Last time I updated for real was an unbelievably long time ago. Much to say, most of which will no doubt be skimmed since the LJ mentality is to write little and often, and long entries are easily overwhelming. See if you can stay with me on this one.
Umesh and I are waking up in about 7 hours to drive down to San Diego to meet my parents and sisters for a week of hanging out down there. Of course, I haven’t packed and my room is a mess. Yay!
Spent this entire month slaving away on two final projects, including about 100 hours in the last week. Man, that sucked. Also explains why I wrote so many emails today (first free day in a loooong time).
Love Actually: some cheesy parts — Claudia Schiffer, the lame girl that Liam Neeson’s awesome kid liked, etc… but more terrific stories lines (Keira Knightley et al., Colin Firth, Laura Linney). Definitely good.
Return of the King: Totally awesome. Minor quibbles (but if you grew up reading the books, you’re going to have minor quibbles), but overall an outstanding movie. Kickass!
Saw RotK at the Sony Metreon theaters in SF. The individual theaters are huge, and you walk in from a tunnel at the bottom. It’s like at an NFL game: you come out of the tunnel into a huge arena filled with people (except they aren’t cheering insanely for you). I mentioned to Joel at the time that everyone in the world should get that experience once: walking into a huge stadium and having everyone there just go nuts for you (perhaps even chanting your name!). Imagine what it would feel like. I think that would solve a lot of esteem problems.
American Analog Set at Bimbo’s: show was way too short.
Brief interlude. True story.
“a) he was riding his bike to soda (he lives near the ashby bart) when, while biking across a crosswalk, a police car at the intersection happens to make a right turn on red and smashes into his bike, sending him flying and totaling his bike (value $400). the officer stops just long enough to make sure he’s okay before speeding off… so ben’s out a bike. and it was totally the police officer’s fault.
b) he’s working on the 262 project so he HAS to go to Soda somehow… so he starts driving his car there. he parks his car on cedar and euclid. he leaves soda late that night and goes back to his car, to find the two front windows smashed. what’s missing? well, he had this huge 50-lb jump-starter thing that he bought for $50 that’s worth about $15. it was stolen. bizarre.
c) so now he’s driving around without any windows. so when he parks his car anywhere and comes back, he finds random shit rearranged. like, he has a little tray for his change. he comes back once, all the change is gone except for the pennies. later he comes back again, and the pennies are gone. one time he finds his registration pulled out and left on the passenger seat.. of course it was raining that day so it got soaked.
d) the funny thing about the registration, though, is that it expired last year and he’s been too lazy to get it renewed (although he does have insurance). but since his windows are broken the car looks more suspicious to police officers, who apparently are thus more inclined to check his license plate. so he’s now gotten several tickets for having an expired registration.”
Talk about unlucky.
Intramural soccer: our team had a good run. Made it to the quarterfinals (by beating a team 1-0 that had won its previous game 15-0 [!!!]), but I had to fly home for Thanksgiving and miss the QF game, which we lost. Doh. There’s always the spring…
Turning 24: feels old. But Umesh and Jenny threw a wonderful surprise birthday party for me. Thanks to to them, everyone who came, and everyone who thought of me! I was touched.
Interlude two.
How many of your memories are real? Think about your earliest memories. How many are real, genuine memories, and how many have been affected by what your parents have told you, or old pictures that you’ve seen? Of course, this is a hard question to answer, because all memories seem real. But it’s pretty jarring to “remember” something only to have a fundamental property of it discounted by your parents (which would happen if your brain had partially fabricated it based on external stimuli). This has happened to most everyone I’ve asked. If it hasn’t happened to you, I’d suggest talking to your parents about what you remember (and of course be aware that if you parrot back to them something they’ve told you before [i.e. “you used to always do X when you were young” or “remember when you did Y?”], they’re going to agree with you). Eyewitnesses are terribly unreliable; memories are convincing, true or not. Brains are strange things.
(In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that many people reading this will think “oh yeah, I can remember when I was two; this is crap”, and my guess is that most of those people, while convinced they are right, are wrong.)
I went home for a week during Thanksgiving and it was awesome. Watched a ton of movies with my family (including the subpar Mystic River. Are we the only ones who didn’t like it?). The weekend before Thanksgiving a bunch of friends came from all over (DC, NY, Boston) to stay at my house: Wing, William, Grant, Brian, James, Jeff. We played tons of Mario Kart, and some wonderfully warm-weather football (65 degrees!). Went to Damon’s and kicked some ass in trivia (top 20 in the country twice out of over 9000). Best I’ve ever done, I think. Also got to see more of my best friends from high school later in the week: Matt, Dan, Bosse, and Will. Good times.
See you next year!
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