monkey nonsense

i work in the city. i live in the suburbs. according to the wmata website, my metro ride should only take 24 minutes… on a daily basis, it’s usually a bit more… maybe 30 minutes? just because when there’s a lot of people, it takes longer for them to all get aboard and for the doors to close.

this past friday, i was eager to get home so that i could depart for my weekend trip to pittsburgh. i ended up skipping out on my big boss’ 50th bday celebration to get onto the metro before 5:30 with hopes of being home close to 6 and hitting the road before 7. i get to the station a little after 5:15. the screen tells me a train is to come in 4 minutes… not too bad. i’ve waited much longer for trains during rush hour. so i wait.

the train arrives and to my surprise, it is a 8-car train! 8 cars! sweeeeet, looks like this commute is going to be awesome! typical metro trains only have 6 cars. there are even some 4 car trains which are absolutely ridiculous to have during rush hour, but metro still tries some times. i get onto the first car of the train and find that it is comfortably empty… i still don’t get a seat, but at least no one is violating my personal space.

so we’re chugging along, everything going smooth. when, at the 2nd stop after i get on, we stop at the platform for an obscenely long time. i’m not sure what is going on since it appears everyone on the platform has boarded and we’re just waiting for the door to close. soon, the operator gets on the intercom and announces asks that anyone whose door will not open to move to another door. deh?? doors not opening?? but metro opens doors ™! how can this be? she announces a few more times, but i guess the malfunctioning doors might completely close off one train, thereby preventing passengers from moving to another open door… so she comes out of her “cockpit” to go open the doors for them.

Metro Alerts sends this message:
(ID 35433) Minor delay between Rosslyn and Ballston towards Vienna/Fairfax-GMU..

15 minutes later, we depart the station and are again on our way. at this point, i’m still hoping to leave before 7 because i’ve “only” been delayed 15 minutes… we make one more prolonged stop a few stations down… apparently the operator, in rescuing the passengers in the malfunctioning car, asked anyone getting off before the end of the line to move off the malfunctioning car so that she wouldn’t have to repeated stop at each station to let them off. some people apparently didn’t hear… so she gets off to open the door for them again really quickly.

now, only 2-3 more stops before my stop and above ground now… we come to a stop. everyone groans. the operator announces that a switch seems to be improperly set so she’s going to hop off the train for 2-3 minutes to switch it before we’re on our way again. my question is… it is now nearly 6pm. rush hour has been going on for at least 2 hours now… and we’re the first train to run across this switch malfunction?! or did someone just switch it to the wrong setting just as we were approaching?!

but of course, the “2-3″ minutes becomes quite longer as the switch proves to be uncooperative and she needs to call for maintenance people to take a look. we sit and wait. at this point in time, i guess they told the trains behind us that we’re stuck and so they switch to the other, wrong side of the tracks to pass us. a train passes us on the left. i get more frustrated. i’m within sight of the station… why can’t i just get off and walk and wait for the next passing train to pick me up?!

Metro Alerts sends this message:
(ID 35434) Minor delay at East Falls Church in both directions. (Switch malfunction-trains are sharing the same track between East Falls Church and Ballston-MU.).

we wait around for longer. the operator announces that she’s going to go back to the station before and switch to the other side of the tracks so that we can progress. she then comes out of her “cockpit” and starts to make her way to the end of the train so that she can begin to drive it in the other direction. more minutes pass.

Metro Alerts now sends this message:
(ID 35434) Major delay at East Falls Church in both directions. (Switch malfunction-trains are sharing the same track between East Falls Church and Ballston-MU.).

from the train’s other end’s cockpit, she now announces that she doesn’t have permission to take the train back to the station before. and that she is awaiting a supervisor to come look at the situation.

another train passes us on the left side.

the train operator reappears at my end of the train. i guess turning around and going to the station before isn’t going to happen. we see through the window that workers are working on our switch… but ever so slowly.

another train passes us on the left side… that makes 3 trains!

FORTY FIVE minutes later, the switch is finally operational and we’re FINALLY moving.

total time lost on the metro: 1 hour and 35 minutes. i got home at 7pm. A HOUR of my life… GONE!

4.22.07 edit: ok, scratch that. the clara-ricardo chuck technique is too difficult to master. i went bowling again today. for the first game and a half, i used the clara-ricardo technique. the first game was ok… i got a few strikes, but overall it was less than my average. then, for the second game, i attempted to use both the clara-ricardo technique along with normal bowling… only to gutter nearly every ball i tried to toss normally AND some of the clara-ricardo balls… it went from just below my average to really quite sucky (75)… and that was only after switching back to my normal method. i was at like 40 on the 6th or 7th frame! finally, on the third game, i got used to my normal method again… so yup, no more experimenting with the clara-ricardo technique.

last night, i went bowling.

the night started out well, i got above my average (90ish). then it started getting worse.. perhaps my arm was getting tired… after 4 games, i think my average for the night was right were my average is. i was sad because the last few times i’d gone bowling, i think my average was heading up. i was hoping to get a score higher than 130 to complete #24 of my list of 101 things to do. my previous high was 126? 127 maybe?

everyone was getting ready to leave so we were just goofing off… we all decided to try bowling clara style. this basically means using both hands and tossing the ball on the right side of your body (not granny style) down the lane. i gave it a try and hit the gutter. then, on the second ball, i decided to combine clara’s style with ricardo’s style (running down the lane like a madman). i knocked the remaining 10 pins down. hrmm….

here’s the results of a full game using the clara-ricardo bowling technique:

i think i will try to bowl this way from now on… thanks clara for the wonderful technique!

anyone ever hear of such a thing?

for example….

say you join a company, oh say… march 27 of a year. the company does an annual performance review and salary process starting at the beginning of the year… you’re evaluated on your contribution to the company from january to december of the previous year. the raise goes into effect every april.

so… i guess it makes sense to prorate the raise since if you started march 27th; you haven’t been around for the full year. but by the time the raise goes into effect, you pretty much have… and the raise is in effect for a FULL year… so in essence, you are being prorated the raise amount, but it is being applied for a year. and it sucks, say you got a 8% raise, but you’re prorated 75% or something, that means your 8% raise is now only 6%. now… imagine what happens if you didn’t even get a 8% raise. what if you got the rate of inflation? then it’s prorated and you got less than the rate of inflation!!

anyone ever hear of this? is this pretty standard? the only other company i’ve ever worked out gave annual reviews and raises on your annivesary date so there was no need to prorate.

From a washingtonpost.com article…

The Brangelina of Wilson Bridge’s Bald Eagle Set
Widower George Nests With Martha’s Rival
By Daniela Deane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 6, 2007; B01

Martha is scarcely cold in the grave, and George has already shacked up with another bald eagle. Worse: It’s the nestwrecker who tried to peck to death Martha, George’s longtime mate and the mother of his 16 eaglets.

Even the brawny bunch of construction workers on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge project near the eagles’ nest are aghast. They call the younger bird in George’s life “Camilla,” “Angelina” and “Charlotte the Harlot.”

“George has taken a second wife,” said John Undeland, spokesman for the bridge project. “He’s moving on with his life.”

Last April, George and Martha, as nicknamed by the bridge workers, made national headlines when Martha was attacked by — oh, let’s just call her Angelina — a rival for George’s attentions.

Martha, who had lived with George on Rosalie Island on the Maryland side of the bridge since the 1990s, was seriously injured in Angelina’s bloody midair attack and was taken to a bird rescue center in Delaware, where she recovered in a few weeks. Bridge workers cheered when she made her way back to her George soon after she was released into the wild in Delaware.

But tragedy struck again in September, when Martha flew into a tree or a power line and dislocated an elbow in her right wing. She was euthanized, and veterinarians said then she was at least 13 years old. A bald eagle’s normal life span is about 20 years.

Throughout the ordeal, Angelina — a far younger eagle than Martha who is described as “in her prime” (aren’t they always?) — never really went away. And now, she has just plain moved into Martha’s old home.

“Since January, they’ve gotten closer and closer, first hanging out on the same branch, one in the nest, the other right beside it, then in the same nest,” said Michael S. Baker, environmental manager for the bridge project.

The only thing the two new lovebirds don’t seem to have done yet, Baker said, is produce some eaglets.

“They were spending so much time together that we were somewhat hopeful they would do their thing and lay some eggs,” Baker said. “But they’re just not there yet.”

Baker said they’re sure because if there were eggs, one of the eagles would always be protecting the nest.

Baker offered several possible reasons why the eagles are “still only courting.”

“George lost his longtime mate, and the two of them have only been together a couple of months,” he said. “It’s only been a few months since all the craziness between the females. Even for a wild animal, that’s a lot.”

Baker also said that although George and Martha were acclimated to the heavily traveled bridge, which carries about 200,000 vehicles a day, Angelina might not be “comfortable with all that urban activity.” He said workers have also seen the eagles on nearby farm property, one of them carrying a stick, prompting scientists to speculate they might be building another nest elsewhere. Namibia, perhaps?

George also might be getting a bit long in the tooth for eaglets, Baker said. “George and Martha were on the far edge of sexual viability as it was,” he said. “George may have a few good years left in him, but he may not. Maybe we should get him Viagra.”

Tugboat captain Paul Lingle, who works on the bridge project, said that when Angelina attacked Martha, “she wasn’t in our good graces.”

But, he said, the workers will probably, eventually, come around to the new gal in town.

“I guess she’s good for George,” he said. “So, yeah, I think we will warm up to her.”

i remember when i was a kid, our family would always participate in the annual “twin oaks” festival. i’m not sure what it was exactly we were celebrating, but it was sort of like a cultural fair that a lot of the chinese schools participated in. i just remember having to create a game for the little kiddies (remember toss the ball through the fruit game?! how is that really teaching chinese culture?…) oh oh! and the year that i, for the ONLY time in my life, beat my sister at a drawing contest. i drew pigs…. she drew a landscape of the twin oaks estate. mine (i was probably 8.) looked like a 5 year old drew it. hers (she was probably age 11) looked like an adult drew it. after entering our drawings in the contest, we had to draw a piece of paper. mine was randomly marked… so i won!! anyways….

they always gave one “goodie bag” per person… and inside the goodie bag would be a drink, a cheap plastic toy, a fruit, and a bag of combos! i remember this was the highlight every year. me and my sister would get all excited about the combos! whether it was because she couldn’t find them or she just didn’t think to buy them, my mom never bought combos. she bought all sorts of snacks when i was a kid, but never combos! so to get that bag of combos from twin oaks was great! it was like a treat for the year.

after my cousin hsi-yun’s wedding this year, i ended up going to valhalla to spend the night with my sister. in the morning, we were in a rush to go see her friend run a marathon so we didn’t have time to eat breakfast (not that i’m a big fan of breakfast food). as we were leaving, my sister asked me if i wanted any breakfast combo. i was surprised… i thought we were in a rush and here she was offering to make me a breakfast combo, like a full-service diner or IHOP! eggs and sausage? bacon and sausage? turns out she was just offering me some combos! she seemed to have started a habit of eating those tasty snacks as breakfast!

this morning, my tummy was ‘a rumbling. i woke up late so i was running late and didn’t have time to grab anything on my way in. so i went to get a snack from the vending machine. to my surprise, they had combos! i bought a bag of the cheddar cheese pretzel combos! what a delicious breakfast! great idea, jie!

Bob Barker is retiring this may/june from hosting the price is right.  i remember watching this show with my grandma when i was a kid.  i always associate Bob Barker with the price is right… it’s hard to imagine anyone else hosting the show.  despite happy gilmore portraying him differently, i always imagined Bob Barker to be a nice, grandfatherly man… he always seemed sad when the contestant didn’t win the prize.  and always allowed the contestant to hug him (with or without squealing at the same time ).  i’ll miss Bob.

cnn had an article about who the next host of the show will be.  names being tossed around include George Hamilton, Mario Lopez, Mark Steines, Todd Newton, John O’Hurley, and “Beauty and the Geek” host Mike Richards.  i know i’m greatly biased towards Bob, but i just can’t seem some of these people as host of the show.  Mario Lopez??  heck no!  George Hamilton has the aged look, but he doesn’t come off as grandfatherly as Bob does for me.  i have no idea who Todd Newton is.  For me, John O’Hurley comes off kind of arrogant… maybe because i’m used to his character from seinfeld.  i don’t really think much of the host of “Beauty and the Geek”

i hope they find a good person to replace Bob.  i’m not sure what you look for in a game show host… but he definitely had it.

WARNING: may contain 24 spoilers

i’ve never been a big fan of 24. but i’ll watch it because i watch pretty much everything on tv. it’s usually fairly entertaining. there’s always been a lot of suspension of disbelief… you have to overlook A LOT on that show. but i started getting used to overlooking such things and enjoying the show just for the action and drama (however unbelievable) that it produces.

however, i feel like this season is the worst of the seasons i’ve watched (i think i’ve seen parts of 1,3,4 and 5… though really i only know for sure that i’ve watched all of season 5 since that’s the only one i followed on tv… wait, i don’t think i watched the end of season 5 because tina went back to taiwan… anyways…)

maybe it’s just that i’ve started to notice things that have always been there, but only now annoy me. there’s always been some dumb things about 24 – how there’s always a mole… how they always accuse the wrong person of being the mole… how the minor CTU field people always get killed and jack has to do everything himself… how the “real-time” timing of things just isn’t realistic (driving in LA traffic, no need for sleep/eating/pooping/peeing, instantaneous recovery from wounds, etc.) but i felt like as long as you ignored those plot problems, the overall story was compelling and the characters interesting enough that you could get into it.

now i feel like the show is getting worse. i don’t care to watch; i fall asleep during episodes; i don’t care if so-and-so gets killed by terrorists. the writers drop storylines episodes at a time (where has president logan and mrs. logan gone??  what about jack’s dad!?) the character development has become so predictable and corny… i feel like the writers are forcing these characters on us… that we’re supposed to like this character because they show him doing this or that and we’re supposed to be suspicious of this character because of that or this. they introduced a new character this season, doyle (little ricky schroeder from silver spoons!) and i find him so boring that whenever they try to introduce some of his back story, i just don’t care. in fact, i’m turned off by his character because i feel like they’re trying to make him out to be like jack… there’s only one jack! and it’s not because i feel like doyle is infringing on jack’s character (i don’t care about jack that much…) it’s more i feel like the writers are being lazy by making his character just like another character whom they know everyone likes.

and what’s up with CTU employees developing high school like crushes on coworkers so quickly? so they’ve always had CTU romances… like tony and michelle. but they’re going overboard now… with bill and karen (whom i think are a cute couple but c’mon!! do i really care to hear their lovey-dovey phone conversations?!? i watch 24 for the action!) and now milo and nadia with their on-again-off-again, do-we-acknowledge-don’t-we-acknowledge relationship that developed over like… 2 hours! and the biggest thing with these relationships is because the writers do such a shotty job at developing the characters individually, do we even care about the characters when they start relationships?! i don’t!

the only character that seems to be developed is jack. maybe in seasons past, they had other characters that were equally developed and interesting (i.e. chloe in previous seasons… this season she just doesn’t seem to be interesting). but everything became so jack-centric that they stopped developing the other characters so now the show is almost entirely dependent on jack. if jack’s not in the scene, it seems to drag… characters talking mumbo jumbo, who cares? where’s jack?! there’s no way the show can survive if jack has to do everything (ok, arguably it’s survived 5 seasons with jack doing everything… but at least there were some other people minorly developed). it’s a vicious cycle… by focusing on jack, none of the other characters get developed. because none of the other characters get developed, no one wants to see a scene without jack so the writers will of course write more jack scenes.

the state of tv saddens me. ON a side note: looks like 7th Heaven is FINALLY getting canned! maybe there’s some hope

went to eat this steak place last friday. it’s a small place, seats maybe 30-40 people. it doesn’t take reservations because it’s so popular so u just have to wait. we were supposed to meet at 6, but a few people were able to get outta work early and got there early to get a table. which was a good thing… because they ended up getting a last-minute cancellation table from 6 to 7:30 (yea, i’m not sure how they’d regulate how long u’re at the table) and if we hadn’t been able to get that table, we would’ve had to wait til 8:30.

the steak was deeeeeelicious! i’d been craving steak for quite some time (i seem to crave steak whenever i’m sick and i had been sick the week before). talida got a reaaaaaaally tender filet mignon… it MELTED in the mouth! tina got a new york strip also good. i got the rib eye with horsey sauce. it was pretty good and considering my taste buds still haven’t fully come back from being sick, i think it would’ve been even more awesome. the wangs got the chateaubriand which was a LOT of food and also quite yummy. they also gave you family style sides to share… creamed spinach, regular mashed potatos, and garlic mashed potatos. quite tasty. we got dessert as well… i’m not sure what it was… it was some sort of pie with a citrus-y taste i think and some mousse… yum!

unfortunately, the wangs got sick that same night… not sure if it was the chateaubriand… it’s a pretty reputable steak place. i think i’d risk going back again! but i’m not so sure the wangs would agree…