since today is pretty much the only nice day of the year remaining, i wanted my parents to be able to use their christmas gift! so, instead of my parents (namely my mom) wanting to open presents early this year, i wanted to open them last night. plus, my dad has to work christmas day and we’d be busy today (christmas eve). so we ended up opening last night.

as expected, my parents saw my “subtle” hints of what their gift was. (see previous entry on my experience getting their present in. in the process of getting locked out, i left all my trash, i.e. detailed price tag of the present, strewn all over the house.) so my parents were pretty sure what they were getting. luckily, my neighbor (who had seen me moving it in) was convinced it was a tv. and one of my mom’s coworker (who has some unexplainable confidence in my intelligence and conniving skills) was convinced that i left that price tag to mislead my parents into thinking they were getting a grill when really i got them a flat panel tv.

alas, i was not that smart… or that rich.

merry christmas!!

i used to have potential. in 2nd grade, i got an award for having one of the cleaniest desks in class. (insane, right??) i got an award in high school for spitting on bacteria (back when i thought perhaps bio might be interesting) and, in the most ironic of awards, an award in “computer science” for doing awesome in a computer apps class (how to use MS Word/PowerPoint, how to make a homepage, etc. etc.) but all of that was in school… in the real world, i really haven’t accomplished anything. my biggest recognition in the working world has been (and this is NOT a joke; i wouldn’t even dare joke about this) that i click/type/copy- and-paste very efficiently and accurately, clicking/typing/copying-and-pasting better than anyone else on my team. booyeah! in any case…

i just found out through facebook that a middle school friend of mine passed away recently. she graduated from wellesley in 2004, was a fulbright scholar(!!), taught english in korea, and accomplished so much in 24 years. i lost touch with her around 10th/11th grade (we went to different high schools) and only occassionally heard things about what she was up to through mutual friends. i remember always being impressed with her, even in middle school. she was a cello virtuoso, mastered french (something i never could handle), got straight As aalllllll the time, and could recite (from memory) verses from les mis. to top things off, she was gentle, sweet, kind, and tirelessly patient (how i am annoying example #1983981951: i stole her binder and wrote “Errorfree Jane” on ALLLL her papers)

i get sad thinking about how much she accomplished in so short a time and how much more she could’ve done. i really missed out on an amazing person when i lost touch with her in 10th grade. it makes me feel like such a lazy bum and a waste of potential (granted my potential was never as impressive as hers… cleaniest desk rarely translates to success as much as mastery of a foreign language or musical instrument translate)

perhaps adding to this is finding out that another classmate (this one from elementary school) passed away in iraq this past year. i wasn’t really friends with this classmate and honestly can’t remember him in any classes after elementary school. but i remember him being really, really quiet in class, almost to the point that i was scared to talk to him (i wasn’t exactly the most talkative person in class either. so my social anxiety would freak me out whenever i had to interact with him… what if the two of us just sat there in awkward silence?!?!) but when he actually did speak, what he said was always funny. i didn’t even realize he was in the army, but when i read the washingtonpost article on him, it sounded as if he had really found his place and was doing lots.

i think i always view my current age as a relatively young age and think- it’s ok, i have plenty of time to try to accomplish something. when you’re a kid, the world is your oyster!  one day you think you’re going to be an astronaut… the next day, an italian ice business owner!  but 24 isn’t that young anymore and there are so many people who have accomplished so much in even less time. i hope it’s not already too late (one, particularly my parents and past/current roommates, might argue that “cleaniest desk” boat has already sailed)

so i bought bully the other week… it’s a game where you’re this teenage bully and you go around school picking on people and/or helping people.  i only played a hour last week (’cause i have no memory card yet) but it was lots of fun.  i got into a few fights when other bullies, hid in a trashcan to avoid a teacher, and helped a girl get her chocolate back.  the game got good reviews online which is why i purchased it
i wanted to get bulletproof also.  in that game, you go around as 50 cent and g-unit.  i dunno if you do much besides shoot and get into fights.  but i just wanted to pretend to be g-unit! =P  the game got bad reviews so i didn’t bother buying it.

now… they’re coming out with a rabbi game!

Rabbi the star of new video game

POSTED: 10:50 a.m. EST, December 13, 2006

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) — While Christian games like the newly released “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” gain mainstream attention, Manifesto Games in New York City is billing “The Shivah” as the first to star the leader of a Jewish congregation.

In the murder-mystery game named after the Jewish mourning ritual, protagonist Rabbi Stone is having a crisis of faith and his congregation on New York’s Lower East side is losing members and cash.

When he inherits a small windfall from a controversial congregant, Rabbi Stone must solve the mystery behind the gift and make sure it is not cursed.

Manifesto, which announced the title via e-mail, said “The Shivah” plays on personal computers and is the first commercial game from creator Dave Gilbert.

Representatives from Manifesto, which sells downloadable games, were not immediately available for comment. “The Shivah” sells for $5.

Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

i want to get this game

1. being wrong, knowing what you did wrong, wanting to not do it again, yet still doing it again and disappointing/upsetting others around you. what do u do?

2. not being accepted for who you are. it’s reasonable to expect some criticism about who you are because everyone is different and others may not understand you. and it’s reasonable to expect that you might change according to criticism because no one is perfect and maybe they had a valid point. but it sucks to not be accepted at all.

3. staying late at work waiting for something stupid to come back online (after crashing) so that you can get one piece of data… and being hungry too!

i am currently experiencing #3… makes it feel like the worst feeling ever

i was reading an article about billy graham and his family trying to decide where to be buried once they’ve died. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2006/12/12/AR2006121201338_pf.html) it was an interesting article… i guess the subject is a touchy one and it’s interesting to hear how families are dealing with it. it’s pretty cool that it seems his family has two really nice burial places to pick from, but bahhhh! when i read the description about one of the places:

The tour is geared particularly to children, according to Franklin, starting with the life-size mechanical Holstein named Bessie who greets visitors from her stall just inside the front door.What Bessie will say is yet to be decided, Franklin said, but she might start off with something like, “Hello. I bet you didn’t know milk comes from a cow. Well, let me tell you about that.” She’ll then introduce the main man: “When Billy was young, we cows knew there was something special about him. . . .”

first off… talking cows?! bah! what’s that got to do with billy graham!? second… what kind of start is it when you start talking about milk? and what kind of transition is “well, let me tell you about that” …. and then when billy was young?!

i seem to have impeccable timing when it comes to IMing/checking blogs.

i used to be able to freak out a couple of friends (cindy was a victim multiple times) by IMing them almost immediately after they would sign onto IM. this was not because i was a stalker and would sit by my computer with my IM window open waiting for their screenname to log on, but purely coincidental. my IM window is most nearly always reduced to the system tray and i only periodically maximize it, usually when i’m looking specifically for someone to IM. so each time, i maximized the IM list, i’d see my friend’s IM name online (and not even flashing to denote they just logged on) so i’d click on their name and IM them! it startled my friends because they said they had juuuust signed online.

normally, i check my blogs early in the morning. but because i got in later than usual and had to go through the weekend’s emails, i didn’t hit my blogs until 12:11…. the top of my xanga subscription had julie’s updated blog link. so i clicked on it. and read her post. (quite interesting! go read yourself! that’s shum blog!) and was about to comment when i saw the time that she posted her blog was 12:11… uhh, i don’t want to look like a stalker!!

i’m not a stalker… i just seem to have a lot of luck at catching people at the exact moment they sign online or post blogs.

edit: ohhh, julie cheats! she said she changed the time of the post to be later than when she actually posted!

so i thought i’d get my parents a nice bbq grill for christmas. my dad just recently washed the deck and recoated it with some waterproofing/color (so it’s not gray and ugly anymore) and my mom had complained earlier in the year how whenever my dad invites guests over, it ends up being so much work for her because she has to do all the cooking. she wanted a bbq grill so my dad could do the cooking.

options for buying the grill: order online, pay no taxes, but $100 in shipping? or go to store and pay tax, but no shipping and possibly get free assembly. my sister and i decided to go with a store bought one since we’d be able to get it pre-assembled. (industrial engineer/med student + computer scientist = 3+ hours and a not-so-nicely-assembled grill… why risk it?)

so i found a store that sold the grill we wanted and went to the store to talk to the sales man. apparently because the grills were to be remodeled in 2007 (which the sales man said would be assembled in china and would therefore have suspect quality. i’m not sure why you would tell a clearly asian customer that you don’t trust products made in china… i guess he’s just a straight shooter like that), getting an older model of the grill would be harder since everyone had cleared their inventory in preparation for the remodel. this is also when i saw the size of the grill for the first time (i am not a good estimator of size based on reading dimensions on a webpage) and realized this grill would not fit into my camry. the guy said all he’d need would be a half day to assemble the grill. he said that he’d fit the grill into vans and suvs before.

since my parents would be out of town on their cruise/trip to FL for a couple of more days, i could use this time to swipe their minivan and move the grill. but how do u hide a present in the recipient’s own home?! after calling my sister to brainstorm (under deck so mom and dad don’t see – no, so someone can just steal it from under our deck; in the basement utility closet where no one goes – no, because we’re actually going to be going into that closet to get the christmas decorations next weekend; basement guest room – maybe…), we decided to hide it in the basement bathroom.

after leaving the grill store, i decided to stop by home depot. they were having a sale on grills! after waiting 30 minutes for some help, i found out they were out of model i wanted but they were selling a higher end model on sale! unfortunately, they only had a display grill that seemed to have been through a bit… they sent me off to another local home depot which online systems claimed to have 4 in stock. they also said they’d hold the grill for me there.

i drove 20 minutes to the other local home depot. quickly found a pretty nice looking display grill and went in to talk to customer service. here, at this home depot, they refused to let me buy the grill and hold it for me. grrr… i was still driving around my camry! called my sister aaaaagain, this time asking her whether she thought it’d be worth it to go back to MD to get the minivan. we decided that a nicer grill for a cheaper price was worth it. so i drove like a maniac back to MD. the home depot closes at 7pm and it was already 5pm.

in MD, i switched to my mom’s minivan and went to the local home depot to see if there were any grills there, to save myself a trip to VA. right as i pulled into the parking lot, a man was helping someone else with a grill. YES! this would be the first garden center representative i’d meet today… at all the other home depots, the (somewhat clueless) customer service person spent the whole time waiting for garden center to call them back.

my new best friend at home depot, basdeo, quickly told me there was only one of the grills in stock inside the store and it was unassembled. the earliest it could be assembled would be wednesday. called my sister for the 4th time… and decided to just take it unassembled (the easier to hide it!) and bring it home today so i wouldn’t have to take a day off just to pick up the grill on wednesday.

finally paid for the grill and loaded it in the van. hrm… while loading, it took 3 guys to push it into the back… i asked the home depot people how i was supposed to get it out of the car since it was just me… the smart people at home depot suggested i open the box and take out each part individually until the box was light enough for me to pick up. makes sense…

so i drove home. parked the car in the garage. and began to unload. except that’s when i realized… i could open the box but because of the ceiling of the van, i couldn’t get anything OUT of the box!!! i attempted to get the grill out of the van myself but reached the point where half of the grill was hanging out the back of the van, but i didn’t see how i’d get it to fall out nicely. i got a push cart to put the grill on once it was out of the van, but i realized quickly that the little cart wouldn’t support the grill.

so with the grill half sticking out of the car, i decided to call some friends to see if they could help. called a couple of friends but wasn’t able to reach anyone but angela, who was no where near my house so she couldn’t stop by. over the phone, i estimated the grill to weigh “i dunno… probably more than 50 pounds?”

finally called tina in VA and asked her to come over to my parents’ house (she’d been complaining about how i never invite her over). it’d take her ~30 minutes to get to MD. so i watched TV. then realized there was no way i’d be able to get the grill to the basement to hide, i went looking for wrapping paper to wrap the present in. found 2 brand new rolls and hoped it’d be enough. my neighbor also stopped by to check that it was me home and not some random robber after she saw the lights on in the house and the garage door open with the van trunk open.

when tina finally came, she helped me move the box out of the van, unload the contents of the box, and move it into my parents’ dining room. after reloading the contents of the box and wrapping the present (used up one of the rolls entirely… haha, it was my mom’s brand new wrapping paper!), we got ready to go. that’s when i locked myself out of my parents’ house!! so when my neighbor stopped by, she reminded me to turn off all the extra lights and make sure all the doors were locked. the door leading from the garage to the house can be locked without a key from the inside so it’s kind of dangerous, you can easily lock yourself out if you don’t carry the key with you…

as we were leaving, i realized the garage light was still on. when i went to go turn off the light (switch is in the house, in the laundry room), the door was locked! BAAAH!! and our garage door has windows in it that allow people to see into the garage if the light is on. so they’d see that one of the cars was missing!! not wanting to have the light on the whooole time, i went to my neighbor’s house to ask for the front door key. this is when i hurt my ankle.

so i had to run across one neighbor’s front yard to get to the neighbor who was watching my parents’ house. this neighbor had recently gotten their driveway repaved (my parents did as well) so the new pavement was higher than the grassline. i stepped right between the grass and the new, raised pavement. ouch!!!! and it turns out that my neighbor wasn’t even home!! so tina had to write a note for me in chinese (’cause i didn’t want to leave it in english!) to ask my neighbor to turn off the lights for me. we left my parents’ house at 9pm, with the garage light still on.

so… in the end, i spent 7 hours, went to 1 grill store and 3 home depots in 2 states, made tina drive out to MD to help me move 1 164 pound grill (that’s more than 50 pounds…ok, so i grossly underestimated its weight!), gave tina a tour of my parents’ house and had her make fun of everything (grr!), hurt my ankle, and left my parents’ house to be targeted for burglary… but at least i finished my christmas shopping.

thanks for helping me tina! i dunno what i would’ve done had i not gotten help moving the grill! i should’ve just ordered it online for delivery… it’s not worth the effort to save $100!

HAHAHHAHAHAHA, this is so sad!!
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — It is considered polite to light a match after passing gas. Not while on a plane.

An American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing Monday morning after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of flatulence, authorities said.

The Dallas-bound flight was diverted to Nashville after several passengers reported smelling burning sulfur from the matches, said Lynne Lowrance, spokeswoman for the Nashville International Airport Authority. All 99 passengers and five crew members were taken off and screened while the plane was searched and luggage was screened.

The FBI questioned a passenger who admitted she struck the matches in an attempt to conceal a “body odor,” Lowrance said. She had an unspecified medical condition, authorities said.

“It’s humorous in a way but you feel sorry for the individual, as well,” she said. “It’s unusual that someone would go to those measures to cover it up.”

The flight took off again, but the woman was not allowed back on the plane. The woman, who was not identified, was not charged in the incident.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

from http://www.cnn.com/2006/TRAVEL/12/06/plane.passing.gas.ap/index.html

oh those french canadians!

In French-Speaking Canada, the Sacred Is Also Profane
Quebecers Turn to Church Terms, Rather Than the Sexual or Scatological, to Vent Their Anger
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 5, 2006; A21

MONTREAL — “Oh, tabernacle!” The man swore in French as a car splashed through a puddle, sending water onto his pants. He could never be quoted in the papers here. It is too profane.

So are other angry oaths that sound innocuous in English: chalice, host, baptism. In French-speaking Quebec, swearing sounds like an inventory being taken at a church.

English-speaking Canadians use profanities that would be well understood in the United States, many of them scatological or sexual terms. But the Quebecois prefer to turn to religion when they are mad. They adopt commonplace Catholic terms — and often creative permutations of them — for swearing.

In doing so, their oaths speak volumes about the history of this French province.

“When you get mad, you look for words that attack what represses you,” said Louise Lamarre, a Montreal cinematographer who must tread lightly around the language, depending on whether her films are in French or English. “In America, you are so Puritan that the swearing is mostly about sex. Here, since we were repressed so long by the church, people use religious terms.”

And the words that are shocking in English — including the slang for intercourse — are so mild in Quebecois French they appear routinely in the media. But not church terms.

“You swear about things that are taboo,” said André Lapierre, a professor of linguistics at the University of Ottawa. In the United States, “it is not appropriate to talk about sex or scatological subjects, so that is what you use in your curse words. The f-word is a perfect example.

“In Canadian French, you have none of the sexual aspects. So what do you replace it with? You replace it with religion. If you are going to use a taboo word, it would be anything related to the cult, to Christ, the Communion wafer, Jesus Christ, vestments, and elements of the altar like tabernacle. There’s quite a few of them.”

Visitors from France are dumbfounded at that use of French, said Lamarre. “But that’s because they got away from domination of the church a long time ago. They cut off the head of the king really early. We didn’t do that.”

The Catholic Church was overwhelmingly dominant in Quebec from early in the province’s history — England’s King George III gave the French Catholic clergy enormous power in 1774, in part to counter the growing American insurgency to the south. In the “Quiet Revolution” of the 1960s, Quebecers rebelled. They “just stopped going to church one Sunday,” as Lamarre put it.

The swearwords have persisted even though church attendance has plummeted in the past 40 years. Because of that drop, “when the young kids on the street are swearing, they don’t even know what they are swearing about,” mused Monsignor Francis Coyle, pastor of St. Patrick’s Basilica in Montreal. “They’re baptized in church, and that’s about it.”

Last spring, the Montreal Archdiocese commissioned an advertising campaign that erected large billboards in the city intended to shock and educate. Each billboard featured a word like “tabernacle” or “chalice” — startling swearwords on the street — and offered the correct dictionary definition for the religious term. Such as: “Tabernacle — small cupboard locked by key in the middle of the altar” containing the sacred goblet.

“The point was to try to get people not to use the terms too glibly,” Coyle said.

The campaign ended, but Lapierre said Quebecers continue to use the words in highly inventive ways — as expletives, interjections, verbs, adverbs and nouns. One could say, for example, “You Christ that guy,” to mean throwing a person violently. “I don’t know any other language that does that so well,” he said.

The French here also modify the oaths into non-words, depending on the level of politeness desired. The word “bapteme” — baptism — is used as a strong oath, but a modification, “bateche,” is milder. The sacramental wafer, a “host” in English and “hostie” in French, can be watered down to just the sound “sst” in polite company. “Tabernacle” can become just “tabar” to avoid too much offense.

The oaths are so ingrained that one cannot converse fluently without them, said Lapierre. “I teach them in my class.”

i don’t like remixes… nine times out of ten, i like the original more than the remix. the reason i bring this up is because of a certain song being played often on the radio… gwen stefani’s wind it up.

what the heck. why does she randomly break into the lonely goatherd from sound of music… why gwen, why!?! i laughed when you started singing like a cheerleader (B-A-N-A-N-A-S! bananas!) even though i didn’t like the song. but now yodeling?! i wonder if this is going to be a growing trend… no longer just remixing other pop/rock tunes, but now show tunes and classical music pieces?

other bad remixes -

My Country ‘Tis of Thee remix of God Save the Queen – stealing someone else’s national anthem, changing the words and calling it your own! terrible! (i guess this is not a true remix since the lyrics have changed, but still)
along the same lines of that… the State of Maryland’s remix of O Tannenbaum
Veronica Mars’ remix of We Used to be Friends

good remixes -

pearl jam’s remix of last kiss, though the original is quite good too.
hrm.. i’m really grasping for good remixes… anyone have any good/bad remixes they particularly love/hate?