Just as I thought I was adjusted to PDT again I was proven wrong last night. I went to sleep at 11pm and woke up...at midnight. And it wasn't just one of those, "Gee, I woke up so I should go back to sleep" type of waking up but more of a "Crap, I woke up so I should go back to sleep" type. (That means that I couldn't go back to sleep.) So I got up after an hour of trying to fool myself into thinking that I can sleep again and built my Blitz Gundam. It's pretty cool. Unlike my Strike Freedom, the feet are segmented so I could pose it as though it were running. What's the deal with the tiny-ass decals on them 1/144 models? They're impossible to put on. Once I'm done with my Aegis Gundam, I'll get 1/60 or 1/100 models. For now, Strike Freedom is busy chopping of Blitz's grabby thing while defending himself from Blitz's missle things and trying to stay upright because it's very backheavy. I finished Blitz at about 5:30am and went to sleep. I "woke up" at 8:30am and woke up at 9:15am.

I watched Prison Break Monday night. It seems pretty interesting. Some back story would have been nice before I started watching last night's episode but oh well. I read the synposis for the earlier episodes on tv.com. For now, I want to keep watching. I don't know why though. I think I just want to know what happens next. That one episode I saw didn't really contain anything that'll keep me thinking about it for days except for the main dude's cell mate's reluctance to mess with the picture of the devil. Maybe a few more episodes and I'll get into it more.

Aside from being really tired, I also feel kind of empty. Battlestar Galactica won't be on again until January. Waaa. But that last episode was crazy. Imagine floating around space thinking that you're only survivors of the human race left and out of the blue you encounter another ship full of humans. Joy right? Right. And it turns out that the ship is full of the biggest jerkwads humanity has to offer. Great. Oh, and on top of that, they're superior jerkwads that you need to take orders from. That's where the show is at right now. The situation that just seemed like it was almost under control finds itself face first in a pile of galactic poop. This all comes at a time when Commander Adama appears to have gone soft. After getting shot (and arresting the president), he's been busy apologizing, making amends, being friendly with punkass reporters and following orders from superior jerkwad Admiral Cain. (Hmm, Cain...like Abel's brother. This could become interesting.) At the end of this episode, he assures everyone that he's no softie and all will fear the wrath of Apollo's father. Whew. Adama really is the guy who holds the fleet (and the show) together. What I want to know is why they insist on leaving things like this until January? Argh! I can't wait that long!

I hear some of the oddest lyrics while listening to the Euro Dance channel on Digitally Imported. The latest little oddity is called Together Forever and it's about electronic eggs. Or maybe it's just a metaphoric vehicle to convey an intense longing for an omlet. That song had me sitting at my desk unable to close my mouth for a good five minutes. I could have checked at least 20 people's websites in that time! (Not because I don't read them, but because I check the websites that aren't updated...ever.) Read the lyrics, you'll understand. Or maybe you won't. Because I sure didn't.

Must...stay...awake...

I'm back too. I came back last night. The flight was long. I don't know why I kept waking up at 3am or 4am every day while I was in Taiwan. Everyone tells me to just go back to sleep but it's not that easy. Somehow, I can't sleep once I've woken up. And if I do fall back asleep, I'll end up drowsy for the rest of the day. Ack.

The trip was pretty cool. I visited the Taipei Zoo (and took pictures). The zoo was pretty neat. It's in the southern part of Taipei which is more mountainous and far away from all that city life. They have a neat noctournal animal exhibit with owls, bobcats, rodents, and really weird fish in it. Of course, there were camels.

There was a penguin house too but I didn't get any pictures of that. There were billions of little kids running around and screaming in there. Ack. We went in the middle of the day so a lot of the anmials were just sitting around in the shade.

We also went to Taipei 101. It's currently the tallest building in the world. That's an honor it'll probably hold that distinction for another year or so before another huge-ass tower is erected. They recently opened up the 89th floor observation deck for a great view of Taipei. I don't have pictures because my camera was full of zoo pictures.

My sister and I spent the rest of the time with family. Oh, that's a lie. We spent the rest of the time getting lost. If we didn't have a map (which had a picture of an Asian girl known as "Popsinger Vivian" wearing a t-shirt that read "Dirty White Slut" on it) we never would have made it back home. I found some stuff like this while getting lost:

And I drank it. There's kind of a fake blueberry flavor to it. And there's no Pepsi taste. None at all. It was tasty though. I can't remember if they sell that stuff here or not. Just that Crystal Pepsi stuff, which I actually really liked.

If they did sell it over here, we might see it at teh market over in Mountain View. That's right, teh market:

(I aplogize for teh blurry picture. I took teh photo as I was driving past it just before it got too dark to take a picture.) Teh Market is on the north side of El Camino somewhere west of Castro. Between Rengstorff and Shoreline I believe. I didn't go into Teh Market. Next time I'm in teh area, I'll be sure to find teh parking lot and buy teh food. It's teh bomb d00d!

Well that's it. No travel plans any time in the future. I plan to stay home for a while. Ahh, home.

Fact one: I'm currently in Taiwan.

Fact two: It's hot in Taiwan, but it's not Austin Hot(tm).

Probable fact one: Since it's mid-September Austin probably isn't Austin Hot(tm) either.

Fact three: I've been watching sumo wrestling.

Corollary: Sumo wrestling is awesome.

Fact four: Gundam models aren't cheaper here.

Fact five: I'm tired.

Lie one: That "Since You've Been Gone" song by Kelly Clarkson isn't stuck in my head. It isn't damnit!

No, not UFC does not stand of Ultimate Fighting Challenge in these parts. UFC stands for Ultimate Frisbee Carl because I played ultimate frisbee yesterday. I'd like to say that I didn't injure myself, but I have a bruised knee and a pulled groin. My back also hurts but that's from bending over to catch my breath so many times. Ultimate frisbee is an elegant concoction of hand-eye coordination and athleticism. Neither of those common ingredients ever grace my pantry. I'll stick to ultimate fighting.

My latest fight: me vs. my stupidity. Or my stupidity vs. my aging body. (If you say that fast enough you'll say, "my azn body".) (Picture me sitting here picturing all (two) of you quietly mumbling, "Aging. Asian. Agin'. Azun. Agin', Azn. Hey, he's kinda right!") (Now picture me chuckling as I picture myself laughing at you.) (Then I'll picture you laughing at me for picturing myself laughing at you for picturing you picturing me picturing you for doing something.) (Finally, picture my head exploding and gummy bears flying all over the place.) (I've exceeded my parenthesis usage and now I'm in paren debt.) Anyway, in my attempt to do an impression of a fly hitting a windshield and getting smeared off by crappy windshield wipers, I bruised my elbow. Stupidity: 23; Me: 0. However, I give myself style points for a snazzy impression.

xfig saved my butt again last week. I needed to make some logic diagrams for a presentation and the thought of using Visio on a Citrix machine made me puke my eyeballs out. Yeah, nasty, I know. Imagine staring at your own empty eye sockets while floating in a toilet bowl filled with marshmallows. Tasty but not pretty. I tried using OpenOffice's Draw program but it seemed so empty and lifeless and, dare I say it (I dare you to say it!), lame. Shoot, I used some more parentheses. Then I remembered my old pal xfig. This little X app saved me many times in college. Well, just once or twice. But that was enough to impress me. (I'm very easily impressed.) Crap! I used more parentheses. Hang on, I'm going to trade in some periods.... Some people pan xfig for being hard to use or something but it works The interface is different from what most users are used to but it gets the job done quickly Personally, I think it's pretty easy to get used to the interface so it doesn't bother me very much It lets users draw lines, group them into objects, and draw more lines Plus it comes with a nice library of objects to insert into figures It's available on just about every machine I've used short of Windows and MacOS machines it's pretty readily available to most people except for those who use Windows and MacOS When it comes to drawing vector art, I haven't seen a better tool than xfig

I didn't really want to write anything today, but Grace said people should write stuff so she can selfishly read stuff And I'm always anxious to increase the amount of selfishness in the world so thank Grace for encouraging me to rot your brain with more mindless flim flam

A little known fact is that I speak many languages. Most of them are fictional and comprised primarily of gobbledygook and codswallop. And although I speak these languages, I really don't know what any of it means. Here's a secret: when pure balderdash is leaking out of your flapping lips nobody cares about the whole meaning aspect. Meditate on that little gem and soon you too can be a proud oral distributor of horse hooey.

Hmm, that last part sounded filthy.

I was at Flame's last night engaged in a stimulating conversation about lameness. Well, it wasn't really about lameness but the word lame and many forms of it (real and imaginary) hobbled into the conversation. You might be able to guess who was there for this fun. Sri was there. But of course Sri never reads this, do you Sri? No, really. I'm asking you if you read this or not. Do you read this? Heh, since Sri doesn't read this, he'll never answer my question. I think I'll need to sneak my question into something he does read. Maybe on a My Little Pony message board that he secretly frequents. Tee hee hee. He'll never beat me up for saying that because he doesn't read this. Or does he?

Geez. There must have been some good herbs in tonight's dinner.

Why Apple keeps creating products that make gadgetphiles drool? This Ipod Nano is so...beautiful. Its beauty is surpassed only by the sheer loveliness of a 0 return code from make. Yes, I said loveliness. The folks over at Apple are absolutely brilliant. Because when gadgetphiles drool, they drool slimy gobs of green, gooey cash. The gadget industry involves finding buckets large enough to hold all that drool. Mmmm. Drool. I want an Ipod Nano. I WANT ONE!

OK, Seven Samurai. Kurosawa sure makes mad films. A lot of the mood-setting wasn't done with the dialog, but through the characters looking out into space while silence filled the air. The plot didn't have too many twists in it. Actually, I found it somewhat predictable. The real twists come from figuring out who was the aggressor and who was the victim at the moment. The three groups in the movie, samurai, farmers and bandits took turns being the bad guy, the hero, and damsel in distress. This provides a very authentic portrayal of the characters. No one is ever always good, always hurting someone or always getting victimized in the real life. The next Kurosawa flick on my queue is Ran. Can't wait for that. But first, Shintaro Katsu's Zatoichi. Blind samurai r0x0r!

My Little Pony is awesome.

Get up! Get up!

All right, I'm up. It's about overdue for a post. Well, I'm back in the Bay Area. My flight back was pretty horrible. I got to the airport about two hours before my flight so I'd have time to any overweight suitcase problems (I told it not to eat that last piece of cake...I wanted it). When I got there, my flight was delayed for an hour. OK, not so bad. (And one of my suitcases was over the limit by 8 pounds but I managed to squeeze 8.5 pounds of junk into my other suitcase so that was OK. Whew.) I got through security without too much hassle except that the guy who checked my ID and boarding pass gave me a hard time for leaving Texas. I told him I'd be back and that seemed to make him happy. (I would like to go back at some point.) Anyway, I got some Amy's Ice Cream and I sat down to wait for my flight. Amy's Ice Cream is good. Finding out that my flight was delayed for another hour and a half is not. Neither is finding out that the flight has no terminal because it's so late. Bah. I ended up walking from one end of the airport to the other a few times. There is a lot of neat displays there that I've never bothered to look at in the past. They had an art display but it was closed off for some reason. They have a rotor from a jet engine but I don't remember why it was so special. And there was a display of stuffs from around the world. Anyway, I finally boarded the plane at about 7:30pm (flight was supposed to leave at 5:15pm) and silently cheered as we pulled away from the terminal. Then we pulled back in because they apparently forgot to load the catering for coach class passengers. Dude, screw the drinks, I want to get home. By then, I think the SkyChefs food folks had gone home so they had to bring them back in and clear them through security and buy them dinner, beer and expresso. So we left at 8:15pm. It was almost 10pm by the time I got to San Jose. To further miff me, I didn't get the drink I wanted and all we got for our inconvenience was, "We hope to make it up to you next time." Right, next time get me to my destination 3 fracking hours ahead and give me a fracking ginger ale. But wait, there's more! As I was sleeping (just like everyone except for the frigging kids on the plane) the pilot cranks up the intercom and tells "anyone who's interested" that we're passing over Boulder City. Eh, harro? Je ne give a care pas!

Well, it's been nice to be back. Saw a bunch of old chums who I haven't seen for, oh, about three weeks. I had some food that I hadn't had in, oh, about three weeks. And I slept in my own bed: something I hadn't done for, oh, about three weeks. I had lunch at the Chinese vegetarian place too, which I haven't done for, oh, about six months. Maybe more. Grace had a birthday party on Saturday filled with great company and good times. Happy Birthday Grace! I also finished the latest Harry Potter book. It's been so long since I read the last one that I didn't remember who half of the minor characters were. And they kept making references to this thing that happened "at the Ministry" in the last book, most of which I don't remember. I suppose, however, that if J.K. "I'm richer than you, your magesty" Rowling had put in more back story, the book would have had to come with a free chiropractor's visit so I should be thankful that she didn't summarize the last book in this one.

On Monday I went to a BBQ with the newly-retired Vishnu and crew. Mad props to Cyrus for cooking all that tassty food and toasting his loins. There was also some Sex on the Beach in a bottle at the event. Fun. I met a guy there who I hadn't seen since college and who is somehoe connected to friends that I know. Funny how all that works. That also happened when I was in Austin (different dude though) but I didn't ask the guy for his contact info so...I'll probably never see him again for another 400 years.

Last night, I watched Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa. Wow. But I think I'll write about that another time.