Apparently, my sister has been telling stories about me again. A few years back she told her friends the Slabs such stories that they were afraid to meet me. Apparently, she still pulls that kind of crap.

Plus, Megan thinks the reason I have such bad luck with the opposite sex is familial karma. There are all sorts of boys who liked Mariko and she just shined them on and now I’m destined to the alone farm. (OK, so that “alone farm” was lame. But I just spent 15 minutes trying to write a profile on match.com that was eaten by their awful server and I’m pretty much out of creativity for the night.)

Well, I guess the day started out OK. I recognized someone from the gym on the way to work. I asked her if she was the “flag person” because she’s always wearing a t-shirt that says, “Rifles, Sabers, Flags…” or something like that, and I knew that had to have something to do with color guards. It turns out she’s getting her PhD in Computer Science out at OGI. I think she’s always at the gym with some dude, but woo, attractive, smart, and tall. (I like tall women because I’m a big chicken and all I ever do is look. You can see tall women from a lot farther away.)

OK, so I talked to more women than men at the gym. Of course, I had to say hello to the guys I usually see, and now that I think of it I also talked to the guy who is overly exuberant in the locker room. So perhaps I didn’t follow Thuy’s instructions correctly. I did, however, find more money on the floor in the gym. It was a 20 cent Euro piece, for whatever good that does me.

(The women I talked to hardly count. One was the woman at the desk who is super friendly and also probably 21. Another was a Harvard grad who was wearing a Harvard shirt and I just asked her if she attended the university. Another was there with her pot-bellied boyfriend and I just reminded her not to forget her iPod. Another was my neighbor Stephanie. And finally, one went to Andover Academy, a school for people who sneeze more money than I’ve seen in my life. And that counts the educational film I saw on the US Mint.)

My torturer, er, trainer called in sick, so I was on my own to torture myself. I think I did a fair job.

Not just the 2 small beers I had, but also the many glasses of water. I woke up at 3AM and had to go to the bathroom. It work me from a weird dream about being in Japan and taking a bus to points unknown when I was trying to get to the electronics shopping district. Funny thing is that all the people on the bus were speaking English.

When I was in Japan, I used to have dreams about going to Powell’s book store. Now that I’m back, I don’t go that often. In fact, I think I had the dreams more often than I go there. Until the office moved, I walked by it every day on the way home, but now I have other methods of getting books written in English.

So my neighbor Richard guilted me into doing some weeding. The school district doesn’t ever weed the curb across the street from us,

so we go out and do it. As you can see by the signs (if you have incredibly good CSI-like computer resolution) the city is cleaning the streets tomorrow, and so the timing was right.

Out of 8 houses, 2 or 3 of us do some weeding. Of course, I was foolish enough to go running for a whole two miles before I went out pull weeds.

Of course, Richard did a lot better job than I did.

Other than that, I sat around on okcupid.com trying to figure out how why I keep getting matched up to disgruntled 18-year-olds. Does this look like a guy who should be set up with 18-year-olds or get carded repeatedly?

I don’t have the kind of patience necessary to talk to anyone younger than about 25.

So it’s Saturday night and I’m watching dubbed anime on Cartoon Network. What a cool cat. And I spent most of the day at a ham radio convention. My boss asked me if I hang out with the same guys all the time and I guess the answer is yes. Doesn’t everyone?

Oh, and I spent a bunch of time answering nonsensical questions on okcupid.com. How many matches did I get? NONE.

OK, so when I did speed dating, I got one half-hearted, “I’d be friends with him if I had to,” reply. Sixteen people and no one wanted to talk to me again. Well, my friend Matthew went and he got TWENTY-ONE HITS. He looks a little like Shaq, but he’s only 6′ or so and not as stupid, so he’s not a bad looking guy. Of course, he has his quirks as we all do, but that just makes it fun to talk to him.

I don’t know what to say other than Asian dudes can’t get any play in this town. Japanese-American dudes can’t get play anywhere except maybe Hawaii, and even there I think you have to have been born there.

Oh, and Megan wants me to take a survey of how long it should take between smooching and humping. She thinks six weeks is too long and is worried about, well, her brother. I don’t know how I’d conduct such a survey and also (almost) feel bad about taking crap about her brother (but I’m a troublemaker at heart.)

Six weeks. Sheesh. Dude is almost 42, not 14.

So today, I went to a book reading and I was disappointed that there weren’t more people there. I actually bought the book for once, too. But really, this book isn’t furthering my cause as a pathetically single straight man.

Rich Merritt was very earnest and told us growing up as an evangelical Christian, becoming a Marine, and then hitting another extreme by acting in gay porno films. And since Thuy asked, I did get his signature.

Why do I need this book? Well, it’s because I’M NOSY. So wouldn’t being a doctor be the best job for me since I could find out all sorts of stuff about people? Actually, what would be better is being some sort of criminal lawyer.

I hope the guy does well. His dad just died, he lost his job, and he had a buddy from the Marines die as well. All I can do to support him is buy his book. I’ll let you know how it is.

I could have SWORN I wrote something last night about how I wasn’t sore during the day but it was coming on slowly. WELL IT’S COMING ON NOW. My knees feel it, and the sides of my ass feel it. Yesterday it was just my upper arms.

I didn’t want to make this another post about my ass, but my ass is important to me. I sit on it all the time.

OK, so they’re simple troubles. We had the “Earth Anchors” people came by to check out the facade and they pointed out some cracks. So I went onto the web sites to try to find out if I could get some plans for the house. I think this 1939 house is “as built.” In other words, “pulled out of the builder’s ass,” but that didn’t stop me from trying. I found out that most of the phone numbers for Multnomah County and the City of Portland are voice mailboxes. The library, however, is still answering the phone and answers questions via email within minutes!

Anyway, while I was fishing around Portland house maps, I found that someone had turned me in for a possible code violation. I was told that these things don’t happen randomly and someone had to rat on me. Well, ham radio antennas are not separate structures and they’re allowed in the City of Portland, so nothing came of it.

I suppose what I hate most about this formerly working-class neighborhood are the new snooty people moving in. With the prices they’re paying for their houses, they expect a gated community with strict covenants regulating what people can and can’t do. Fortunately, the city is just the opposite.

I’m going to meet with a trainer at the gym tomorrow. Last time I met with him, my upper body was fairly sore for several days. Tomorrow we’re supposed to be working on “lower body” so that means I’ll be limping around, most likely.

Yarg. Well, I just got back from watering my friend’s plants. I keep forgetting things, like how I’m supposed to be watering his plants and checking his mail. I need to start writing things down. My father however, is worse off. When I left he was worried about me leaving on my own since it’s so late. When I got back he asked what I was doing outside and how he didn’t remember that I went out.

Today was our neighborhood block party and I made some “Chocolate Peanut Butter Hash Browns” from a recipe my sister sent me. They were OK, and probably the best I could do for my first try at baking in probably 30 years. Well, I made a pie from a can a couple years back, but that probably doesn’t count. Most of them disappeared, so I figure I didn’t do that poorly. It sure wasn’t as good as the fruit cobbler or the Tiramisu, but it’s baby steps for me.

I even went swimming today.

But after it was all done, I went crawling down under the house to take pictures of the foundation. I would have done it earlier, but my camera refused to cooperate. First it was the batteries, then it was the memory card, then it was just acting funny. In the end, I got some boring pictures of the foundation.

Spent the day kicking around with Greg so there isn’t much to report. I’m thinking of trying to put a cell phone into a dial telephone like this guy did. It might be funny and worth the fun building the thing. We’ll see.

I also have to try to bake cookies for the first time in about 30 years tomorrow. Wish me luck!