rating does not affect my car, only my pocket. and i've concluded that it's approx $172.00 more a year to run premium 91 gas. that's based on the assumption that there's a $0.16 difference between 87 and 91 and that i get an avg of 23 mpg. (btw i'm going to get gas today at lunchtime)



according to handymanUSA there is no difference between the two grades of gas for a normal car. i've read tons of posts on different msg boards as well, but those are contradicting, the problem is that nobody references anything when posting to those sites. i can't believe what some people say on msg boards simply because their computer name is 97mustangman. this person could be a 16 year old girl who plays with barbies, or a seasoned car mechanic. who knows?



what i do know is what's going on here. and i'm breaking it down easy style:



-the history of octane rating goes back to AKI (Anti Knock Index). what the heck does Knock mean? it's when fuel explodes instead of burns and ends up pushing the pistons (the parts that move in the engine) in the wrong direction, and that's bad for your engine. so the AKI is the number used to find out how much resistance that specific gas has to knocking.



-octane is what governs the burning of fuel, more octane, slower burn. most people think more octane means it burns hotter. that's wrong.



-slower burning fuel prevents "engine knock" which sounds like something is knocking inside your engine and wants to come out.



-most cars will not have engine knock with 87 octane gas, and if they do... a tune up will most probably fix it. (this doesn't apply to old cars, 25years or so old)



-high performance cars have a higher compression (turbos, superchargers, or just high performance naturally aspirated engines aka non-turbo)



-the reason it costs more is because it has to go thru more refining than 87 to get the octane in the gas, more work = more cost.



-it's not better for the environment to use 91.



-your car won't know a diff if you change 91 to 87 and back again, you're not locked in if you only put 91 in and then suddenly change to 87.



-lastly, there are tolerances on octanes. Hypothetical example: that means 87 is really 87 +/- 3 so it could be 90 or could be 84, meaning that 87 or 91 could be the same thing depending on the batch you get!



quick questions (FAQ): so then, why does my lexus/mercedes say use premium unleaded fuel only? AAAAnd My daddy says I'll get better gas mileage with premium gas, is he wrong?



your car says premium fuel only and coincidentally gasoline companies put their most expencive stuff as "premium". isn't 87 premium? when crude oil is processed it comes out to about 70. then they process it more to get it up to about 90. after that they add stuff to it to make it higher than that. (some fuel is rated well over 100)



better mileage and better for your car seems to be the grey area. one site said approx 3% more power is attained with high octane gas, other sites say that no gas mileage is gained with higher octane. one site said that you'll get MORE gas mileage with 87 cause it burns faster and hotter. (heat equals energy) so that means more gas mileage as long as your car doesn't knock. carbon build up with 87 or 91 was also up in the air. some sites said yes and others said no.



the variable isn't the gas. it's the engine. if you're driving a car that that is not a super machine, and isn't 25 years old, you should most likely be putting 87 octane gas. save the 170.00 a month so you can buy drinks for me or something, that will get you further than higher octane gas.



p.s. i've read and looked and tried to find info about turbocharged cars, with no luck. if anyone has a credible source of information confirming the benefits of 91 gas and turbocharged engines, please feel free to let me know! please.

what jon said



my friend jon blogged about how he grew up in an asian american household (though he generalized and said most "ethnic" households are similar), and how tough it was to get some affection from his parents, and now he feels that may be the reason that he isn't giving his friends/loved ones affection that they deserve.



i used to think similarly to this way, untill one random time i jokingly said some kind words expressing how much i appreciated and liked them and saw how she lit up when i said these words.



sometimes people need to hear things that are implied. the reaction i got from saying a few nice words was facinating. the old mentality of "if i spend time with you, call you, email you, etc... that means you're worth my time, and i like you" is easy. and it'd work better if the world was only males. but hearing someone say something nice about you is very moving. especially if it's a close friend.



i grew up in the opposite of jon's world. my mom and dad always did and do says they love me. i get hugs and more hugs when i go home to see them. my family is full of affection and jon's is opposite.



this conflicts when i befrend someone like jon. who's path do we take? mine? his? a mix?



i have a friend who once told me that she never says "i love you" to anyone even her parents. i told her "i've been friends with her for years, and that i love you". her face was shocked for a few mins after i said these super powerful words so nonchalantly. but i did, i do! i love my friends and family, and i tell them. you have to, if everything was just implied then why talk? the phrase actions speak louder than words implies that words aren't loud, well they are. actions are just a little bit louder.



that same friend now will text message me or email and leave a "love, ____" at the end. because it's better to say it too much than not enough. i respect jon's way of showing affection, or lack thereof, but it's not the way i do things.

momma always said "you never stop learning"



i graduated from college. from the great institution of UCIrvine. (our mascott is the anteater, and i'm reminded of this daily by my USC and UCLA alumni co-workers. what does this mean? well, 5 years and lots of debt...

yes, but there's more. one can't just show up to good ol' UCI and start their academic studying. 4 years of high school, 3 years of junior high, 5 years of grade school, a year of kindergarden, and some pre-school... pre-school!! i went to a school in order to learn how to go to school!!!!

this totals up 19 years of taking classes. I'm only 25 years old, and as an infant I don't see myself being coherent enough to learn much more than how to cry, relieve myself, and sleep. (really miss that sleeping thing, i practiced that a lot)

so i've been learning a lot. learing, taking classes, honing my skills so that i'll be a benefit to society. thing is, i feel that the stuff i've learned shouldn't have required 19 years. but that's not the real point here....

i've taken a lot of classes, had a lot of teachers, sat/slept through lots of lectures. i've colored the pictures in the lines and memorized my spelling words for the weekly wednesday spell testing (i did horribly of course) .

so recently i found myself with a list of classes i wanted to take: cullinary, welding, adobe photoshop/illustrator, macromedia flash & dreamweaver, bartending, real estate, scuba diving, autocross or a performance driving class, and of course i'd like to get my MBA...

these are things i really want to learn. now come to think of it, if i were to go full time as a student, i could knock these courses out in 1 year(not including the MBA). i've worked 19 years in schools and classes interpreting books and simplifying equations... but that doesn't pay bills, or impress chicks. the two highest prioritys on my list.

maybe i feel cheated a bit that i am now paying hundreds of dollars a month in order to knock out a debt of thousands of dollars and i still don't know the stuff that i would like to know from going to school. if i want some more skills (the ones that i am impressed with) i'm going to have to take some more classes.

when mom said you never stop learning, i thought that there were life lessons i'd encounter and there were people and situations that i was to learn from. i think i misunderstood her... "you never stop going to school" is most likely what she said. i never trust my memory.

straight edge is scary edge for me



everyone has stress. everyone has issues of heartache and some sort of problem that they would like to get off their back. in compensation for these stresses and probmlems as living animals that we refer to as human beings, we need a way to "let it out!" and since our 40 hr a week, 50 week a year, schedule doesn't allow us to visit hawaii as often as we'd like to, this is the reason we have the weekends.



some need to release more than others. some release by different means than others. personally i drink. i love it. it's great. my mon-thurs is spent daydreaming about where and what i'm going to drink that weekend. and if i'm not drinking, then i'm either sick as heck or dead. the latter hasn't happened yet but it's getting closer to becoming true. there's those who don't drink. and i respect their wishes, it's not for everyone. but it makes me wonder what is their release? how do they "let it out"



thru my years of educational teen movies/sitcoms/cartoons and of course the many wonderfully pointless hours of mtv trash has molded my ideas such as thus: substance release vs the sexual release.



the scene is set with the "main guy", he's trying to get the girl (perfect setup for a teen movie.) he's always gotta be the main guy cause girls are harder to get than drugs/alcohaul. then there's the sidekick. the one who needs no girl for his release, he's happy getting intoxicated. so the intresting story is the sober dude's escapades in attaining this perfect figure, not the sidekick's tribulations to finding a liquor store. all the while the "main guy's" sidekick is intoxicated and completely happy with life. he sees things completely simple and when he tells the "main guy" what he thinks the "main guy" has an epiphany. the only thing not set in our sidekick's world is that his homefry doesn't have the chick he so desires and can't stop thinking about her.



and that's it.



so who are you? i'm the sidekick... i'm content with myself catching a nice buzz and enjoying a simple release of the day's stresses and deadlines. i fear the people that will never take the role of the sidekick. they're going to spontaneously combust someday due to lack of release. and that's a bad thing for the sidekick, especially if he's wearing one of those new white shirts mom bought him. so for sidekicks sake, become a sidekick once in a while... hey it happens... movie reference: beginning of half baked (before dave chapelle became the "main guy" and quit the substance release and started the sexual release)

"the ones who entertain themselves are the ones we think are crazy, but they're the only ones that will always keep their sanity"



it's so common that if you're not doing something that takes up 100% of your concentration and someone asks what it is you're up to, you simply say nothing. but it's never nothing.



i feel that i can hold my own better than most, by entertaining myself with daydreams, flashbacks, and games. things i do readily while driving or sitting in traffic school... you know, when i'm "doing nothing"



for example i just walked for an hr to the stater brothers down the street. 30 mins each way. to buy stamps. and all the while i just looked around and kept myself entertained. i did have a phone call, but for the majority of the trip i was alone. and it's ok. being alone is not so bad, and being alone is for people who can entertain themselves.



i've seen countless people eating alone while talking on the phone. it's sickening. put down your phone, enjoy the view of whatever you got, enjoy the absence of conversation and company. we're so dependant on attention it's sick.

just the right time



driving in the car, you pick up your friend, and tell them "hey you gotta hear this song!" so you pop it in and pretty soon you're talking to your friend or someone calls or something happens where the focus of you two just isn't on the song. it's on something else. maybe you haven't hung out and need to catch up.



on the converse there's that perfect time. a song comes on the radio, after a while of driving, or after a night of partying, or just in the most unpredictable time... and what happens? you both feel the song. it's majic! driving down the street, not talking, just both bobbing your heads to the perfect song for the perfect moment. and thing is, these songs can't be predetermined. they have to be randomly selected, as in, running the random function on your ipod, and BAM it hits you with a song. the song makes your -tired and i wanna get up and stretch- body start dancing in it's uncomfy seat!



i've had tons of these moments, they're what make weekends great. but never thought to document one.



keep a look out for them, i hear they can show at anytime.

from hot to not



strictly talking sexual attraction, when faced with the question of what is the most UN-sexually attractive thing i can think of, the answer is easy. without hesitation i picture curly thin grey hair, skin that looks like beef jerky that was just in the microwave, false teeth, that's right... old ladies that have psudo hunchbacks, rely on canes to walk with and that smell. the old person smell. maybe that's what recooked human flesh smells like who knows. actually i don't see many old people being that flexible, maybe they just can't srcub under their arms, or their back and they have not cleaned areas of their wiltering bodies for years. that could perpetuate some sort of foul odors.



the ironic point here is not that old chicks aren't hot. (and when i say old, i mean retirement home old) the point is that these girls used to be the object of every man's sexual desire. men of all ages drool over 18 year old college bound babes. that span of 18 to a rapidly increasing 25 years of age is the hottest any girl will be. (surgery not accounted for here) and after that they start their descend to the most sexually unattractive being on the planet.



this validates the "mean old lady" stereotype. why are they mean, because before men would go out of their way to be nice and helpful with alternative motives of getting some "beautiful girl attention". now men go way out of their way to avoid some "nasty old lady" interaction. this makes for some bitter old ladies.



imagine the shock. sure it's a slow process and if life treats you right and you get lucky in your years (as a woman) you've got an old husband that will always want you and will be giving you the much needed attention that women feed off of. to know that you'll (as a girl being born) go from cute little baby, to someone's middleschool crush, to then the object of every 15-55year old men's sexual fantasies, to then austin power's means of keeping his erection from popping -austin powers's reference ::margaret thathcher on a cold day, margaret thather on a cold day!!::



but now old men, somehow never lose their sex appeal. even when an extremely old man hits on a young lady, she says no, but in her mind it's not as firm of a no if the old lady was hitting on a young guy. if that ever happened it'd probably make a pretty disturbing scene (another movie reference) see ::van wilder::

what does bill know



so i've picked up a book from work, "Bill Cosby Fatherhood". i just snagged it. i like bill cosby. he's great. and well i guess whatever he writes is fun. so i'm reading this and i realize it's about being a father. shit! i'm not in a position to think about this...



i'm sure i could get a girl pregnant but then before the baby was born i'd have the girl sick of me and all intrested in another guy, and those two would have a 2-5 year relationship, i guess i'm the perfect rebound man, i do that to women. but that's not my point, this is another blog for another day.... while i'm reading this (and i have only finished 2 chapters) it is talking about dealing with a pregnant delicate wife and how crazy it is that a kid comes out of her "honey we had a lizard!" he says. cause new born babies are freaking nasty looking. well to the non-parents they do. all slimy and gross looking.



he keeps busting a point, why the hell do we do this to ourselves. he hasn't answered it yet. but why? kids suck money, time, energy. he hasn't talked about the reward.



but this talk has made me think. sometimes i want to live the life of these guys. spend money on a child, wife, house. is that not life? it seems as though life is very much just that and through our superior intelligence we have found other meanings of life. but simplify and life is basically to survive and keep on living. having babies is the way to keep the human race going. so that's what we live for. to experience raising someone or more than just one. to me sounds like fun, i'd love to have a great wife and a great house with a great car and a great job raising some great kids. life would be great. but yes, we're so superior that that's just not enough. i need more.i need to get some other satisfaction from life. how? i dunno. maybe bill cosby will tell me. he did run a funny show for like 17 seasons (not confirmed) he was made fun of on the simpsons, and if the simpsons made fun of you, you've made it! hey! i've found that missing thing in my mid life! i need to make it on to the simpsons!!!

expectations



a while ago my family from iran came over to visit for a few months. my grandma, aunt, and uncle. once again my father's family would all be under the same roof. (with the exception of my grandfather, but he has long since passed away.) i has seen my grandmother once before, as well as my aunt. my uncle i had never met before. this was an exciting time for me. the fact that they all speak farsi as a first language and their english is as broken as it can break makes it difficult to communicate. but having extended family around is something that i feel i have less of than most of my peers. last time my grandma came over i was in grade school. she brought me an allah. a gold neclace with a pendant that says allah in farsi and is commonly worn just as crosses are worn here. mom put it in a safe deposit box.



this time they were coming and my mom asked me what i was going to ask for. i remember the conversation in the kitchen. i don't want anything, i'm just stoked to meet the people that i'm realated to, all i remember from them is that i don't know how to communicate with them. seeing them is present enough. mom said, ok, but you know that you don't see them that much, and there's things over there that are cheaper and better quality like gold, jewelry, leather, and persian rugs, etc... all these things sound cool but i wasn't about to go and make a christmas list for my family that i've met once.



so then it dawned on me. i want something of value. something significant to our family. i wanted a family airloom! something i could say my grandfather who i never met that lived in a country on the other side of the world used or bought or had. that sounded way cooler than a silk rug or a gold tea set. so my order was set. i would have been fine with nothing and just seeing them since i don't even know them but feel that i should, and want to get to know them, to learn more about myself.



christmas time rolls around and i'm hoping for an old teapot, pocketwatch, shoe horn, pen, i dunno! something that my ancestors once held... it's my turn to open up the present. i've got two of them. one is a small jewelry box. the other is an even smaller one. wow. maybe i got someone's ring, and a neclace, or a bracelet. something cool must have come my way. man i'm glad i asked for something instead of just being content with seeing my family...



i open up the first package and i find a cheap, anchor blue style bracelet. my brother opens his up and it's an almost identical bracelet. i can't believe i let my imagination get the best of me again. but i did. the next box yielded a matching neclace. just from looking at it and holding it i could tell that this neclace would tarnish and discolor within a week of being worn.



now i'm let down. and i shouldn't be. i'm frustrated with how i allowed myself to go from excited and content, to expecting so much, to disapponted, all with a little conversation from my mom. i should have just kept to my guns. let her know that it's not important. and now i know. i'm going to have to start the family airloom thing cause nobody here has and if i'm going to have a say in this, my family will have family airlooms!! and that's final! time to buy some good quality nicknacks and set them up for preservation, this may be more expencive than i thought. oh well it's for the family!

insensitive



this past weekend i've realize just how insensitive i am. in all aspects of the sensitivity realm. it started friday night. picked up a friend from the airport. (sidenote, lax sucks. where the hell do you park to go pick someone up? i couldn't find it? so i drove in circles while gas prices remain at 2.30/gallon till my friend was on the curb. not a good system.) so i'm excited to see her and when i see her she's not so excited, although all week we've been talking about how fun this weekend will be. we drive for a second, do the normal small talk, i ease the clutch out and we start moving when all of a sudden she jumps and points out the window. "there's the guy!"



-ok, i'm lost. the guy? who's the guy.. fill me in here. turns out he was a 19 year old from somewhere going to iraq. his parents were crying cause he was leaving. she felt so compelled to get his email and somehow try to send him a care package of some sort. Ooohhh. she intentionally sat next to him so she could hear about this guys story. and i found myself stuck. this situation paralelled a situation which i have a great phobia of. girls crying. i blogged about it one day, how i don't know what to do and fear the situation where i'm supposed to comfort a crying girl. seems like there's no right way to do it so you end up screwed. SAME with this scenario. but i tried to let her know that it is not an easy thing to do, and i'm not man enough to do this role. heck when i was 19 i was seltered by the dorms and relyed on the guidance, wisdom, and money from mom and dad.



later that night, after a few drinks and a stupid shot of 151 i find her telling the story to a mutual friend. and she then says that when she told me the story i made her feel stupid for feeling that way. i thought i was being sensitive but i guess i'm just not.



then the next day i was in front of the bbq, grilling some carne asada and some pollo asado. the smoke was blowing right in my face and as my friend came to get some meat, he had to stand behind the grill, "how do you just stand there!! the smoke is killing me!?" i don't know, i just am. then he tells me to take a swig of his jack and coke that someone gave him. he claims it's way too strong. i have some and it's a bit on the coke side for me i tell him. this leads to a conversation about how when i say it's not spicy, it's usually too spicy for my friend.



what can i say? is it that i'm just insensitive, or have i been numbed in more than one way. who's to know? maybe i just hang out with more sensitive people than myself. is that better? what if i was the most sensitive? i'd be making the people around me feel as i do and i'd be the one dealing with hot food, incompassionate people, and smoke from bbq's.



in this case i want to say we have to use the "goldie locks" theorm. she's the girl who went to the three bears house. the too hot soup, too cold, just right. this is an in the middle. follows the goldie locks theorm. and i'm a bit on the too hot of soup. can someone blow on my soup? or better yet, get me an ice cube?

Memorial Day 2004

is a boy raised by wolves a boy??



a friend of mine said something to me while i was drinking. and i didn't have enough time to think about it then, or maybe i didn't have the brain capacity, and attentionspan... but it stuck with me cause it was rather weird for me to hear and comprehend. she said that she doesn't consider herself american. she feels she's taiwanese, because her parents are taiwanese. she was born and raised in southern california, but considers herself loyal to an island on the other side of the world.



that made me ponder... what am i? shoud i consider myself 1/2 persian, 1/4 welsh, 1/8 german, and 1/8 norwegian? i mean i've never been to iran, whales, germany, or norway. if i went to either of the countries i don't think i'd fit in either. but in southern california, i feel home. i relate to the people. this is my culture. this is my homeland. i can't relate to how people back in the countries where my ancestors used to live. so how can i then call myself any of these ethnicities. yes i do carry some of the customs and traditions from them, and i do relate with some of their cultural beliefs but not all of them. and they don't agree or relate with some of mine. it makes us different. it makes me an american. and i feel that the term american means just that. people from somewhere, came here and started new, but still held on to some of their old customs and beliefs but still started something a bit different. i can go to a different city like chicago and point out how different everything is there. how the people, the language, styles, all this stuff that i can't relate to... i'm not a chicago-an but we're all americans.



so i asked her. do you not feel like an american, you speak with a southern california slang, you know the area, you have lived here forever, relate to people who live in the area that are of the same situation as you by having family come from far away and reside here... and most of all, if you went back to your place of ethnicity, you wouldn't fit in!!!



america is a melting pot, but it melts in clumps. thus chinatown, little italy, koreatown, etc are born. you get people grouping to their old cultures but they are at the same time making new ones.



what really baffles me is that there was a group of 30 or so who were playing catch phrase at 2am and had the police break it up we reverted to talking about this. intresting? maybe maybe not, but don't expect to get invited to one of these parties. for most, it's simply too much to handle.

what hapens to old girls and young guys?



my first impression of older men is that they have money. clean cut, proper, golf oriented, sucessful, impatient men come to mind. when I think of youn girls the first impression I get is sex. younger girls are sexy. so whay do the guys do before they get old, and what happens to the young girls as they get old?



personally, an opinion I carry is that dating too far away from my current age is not very desireable nor does it have good chance of being a sucessful relationship. this opinion of mine has been formed due to observing others as well as some personal life experiences. there's a definite difference in maturity and stages in life. this makes certain conflicts that are not always comprehendible by both parties at the same time. this is not to say that if I find myself at 50 years old and single I won't have a 24 year old bikini model for a personal sextoy, but I'm focusing on sucessful good ol' fashioned relationships. the ones that make the world go round.



my upbringing has a lot to do with it. my parents are less than a year apart... so why don't older girls like younger men? maybe they do but don't get them? maybe having an attractive sexual partner is higher on a man's priority list and having a wealthy sexual partner is high on a woman's list.



so what happens to those girls you grow up with? in elementary school, they're deemed as "the pretty" ones or "the cute" ones. and you play teatherball or throw the football at them. well, soon you find that you're in middle school and that "cute girl" is dating a highschooler, and then in HS she's got a college boy... and once you start working, and cruise friendster during breaktime you learn that the "the cute" one is married, and 25 years old, and her hubby is 40, and on his second wife. (I guess now I know what happens to those "cute" girls that used to tease me in elementary school...)



its the girls that always cause me to lose focus. the girls sidetrack me. they steal the show and I lose track of what's really going on. the guys. I remember being friends with the guy in hs who dated a middleschooler, and the guy in college who had a hs girlfriend. sure the girls were cute but they were damn annoying, just too immature for me. seeing these guys I noticed that this is what I didn't want to be. these guys had to deal with immature, incompitent, hot girls. it was as if for these guys to get girls they were sexually attracted to, they had to sacrifice something.



guys and girls have levels. school levels are the same for both, but guys go up after school, and girl's level goes down. from 21-22 years old, girls start do lose their demand. and men's level goes up!



guys are like an aged alcohaul, with time it gets more expencive and refined, girls are like exotic flowers, the grow and look beautiful, but then bloom for only a bit, and then start wilting away.



so those girls who are really hot, can dat multiple levels up. the goal of a girl is to date a level above theirs. and a guys goal is to date a girl at his equivalent level. as yes, the conflict has been uncovered. so how does a guy attract a girl of his equivalent level when her eyes are focused on the guys above our perspective gentleman of the same level?



lets pull out an example. our mid twenties working woman. she's not fully on her own, works a steady job, lives at home, or gets her parents to give her a car. but overall, she's got some direction and when she finds a man to help her out she'll be free of her parents help and start to lean financially on her new mr. while this mr. is financially doing well for himself (sports car, his own house, better job, and well sure he's 7 years older but isn't a bad looking gentleman) this guy want's to find a girl of the same age and same financial status. what will he use to impress her? furthermore his competition is with men of 10 years older than he is, bigger houses, management jobs, and much more appealing to the woman who our hero has his eye on. so what is the question? his woman of choiice is the 7 year younger one, the one he can impress, support, and feel good about 'winning over'.



what does it all mean for me? I'm fucked. I'm sitting here with the desire of a guy who's 35 years old, but I'm sitting at a level of a 15 year old guy... unless I wait till our mid twenties woman starts to drop in levels and I start to go up, just hope those greedy mid 30's guys leave a few for me have a chance at.



(this was composed on my phone, so please look past the spelling/grammar errors)

games with girls



i've found a trend. (let's backtrack) i don't feel i've had one sucessfull relationship yet. i can say i've been in relationships. but not a real one. where all the elements were there at the same time. either i wanted to be free, she wanted to be free (more of the time she wants to be free, free of what? why me of course!) or she's too far away so i can't see her like normal couples see eachother. there's always a factor in each of my significant relationships of my pathetic 25 years on this rock that causes for it to be an unconventional relationship.



but the underlying theme? they get bored of me. no i'm not here to pity myself, it's what i've discovered. and i don't want to say that it's a bad thing, but will be a bad thing if this pattern isn't broken sometime in the future, let's say before the next 15 years passes. but there's reasons for this behavior of my significant others, reasons as well as circumstances.



(1)i'm too flexible. i need to not reschedule all my events around hers. i need to make her feel like she's NOT no.1 priority. i need to tell her "all i can do is tuesday, the rest of the days i'm really busy" instead of "whatever day is easiest for you, i can make time and re-schedule around your schedule" or sometimes it totally comes out wrong and i just say "oh i can hang out anytime, whenever" -when i say this i usually mean that i can be flexible, but is eaisly mistaken for "eh whenevers" which doesn't give a definite idea to anyone who's being put in who's place.



(2)Furthermore i need to make out with other girls that will for sure kiss and tell thus getting word back to my girlfriend that i have cheated, or not return their calls with the excuse that i was watching tv or that i forgot... just something to start a fight, something to make them cry. people bond when they go thru tough times. so if i create some friction, not too much, but some, just enough to jerk some tears and kick some vending machines, i'll get em to like me that much more! it's weird. sorta reminds me of how a co worker of mine added a 15 passenger van to his car insurance policy and the rates ended up being lower with his 350z and the 15 passenger van than just the 350z by itself.



sometimes working backwards is really working forwards. i've always thought that if we weren't fighting they things were going well. that's true for friends, but for significant others, no siree! i'm ditching the pamper her and treat her like a queen mentality. it's time to treat women like they want to be treated: dirt. cause if i don't treat them like dirt, they'll treat me like dirt. whoever said "god made dirt and dirt don't hurt" was wrong. it hurts being dirt.



you gotta have drama. you need to fight. emotions need to be churned and twisted and people need to get hurt. it's what the world revolves around! how else will we relate to the love songs that plauge our ears thru mtv and kiis fm?



i've always tried to be a good boy. listen to momma, do my homework, eat my veggies. sure i'm immature and irresponsible at times, i'm never punctual and i'm horrible with budgeting/saving money. but overall i see myself as a prize boyfriend. i'm all the things that the girls on tv say they wish they had instead of the jerkoff that they're with...



but that's just it! i completely missed the point! all the while, the girls are actually banging these jerks that treat them like shit, and simply complaining to their friends, saying stupid wishes about the mommasboy-geekazoid that i've become...



conclusion:

i need to start stirring it up. if i really like a girl from now on i may just slap her. now that's a way to sweep a girl off her feet. or just get her off her feet.

no backspace



i broke my keyboard at work. i spilled some green tea on it and it's lost the "b" "z" and "x" keys. it was an ergonomic. microsoft brand. makes me sad. i guess what i'll have to do is buy a new keyboard and bring in myone from home. so wyh does it say no backspace at the top of this blog? well that's diff. cause i am not using the backspace key for this post. i've written 3 posts in the last 2 days and they just don't deserve to be published. so no wi'm writing with no backspace button. i'm going commando. it's been done before and pulled off. so why not stick to the formula!~?



actually, today i'm nervous. i've not been this type of nervous for quite some time. i'm fickle with my weekend plans, very fickle. if my weekend plans haven't been established 5days before the weekend actually hits, it's panic time! that's how today is. i'm all riled up. no concrete plans. sure i've got the weekend of june 5, june 12, june 19, june 26th all planned, june is good. even aug has some tenative and soon to be permanent plans.



man this was a piss poor idea. who ever told me to not use a backspace keey has failed .me i've lost my blogging reopur and i can't spell worht beans either. since it's friday i don'tcare, i'm wearing my shirt untucked, and i'm ready to make some plans. adios muchachos!

shopping for appreciation



i love to shop. some people don't realize this cause i wear the same clothes day in and day out. i actually have tried to wear the same outfit each day of the week (mondays the blue shirt, tuesdays the red one... that died before it got started!) BUT, buying clothes isn't what i call shopping. find yourself in a store, suddenly that's all that you have to compare, the store's selection. for example you can't look up all manufacturers of green button up shirts with a pocket on the left breast and ivory buttons. to compare quality, design, features, then price and make a decision on which one you want to purchase. you just browse and see what's there. you like it you buy it, if not, then no.



i like shopping. digging. researching and making excel spreadsheets with comparisons of different products, their features, upsides and downsides, what would fit my needs. people hear shopping, they think of clothes. but i spend a few hrs shopping for clothes, heck sometimes just a few mins. i want some socks, i just up and get some socks! simple as that... but when i shop, i spend weeks. sometimes months.



i didn't realize how much i like to shop till i noticed someone else shopping. des was looking for a new bike. she had never owned one before and was so excited to finally get one. a pink beach cruiser. it's been weeks, she knows all the brands, the different styles. she's learned the sizes, features like hand brakes, fenders, aluminum vs steel, foam handlebars vs rubber grips, etc... and once she finds what she wants at the price she wants her purchase will be done and satisfaction will be maximum.



i did the same thing with my phone. it took me about 2-3 weeks. and i was on the websites every day. looking for a new phone, new plan, rebates, deals, user opinions, anything. i just didn't want to get something on a whim and then be all upset that i spent my money on some piece of crap.



now i'm happy. i got the phone i want:





man i love shopping!

what time do you have??



I was at a mall this weekend... A very foreign place to me, but I had my friend around and he had plans to go to the mac store (where guys think computers, and girls think makeup) I'm using this term 'mac' with the guys idea in mind. so as i marvel at the $3,000.00 machines lining the walls, computing 0's and 1's faster than imaginable by the human mind i find myself lost in a sea of electronics. mp3 players, laptops, keyboards, flatscreen monitors, colors, cases, batteries. i'm in ameer's playground!



after about an hour of looking around james decide to leave. upon leaving, something catches my eye... a watch is sitting next to a laptop. quickly it occurs to me that someone took their watch off in order to not scratch the 15" powerbook laptop that is sitting beside the watch... i smoothly walk over and check out the watch, look around and pick it up, upon looking at it i realize it's a nixon watch. the black face one. $225.00 worth of time telling genious suddenly falls into my lap and asks to be mine.



now i look at james, and james looks at me. what do i do? time quickly freezes, i've just been rear ended on a monday morning, someone kicked my side fender leaving an ugly dent at $1000.00 in damage, so this is my up! but then; i just got a new phone and i'm loving life with the ipod. so many things race thru my head and it feels as tho my heard is responsible for the speed of the thoughts due to the rate at which it is pumping.



i'm stern. i don't let the devil on my shoulder persuade me, i walk up to the counter and hand the watch to a younger looking gentleman with an all black shirt and a small white apple in the middle of it. "i found this watch sitting by the laptops" and i hand it over, he thanks me and puts it in the drawer.



we leave.









later on while in a book store (this totally sounds like a lie, first of all i'm at the mall, second of all i'm at a book store, but i swear it's true, i swear!) i start talking to james about some songs i heard on the net. some funny songs. he mentions that we could go to the mac store and listen to them! so we do!



2 hrs after our first visit to the mac store james and i return to the colorful yet simple store that screams power with ease of use, we park ourselves next to a computer and start up the downloads.



half way thru i mention that i should ask for my watch. just go up and say "hi i left my watch here" and hope the real owner hadn't come back for it yet. then i decide to stay stern, i initially made the right decision in not taking the watch, and decide to just remain in favor of some good karma.





when suddenly i hear "hey this is a nice watch!" and i see a different person at the counter... trying on the watch. it fits him nice and he's modeling it like a 5 year old girl who was allowed to raid her mother's fuzzy boa collection. it's sickening. he keeps touching it and looking at it as tho he's preparing to buy it. james and i share a look at eachother and this time instead of the adrenalyn pumping excited feeling of finding a new watch, it's the "holy crapola, that chump ass apple employee is fishing my watch out of the lost and found. james and i are the only witnesses. i could have called him on it but i thought by now i've got so much credit from karma that pulling a fast one now will definately put me in the whole for a year. we walk out and i decide to forget it, but that's too tough. i realize that this was a blogworthy story for my monday. i guess that's the fruits of my good karma...

am I being tested?



I left for lunch... Got some money at the atm and off to jack in the box. As I order I hear an excuse me from an older person. He's filthy.he says "I'm sorry to be bothering you. There's a little black dog over there. She's hungry and she's all I got" he continues this story of how little he has. I was more scared than anything... I just interrupted him, ordered my 2 $.99 chicken sanwiches, and drove thru. His charachter lingered in my mind while I pulled out 2 fresh $20.00 bills and set my new (this is how I'm posting my blog right now) internet surfing phone. Then glance at my ipod, realize the car I'm in and I feel guilt. Would my loved ones be happy with how I handled him??



I started to look for him in the parking lot. I became curious of his story... Who was he? What made him so poor? How did he only have $16.00 and what crazy things has he seen? I contemplated buying him food... Sitting down for 30mins and just listen to him talk. Woulda been cool, but as cool as me, in my car, under a tree, writing this blog and posting it? I dunno...

whatup with the 80's



fashion has always been a huge part of american culture. well any culture. what you look like says a lot about you. some people define their lifestyles by how they look, what they wear, how they talk, slang words etc...



seems like lately we've drawn away from that. everyone wears the same styles. clothes and appearance have hit a wall. it seems to me that the fashion of the 80's was a bit more creative. people did things that were different, to be different. nowadays if you're different you're stupid. you're dubbed not so stupid if you wear the cool clothes. but that shirt you bought at target for 7.99 will for sure make you a stupid canadate. imaginery quote:"what a dork, he buys his clothes at target, instad of gucci!!"



let me get this straight:



be different. wear things that to you, are cool/hip/fun/express how you feel, and disregard what people "should" look like if they desire to be hip/cool. OR just listen to the all mighty MTV and wear the clothes that the tools of the industry wear. **who knows if they are paid to wear the clothes they wear or not? i dunno. but somehow it makes me want to look like them since they're on TV** seems to be the general sense of the younger population these days.



so then: you're cool. you're wearing the cool clothes. you're not stupid. you paid 150.00 for your blue jeans and 50.00 for your button up short sleeve shirt. everyone has the same jeans, and the same shirt, same styles, wearing it the same, but you're still cool. cause that nerd over in the corner with the hat that he bought at a thrift store, or the shirt that wasn't from abercrombie is the not hip one.



what am i missing here?



labels. it's all about the labels.



the more expencive and trendy sounding the label is, the cooler. and thus you have more style than the next fellow.



the 80's spawned a fashion nightmare. or did it? maybe since we've grown up brainwashed with the concept that wearing the more expencive labels automatically turns you into a fashionable person (thanks to the great pop stars that we look oh so high up to).

i feel that the 80's was more fashionable since they did what they wanted to and expressed how they felt thru their clothing instead of how much they spend on their clothing.



my mom buys most of my clothes. this isn't why i look like i'm from the 80's. i just have more fashion sense =)

my birthday pics!!

showers





i very rarely take a REAL shower, it's more like sitting in the shower with water rushing over me. hell how active would you feel between 5:45-6:15am?? (my window of showering) i take my toothbrush, brush my teeth. occasionally i'll kneel down or take a seat, just to relax and help wake up a bit. but i do my thinking in the shower.





yes it's the shower where i do my major brain waive activity. most of my important life thoughts spawn from the shower. theorys, philosophical concepts, blogs, jokes, things i "should have said" in different occurences. i'm not discovering the cure to aids, but i am making steps in the right direction...



then there's that shower i take 1-2 times a week. the real shower, the one where rubbing a bar of soap on your belly just isn't going to make clean. the one where i use my exfoliating towel-thingy that leaves my skin red but feeling smooth as a baby's buttox. i can feel that my skin is so much smoother and softer once i use the exfoliating thingy. it's great.



during the weekends it's different. i sometimes don't shower at all. i smell bad, i feel gross. but it's ok. i don't mind. as long as my hands are clean. i like clean hands.



i feel that someday i will change my style... become a regular exfoliator, or a regular shower-er at that. but not till i have to. i obviously haven't showered much lately since i have nothing of any intrest to say here. that should be my guage.

mid life crisis



what's the average life expectancy of a human being? what's the average age of someone going thru their mid-life crisis? if i have a mid life crisis at 50, does that mean i'm most likely going to live till 100? i have heard that 75-79 is the avg life expectancy for a human being. i'm usually below average (grades, salary, bank accnt, number of friends, number of girls i've gotten lucky with) so that means i'll prolly kick the bucket a bit before 75. probably 60!!!! shit! i'm going to die at 60! i won't even be able to retire, and that's so what i'm looking forward to! being old, having some cash, doing nothing all day, hopefully having a chick... man that'd be great, and now i don't think i'm going to get it



worse yet, it looks like my mid life crisis will be at 30!! well i'm 5 years left till that day, i better start saving up for a convertible. probably a red one. and fast. real fast. oh but i was planning on getting married around then. yea 30-32 get married. (sure i gotta start getting girls to date me a bit more serious, but i got time for that... )



wait. it just dawned on me.



here i was thinking that i had no time, that since i'm below average, i'd be dying at a below average age. but i just remembered. and it took me a bit to remember this. but i'm a procrastinator (i even procrastinated on remembering i was one) and that means i'll procrastinate dying! i was born late, my brother says i'll show up late to my own funeral. i think i was 2 weeks late in being born. not sure gotta ask my mom. maybe i was 2 days. or 2 somethings... i wasn't paying attention then. i was busy you know. procrastinating.



so i guess i'll procrastinate my life. i'll have my mid life crisis at 50, which will guarantee me turn 100 since well... the middle of my life i had a crisis. and THAT'S where the convertible comes in... red, and fast!

pathetic?



i, like every internet junky, get bored with the same old things on the internet. sure the world is at my fingertips, but sometimes my fingers aren't the problem. it's my mind. where to go? there's nothing online! what do i do?

in these instances i usually go to craigslist and read what's for sale, what's being given out for free, how much rent costs in certian areas, etc... but the personals. oh my gosh what a gas.



the personals are more entertaining than all the previously noted categories. for example. in the "women seeking men" category just for today, monday april 19th, there were 140some odd posts. one hundred and forty!! there's so many lonely people out there! and these are women!!! "men seeking women" had 600+ entries for today. just today.



here's an intresting one the title is Girl Next Door Seeks Sugar Daddy and more - 20

This girl comes complete with laptap computer, modest income, and an excellent report card. All she needs is a nice place to live with a sweet gentleman. I can organize your house, do some cleaning and cooking, any projects you may have, and perhaps offer some other benefits. But first we need to talk about what we both want to see if we can meet each other's needs. I'm fresh-faced and cherubic with long brown hair, green eyes, and an hourglass figure. I'm also intelligent, creative and respectful and expect you to be the same. If you live alone and want your house to be more like a home, let's talk.



i love it. who the heck would respond to this?! it's mind boggling.



then another one titled beer, sports, sex - 25

which turned out to be a guy, coaching all the other guys who were browsing for females in need of some me. he had 11 points to his list of what to/not do in order to court the right woman for you off of craigslist. i liked point number 4 the best

4) Just because you've been to Reno does not mean you're well traveled.

this guy is pissed off yet he's willing to help. i don't know whether he deserves praise or to be thrown into a the kookoo's nest.





then there's this section "missed encounters" this makes me sad. i read this and realize that there's so many what could have been scenarios posted here everyday. how sad. it's like the part in the movie where you know both sides of the story and it almost comes together so well but they don't want you to have that satisfaction. and here we go...



Nathan (from the Clay Theatre), we met at Place Pigalle on Sat. - w4m - 28

I told you about the article in the Guardian that irked me.

I gave you fritz (but no ailoi -- 'tis bikini season, right?).



You bought me a drink.

You moved to the couch next to me.

You described Mr. Show.



I left to meet a friend.

I paused outside the door after leaving, hoping you'd come out and ask me for my number.



You made me smile.



This is a long shot, but perhaps you'll see this? If so, I'd love to meet again.



Angela



why did she leave to meet a friend? she regretted it so much that she had to go up to craigslist and post this. wow. jaw dropping. if i knew i made a girl do that i'd be in awe. but who knows, i'd have to go through hundreds of posts a day every day after i went anywhere and met anyone i don' t normally see.

personal ads aren't new. they're old. they're full of acronyms and horny/lonely/sad/disturbed people. and if i find myself posting something similar when i'm 49, i won't be surprised.