Yesterday, I got back late after going to a birthday party for my friend Brandon. I got her what I usually get someone when I’m out of ideas: pr0n. In fact, I got her a Blueboy, just like Cindy Lauper sang about in “She Bop.” But we were at the Red and Black Cafe which is incredibly crunchy and every time I see a completely vegetarian menu, I feel like having some meat. Like a nice pork sandwich with some ham and some bacon. Mmmm. All I had at the Red and Black was a couple of pints of organic beer. I didn’t eat until I got home and found some leftover ginger pork.

Earlier in the day, however, I had some durian, a stinky fruit that really tasted like a garlic/onion banana. It’s a giant thorny seed pod a little smaller than a bowling ball that’s mostly woody but has some fruit around the seeds. My nutty boss decided we all had to try it so he had the owner of “Java Man,” — a Cambodian woman who we see every morning for coffee — get us one from the Southeast Asian grocery. He’d had durian before and it made him gag before, and this time was no different. He still wanted us to have the experience of durian. I’m not sure what his point was, really, except some form of employee harassment. It wasn’t so bad, if you want to eat garlic/onion banana.

Today I went to my friend Mim’s house to watch the Vice-Presidential debate. It was lame.

And they know who they are.

My friend Greg and I went to breakfast again, and my stomach started to rumble soon afterwards. I never got truly sick, but I did end up taking a 3-hour nap. I even had to miss a barbecue I was invited to at my ex-girlfriend’s.

Speaking of my ex, she passed her RN licensing exam, so she’s now a provisional RN. She has to finish her nursing degree to be a real RN, if I understand things correctly.

Other than that, there hasn’t been all that much excitement this weekend. I volunteered with the marathon again, and although I got into an argument with this cranky old man (a Bush supporter), it was fairly uneventful. We had to call in for rides on five people, and no one was truly injured at our stop. It was a much more zoo-like atmosphere, with Snicker’s Marathon bars and weird anti-blister patches being given away, more spectators, and a bunch of obnoxiously noisy Team-In-Training people, but the runners seemed to be doing fine at Mile 12, so that’s what really counts.

Today we found out that we’re getting an “Employee Handbook.” You know, “Wash your hands twice before starting to program,” “No drinking on your free time,” “Bow down before the executives when you see them in the hallway,” etc, etc. Sounds like our “Employee Handbook” is going to be worse than Intel’s, and Intel is the closest I got to having my soul stolen.

I missed most of the Presidential Debate, but it was on the TV’s at the gym. I read a little of the closed captioning and it looked like Kerry actually got around to making some clear points, and Bush, well, he just said the same old thing. Plus, Kerry didn’t look like Lurch and Bush looked like a monkey.

The worst part was that the cute 22-year-old was talking to a guy with a head like a melon. If I were only 10 years younger, then she could officially be not talking to me. Either way, I’m just part of the background.

Today we had a stockholder meeting and we were required to wear “business casual.” My immediate boss says that means wear a collar and jeans with no holes. I did a little better than that. We were then subjected to odd laws because of a contract we’re on. Yeah, I don’t live in LA but I was supposed to read the whole site.

Then we were told we need to put a dumb-ass disclaimer on all our emails. You’ve probably seen them, “If you’re not the intended recipient, etc, etc.” I think once an email has reached an unintended recipient, they can do whatever the hell they want with it and that disclaimer just says, “Boy, am I a moron.”

On the way home I had to buy another combination lock for the gym. Somehow I lost the last one. I’m sure I’ll find it now that I bought a replacement.

And I was almost hit by a bicyclist running a stop sign. I don’t mind bicyclists pulling California stops, but they better be able to stop if they have to especially at dusk, wearing black, no lights, and no helmet. Pedestrians have the right-of-way in this state. I yelled, “Hey, there’s a stop sign, you know,” and when she gave me some lip, I called her a stupid cow. I’m proud of myself on that one. I do way too much swearing and I think that was about as restrained as I’ve been.

Well, it better be fairly new and not listed on any blacklists. Grumble.

Got to do the ip address shuffle and I hope it didn’t inconvenience any of the bazillion knit bloggers that visit my sister’s blog.

But anyway, it’s been fairly painless.

Went to the gym and said hello to the 22-year-old. She has a very nice voice. Too bad I’m not 10 years younger. 😛

My friend Kim married a nice Italian boy named Rafelle and their reception was yesterday. As is usual when I hang out with Kim, we drank a lot. I figured, heck, how often am I going to get to go to their wedding reception? I guess the secret is that they’ve been married for a while and kept it under wraps. They still act like newlyweds.

Anyway, I didn’t sleep well and I had stomach problems. They crept up on me, though. I though I’d get sick to my stomach, and slowly, I did. This morning my head didn’t hurt and I didn’t feel lethargic, but I still had an upset stomach. I wonder if I was hung over or if I got sick from the food. It’s probably a combination of both, but it really seemed more like the food.

So I worked from home today, and took it easy. I had the joy of two phone calls, one for “Mr. Funji Marka” from Qwest, and another for some other unintelligible name from the Portland State Alumni Association. I don’t need any extra phone services, and I promised that I wouldn’t give PSU any money unless a rather cruel instructor left. So both calls were for naught.

I was hanging out with my buddy Greg again, and while we did go to the gun shop (for the third time in three weeks), we also sat around and watched his Tivo again. He usually makes me watch an old episode of The Prisoner and then other stuff. Today it was Simply Ming. Ming Tsai’s food might be good, but he creeps me out a little.

Oh, and I may be going to the gym too much with too little effect. Now several of the guys recognize me, including the huge guy with the chest wider than a pickup’s front grill who I thought was scary but is actually quite pleasant and most likely coming in with his not as huge partner who is probably much scarier. Of course, I talk to a couple of my women and they’re wearing huge rocks on their left hands. I don’t know how much exercise they need after lifting something that huge on their ring fingers.

In a fit of Friday night boredom, I upgraded my blog. I see some oddness, but it’s probably working. How would I know if it’s not?

Spent most of the day at work getting blamed for something someone else broke, and then fixing it all. What fun that was. Can I go back to dreaming about tedious things, rather than actually doing them? I can’t recall what last night’s dream was about, but it was something like a long study of spinning the tuning knob on a radio. Just like watching paint dry.

I was watching one of the women at the gym set up the treadmill with her weight and age and while I wasn’t that curious about her weight, I did wonder how old she was. 22! I wasn’t about to ask her out, but if you look at the math:

According to my friend Melanie, the manager at Mio Gelato, the youngest age you should go out with is (your age)/2 + 7. So, that means (40/2)+7 = 27 is the youngest age for me. And for the woman at the gym (who looked much better before she dyed her hair reddish, in my opinion) the oldest person she should go out with is (22-7)*2 = 30. So, there’s my geek analysis that has nothing to do with anything right now.

Anyway, so the cute woman at the gym (the one I keep making up stories about in my head, but only when I’m really bored on the elliptical trainer because I’m not a stalker, thank you very much) is probably around 25. (25-7)*2 = 36. Missed it by this much.

I also thought I was getting popular today, what with all the people leaving comments on my blog. Turns out that there’s a comment spammer that started targeting WordPress blogs today. So, my imagined popularity is also not in tune with reality.

Plus, I had a dream last night that I kissed one of my friends (a woman, don’t get your story wrong). But I only kissed her once before I asked, “What about <her old boyfriend, a friend of mine>?” and then I woke up. They haven’t been going out for 6 years, I think. So even in my dreams, I’m a loser.

Model dork, more like. My friend Brandon needed some victims for some sort of brochure or something, so I got to pretend I was a high school Latin teacher. I was sitting at a computer, pretending to type something into the library search system. I think the person behind the camera was better looking than the person in front of the camera.

Anyway, my sister seem to think I’m a very social person. I think that’s because I stop and talk to just about anyone. For example, I left work “early” on Monday so I could watch the Vikings and the Eagles. But on the way I saw a guy I met a few years back who would always grill shrimp while watching the birds go in the chimney. I hadn’t seen him for a while so I ended up talking to him, and then helping the Audubon volunteer set up their table. Forgot all about the game, at least until midway through the first quarter. I think the real term for that is “big dork.”

The pulmonologist thinks my mom has Mycobacterium avium intracellular (MAI), which is classified as an Acid-Fast bacillus (AFB). After treating a sample of an AFB with acid, it retains a certain class of stains. Unfortunately, another AFB is Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The quick lab tests don’t really differentiate between MAI and TB, so we get to wait several weeks to find out what it is. So even though she’s showing no symptoms for TB, the clinic can’t let her back in, and they had to give the diagnosis over the phone.

Other than that, I think I want to buy the new CDs from Fatboy Slim and The Prodigy.

Oh, yeah, I signed up for a stamps.com account and cancelling it required a 40-minute wait on hold. But when I got through, the person was very pleasant and businesslike. He asked if I needed any help to get the software running (one reason I’m quitting is that I can’t get it to work) but I told him that after that long wait, I’d better cancel my account. He didn’t try to convince me to keep my account, and was very efficient about the whole thing.

You know what they say, if something unpleasant becomes less unpleasant, then it’s usually remembered more fondly. Weird, that.

Last week, I went to the gun store and the Assault Weapons Ban was still in effect. I bought a flashlight. This last weekend I went to the gun store and the Assault Weapons ban had sunsetted. I didn’t buy anything, but my friend bought a WHOLE BOX OF BATTERIES. Woo. We’re real thugs.

We did figure out that our fancy flashlights cost $3/hr in batteries and $1/hr in bulbs to run.