I should say, Happy 88th Birthday Dad!
My sister got him these cute, well, I don’t know how to describe them so here’s the picture:
I got him a caramel shake and two antenna balls from Jack-In-The-Box. See if you can see them on his desk:
Or in front of his desk:
I think that’s a cheesy weenie in his hand. Here’s a picture of him surveying his desk:
I went to a funeral for a family friend. The eldest son is my sister’s age and the funeral was for his mom. There were a lot of Asian-Americans there, a lot more than were even on the Hawaiian Cop show I saw on TV. I even think I saw a girl who kicked my ass when I was 12 or so. She still looked mean.
The funeral was in a church that was too small. I was in an overflow area in the basement. For those who couldn’t hear through the speakers, it was a long wait. They had a hard time getting the coffin down the stairs. But, in the end, we did get to say goodbye to a friend.
I still didn’t go to the sports club where I have the “free 2 weeks”, but I went to 24HR Fitness to see how much they cost. On the plus side, they’re a lot cheaper and they’re going to have a pool soon. On the minus side, the hotties were all at Mavericks. Also, the way to make 24HR Fitness cheap is to pay for a couple of years up front. It’s easier to pay monthly at Mavericks. Plus, Mavericks is closer to home.
Really, the biggie is that there were better looking women at Mavericks. All I ever do is look, so that makes it more important.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why MT-Blacklist was blacklisting someone on my sister’s blog. Turns out there was an errant entry in the default blacklist. Jay Allen was kind enough to help me track it down. Woo. A lot of time for one poster. I hope she appreciates it!
So I’m supposed to be on my two-week free pass to the sports club in the neighborhood, Mavericks and I’ve already blown off 3 days. Plus, I thought I’d lost the little thingy they gave me to let me in. Whee.
My sunburn is definitely lopsided, and my boss told me that if I didn’t like Kill Bill Vol. 2 that I was fired. I found out that a friend’s mom had passed away, and another friend from high school is getting railroaded into federal (hopefully white-collar) prison. An odd day, to say the least.
At least I found out that the CEO’s husband is a ham, so we can talk geek when I see him again.
I’m all crispy and pink from staying out in the sun for too long. I spent six hours talking to a visiting ham radio operator from Japan. He’s here for a month and he’s staying with a family that doesn’t speak Japanese, and no one there is a ham. So he spent 6 hours talking ham radio with me, and most of that time sitting out in the sun. Oh, well, he was an interesting guy.
Later (like after 9PM) my friend Aaron came by to pick up some old computer parts. And we talked for a while, keeping me up even later.
All I was planning to do today was:
What I did was miss dinner altogether.
So much for planning.
Happy May Day.
I just saw Kill Bill, Vol. 1 and decided that Tarantino doesn’t have an original thought in his head. The two main reasons I didn’t like it are:
The bad Japanese dialog. A friend asked me, “And it bothered you that much? More than Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, or Antonio Banderas speaking English?” The answer is yes. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Antonio Banderas can speak English. They just do it with accents. Uma, on the other hand, probably can’t speak more Japanese than she needs to put in her order at the sushi bar.
The derivative sword fighting. It was just like every samurai TV show I watched while in Japan. I have a friend who really liked the movie and doesn’t like violent movies much. I think the problem with Kill Bill, Vol. 1 is that it’s like a summary of samurai movie sword fighting shows. If you’ve seen the “real thing,” you’ll see that the movie is just a watered down version. If you’ve never seen the real thing, it looks fine.
Anyway, enough about that. I went to DEQ to have my car checked and breezed through. It’s the start of the month and it should have been busy!
And I kind of liked it. But if guys are shooting at Lara Croft, shouldn’t she shoot back? Yeesh. That’s why I liked Blade so much. Wesley Snipes got to take out a lot of vampires, and they just kind of disintegrated. I spent my Friday night watching TV and trying to get the ham radio club roster into a database. I’m still not close to finished.
Also went by the sports club to see how much a membership is. At least $59 and probably more, I think.
I’m trying to avoid being so crotchety, but when something keeps me from sleeping, I’m not too happy. So some kids were parked out in front of the house, and it’s 11:30PM. Usually I try to warn them by turning on the porch light, but that doesn’t seem to affect them much. Today I went and asked them to “turn it down or move it along.” I mean, they’re out there, leaving their garbage and whatever. If they’re quiet, I ignore them. This time I even wrote down the license plate number. I dunno. The neighborhood is getting upscale, so I shouldn’t have to do this, right?
I had something else that I was going to comment on, but somehow rousting the kids is bothering me enough that I can’t remember it. Oh, well.
Last night Il and I made it to Ringside and it was great. The filet was tender, the onion rings crispy, the mashed potatoes garlicky, and even the broccoli was great. Il picked a tasty California wine to go with it.
Today I was going to go running again, but I had to watch TV. I got one of those phone calls (again) where they want you to watch a bad TV show (probably a pilot) and then comment on it. Last time I agreed to do this, I watched the wrong show (a HORRIBLE comedy) and they weren’t interested in anything I had to say. After investing a half-hour, I was kind of upset. This time it was a cop show set in Hawaii with Michael Biehn and a bunch of other non-Asians in the leading roles. It was fairly bad, but I think I’d watch it just to see Hawaii. I want to see more Asians, though. I don’t think there were any Asian women at all. IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE HAWAII YOU LOSERS. I’VE HEARD THERE ARE ASIANS THERE. And I know white guys have yellow fever, so it might even pay off to see more Asian women on the show.
Ugh it was hot. But I finally went running today after a break of a month-and-a-half. I only did a couple of miles at a fairly slow pace and I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow.
Tomorrow is also the last day I can use my discount coupon at Ringside and I think my buddy Il and I are going to try to make it there for dinner. It’s my birthday discount and we both turned 40 this year. We’re going to overeat a bit. Il is 6′ tall at least and he just peaked at 165 pounds. He needs to eat more so he doesn’t blow away.
Hey, maybe I’ll join a sports club like my brother-in-law did when he turned 40 (all of half-a-year ago).
The last couple of days I was helping my friend John with his big $400K toy (his yacht). Yesterday I was actually supposed to be helping him but really was just helping him drink. They had a big clean-up day and as soon as I showed up I had a Bloody Mary in my hand. That and a couple of Lemon Drops and I was ready to take a long nap. They had a “row” party that included a cheesy two-person band (really cheesy because of the cheesy keyboard) and I got to watch some fairly churlish but wealthy people get quite inebriated. I should shut my trap so I can get invited back for more free drinks. In any case, none of that helped much with the reassembly of John’s mast.
Today we finally got some wiring done in his mast. Mostly pulling wires back and forth, coating things with noxious waterproofing chemicals, etc. There were other people working on their boats as well. I used to wonder why they don’t pay someone to fix their boats but I realize now that it’s part of their fun.
Well, it’s in the 80’s now in Portland (and in April!) and I’m ready for the 50-degree weather.
So not really fired, but my boss had big problems with The Little River Band, The Doobie Brothers, and Wang Chung. I think his skinny ass was in a heavy metal band at some point. I’m sure he doesn’t like much of what I have. Maybe if I had some Quiet Riot or Warrant or something.
I got the last part of my birthday present to myself. Now I can operate power tools in the dark and listen to the radio.