monkey nonsense

a bunch of random things to blog about…

1. parents love wii. so last weekend when i was home, i told my parents to reserve at least 2 hours on mother’s day because we were going to do something! my family rarely does anything besides eat meals together. after each meal, my mom will go into the basement to watch her chinese soaps. my dad will go to the family room to read his chinese newspaper and/or watch tv. so i brought the wii home so that we’d do something together. big hits with the parents - bowling (wii sports), tanks (wii play), shooting (wii play). my dad really liked billiards (wii play). my mom was really getting into bowling… i wonder if her arm is sore today. she was throwing REALLY hard. haha, parents didn’t really like boxing… but it was sure funny watching them play! i ended up leaving the wii at their place so they could play with it during the week.

2. my monkey is out of control… www.xanga.com/curious__george. i fear his ego will be more out of control after spending a few months with chubacca.

3. so you know those automated voicemails you get… like from your car dealership saying your car needs its XX,XXX mile maintenance or from the library saying that your reservation for “Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose” by Paris Hilton is ready at the library for pick up… how do those work? i was thinking about it on one of my drives home… it somehow knows when to start to play the message - it knows to start talking immediately if you pick up the call, but whenever you miss the call, it knows to let your voicemail message finish speaking before playing the message… how does it recognize that? especially since people can be quite deceptive with their voicemail messages, i.e. recording themselves as if they were actually picking up the phone and leading you on for a few minutes of conversation before suddenly saying “oh actually… i’m not available right now, please leave a message!” other people could probably pick up the phone somewhat mechanically, thereby tricking that phone system into thinking it was the voicemail picking up! is there something in our voices that give away we’re human, even if we try to mimic voicemail machines? but then, for those that try to mimic themselves as their voicemail message, wouldn’t that confuse the calling machine? i was thinking is there some secret machine code (like a “dog whistle” that only voicemail machines can hear from each other) that tells the calling machine to wait because its going through its voicemail message?? i dunno! that’s the only thing i could think of! how does it work?!

4. i got new socks at dick’s this weekend. yay! now i can throw away my old socks and people won’t make fun of my socks. but one question, does anyone’s socks ever fall off due to floppiness? my socks aren’t excessively large or anything, but they seem to come off rather easily. i’ve had them fall off due to playing with one of those exercise balls and just from sliding around too much on hardwood floor with them. also, they seem to twist around a lot, such that the little bend (where your ankle is) gets turned around and sits on the top of my foot.

5. my coworker got engaged. her boyfriend also works at the same company. they just walked out of here to get the ring adjusted. hehe, they’re both glowing! such a cute couple.

6. how much do you expect a person to change? there’s a delicate balance between helping someone improve themselves vs. accepting them as they are. some things about them just won’t ever change. i bring this up because a friend recently pointed out something about me (using the nerdy term “black box” to describe me)… that i want to say is my personality. whether or not it is a flaw or not, i don’t know that i can change myself and actually, i don’t know whether i want to change. i can’t tell whether i’m being stubborn, defensive, and unwilling to change for the better or whether it’s reasonable to not want to change. when i was talking to my friend, i did thank her for pointing out what was upsetting her since there’s no way i would be able to know what was bugging her unless she told me, but after ending the conversation, i felt as if there wasn’t anything i could do. and then i started to feel kind of crappy… like i wasn’t being accepted for who i was. how do you distinguish between the two?