…beyond nice.

I joke a lot about getting hit by a car while riding my bike because the idea seems very comical in a happy morbid way, so this might surprise you, but it’s not nearly as hilarious in real life – not for me anyhow.  I almost got hit, not once, but twice last night.  Both times it was the exact same situation, a car was stopped behind another car that was trying to make a turn, then right as I was riding up, the car in the back swung around the other car into my bike lane, nearly clipping me in the process.

One of the car that nearly did me in was a Geo Metro-type car,  you know the kind of car that looks like it’s made of cheapo plastic – like if you really wanted to, you can karate chop that outer-shell in half.  That same car suddenly looks like a solid brick of steel while I’m sitting on an aluminum foil coat-hanger.  I was returning home from the market with some organic abalone mushroom…does this person even know what a crime it is to come between a girl and magically delicious food?  If I was carrying a can of spam, the driver might have been doing me a favor – but fresh abalone mushroom?  Oh, the inhumanity!

This brings to mind an article I read recently about how ladies are more like to die in bike/car accident because we tend to obey the law.  I thought about how I stopped at the light and these two guys rode by me, I felt like the person that stood alone at the crosswalk while everyone else jay-walked.  A friend of mine just got ticketed for riding through a red light in Capital Hill…so now I get to pick my poison of being fined a hundred bucks or risk getting killed.  I think I’m going to have to go with…the dark beer, for a more full bodied flavor. 

We got our bi-weekly shipment from Costco today and we got muffins along with soda and endless candies.  I was contemplating the muffins:

Coworker 1: Ah, the inner battle.

Me: What?  There’s no inner battle here, unless you meant ‘blueberry or poppy-seed’ battle.

I decided to go for the poppy-seed, and since I’m not one for too much sweets in the morning, I offered half to another coworker that just walked in.

Me: Want the other half of this muffin?

Coworker2: No way, you keep your opium to yourself.

Me: You have a thing against poppy-seed?

Coworker2: Yeah, because it’s opium.

Me: Hmmmm…well, I’m Chinese, we have a thing for opium.

Coworker2: Ah yes, going back to your roots I see.

Me: Yes, back to the days where the white man shipped us opium to keep us down.  Stop oppressing me, white man!  *shakes fist at white coworker2*

One of these days, I will get fired for misconduct – if I don’t get smooshed by a cheap plastic car first.

Whenever someone finds out I’m a game programmer, the first question asked is usually, “Which company do you work for?”  My reply is always the same, “Oh, this small game company over in Kirkland that no one has ever heard of.”  This is true even amongst hardcore gamers…up until last Thursday.  Penny Arcade has issued a ping pong challenge to all the local game companies and people from my company just played them last week.  Our team won because we had the best 8 from a pool of 200+ people whereas, the Penny Arcade crew only had 8 people.  I think it’s sweet that these guys knew they would pretty much lose every game they play, but they simply wanted to have fun and meet a bunch of people while they’re at it.

Prior to the big match, our boys trained really hard, and by “trained really hard” I mean they watched Ping Pong a whole bunch and even had a movie showing at the conference room after work (seriously, we’re geeks, you didn’t think our boys would pump irons did you?).  They even had team shirts made to look like the movie.  Of course as I say time and time again about my coworkers, they are the most mature (pronounced muh-TOO-er) bunch I’ve ever met, they staged an entry wheeling in Gabe, an artist from my team, Hannibal Lecter style just to give them a cheerful welcome.  Quite a few of us showed up so that we can skip work with a cheap excuse to cheer our fellow coworkers on.

Apparently, the Penny Arcade guys felt so welcomed they wrote a little blurb about us and our little company got some five minutes of fame from it.  It’s good to know our company isn’t known for our awesome games, but our awesomely chic and groomed ping pong team.

Here’s a bunch more photos taken by someone with a bit more point and click skill than me.

In other news, I’m really starting to miss my SUV.  As bad for the environment as that vehicle is, it has served me well for years.  The most important function it has served in recent years is that it acts as a mobile locker room for every damned sports activity I happened to be into for the season (not limited to hauling numerous snowboards, bikes and backpacking gear for 5).  This morning my buddy JC came by and asked if I was going to karate tonight.

Me: I can’t, I forgot my gi.

JC: Oh yeah, likely excuse.

Me: No, really…I’m so lost without my car.  William just emailed me about climbing tonight and I don’t have any of my climbing gear with me either.  You have NO idea how badly I want to go climbing, so it’s definitely not intentional that I’m forgetting all my crap.

JC: Oh man, you’re losing it.  Pull yourself together.

Me: *sobs*  I know, I’m a mess without my car.

Awww, man, I checked out one of my favorite online comic today and after reading the fine print on that last frame, I’m going hang myself now. Based on my last blog entry, you can tell I was sure I had finally found my true calling…or so I thought. Good-bye, cruel world.

Edit: I’d like to point out that the artist said that the drawing of the guitar is how his controller looks. Which is to say, it’s totally sweet! I’ve now got a serious case of sticker envy…no I’m not talking about the Hello Kitty sticker, I’m just not man enough to handle that sticker, I’m referring to the Limozeen sticker. If you haven’t heard of Limozeen, then you must have been hiding under an anti-geek rock for the last four years, because it’s only the most awesome metal band EVAR.

Sung sent me this link a while back because it reminded him of me.  The comic is awesome because it’s completely true…except I have heard of Metallica because you can’t avoid hearing about them if you live in the states, doubly true if your best friend is a metal head.

I would almost be ashamed to admit that Guitar Hero has taught me a thing or two about music except I grew up listening to Chinese music.  If you grew up listening to Chinese music, you should know you have horrible taste in music and your knowledge of music is forever stunted.  Chinese music is mostly composed of the same boring 4-4 count – I blame our music for making Chinese boys the bad dancers that they grow up to be.  Studies have shown that all babies are born with the same ability to detect rhythm, so just being Chinese doesn’t make them a bad dancers, it’s the music they listen to as they grow up that makes them rhythm stupid.  Thanks Chinese music.

The thing that I’m ashamed of, but amused by, is admitting that Guitar Hero actually taught me something about an electric guitar.  I’ve only played around with acoustic guitars and have never touched an electric guitar, so I’ve always  assumed they’re pretty much the same thing except for the plug thingie.  Last night, I went to metal show with Brian and some friends.  At one point I turned to Brian and asked, “Wait…real guitars actually have whammy bars?  That’s not something Guitar Hero made up to give me bonus points?”  He laughed and explained that it’s not a made up part and that it’s used to lift up the strings to alter the tension and change the pitch.  Well, holy hell…sweet, thanks Guitar Hero, you’ve made me the musical genius that I’ve always known I could be.

Maybe I should be a little more bummed about being bidded out of a home, but I can’t because today is my birthday, and birthday means yummy delicious Chinese fruit cake. Mmmmmmm.

I just turned 31 and that number seems kind of old – I remember as a kid, I thought that by the time I hit 21, I would feel old…then came 30 and now 31…and I still don’t feel old. I guess I thought that I would one day feel like a grown-up, but as of this moment, I feel like I still have so much growing to do. It’s such a strange kind of growing too because when I was 21 I thought I knew what the world was all about, I knew the exact purpose of my existence, I knew consciousness was a bunch of mumble jumble that people threw around; I can touch you, therefore, you exist. If you asked me a question I didn’t have the answer to, I’ll flail my arms around and run off to refill my beer. Sure, there were a few holes in my knowledge, but I just had to get myself out there, learn a couple things and I’m set…then the more I learn the more I feel like I don’t know what anything is about. And by “anything” I mean very deep and profound things like which side do I clip the quickdraw onto that bolt because climbing season is approaching and I’m going to be very sad if I don’t put my shiny new climbing gear to use, and it might be a good idea if I learn how to use my climbing gear first.

I lost the bid on the condo that I’ve been vying for.  *sigh*  So much for a slow market, it feels like such a cat-fight just get a place anywhere in Capitol Hill.  I supposed I could scrounge up a shovel and some lemon and track down the winning bid, but I’m a little too bummed out to be so proactive with my life, maybe tomorrow.  It’s a good thing I didn’t try to link to the place here so that you guys could stalk me there, because you’ll be stalking the wrong person and it’s always a little bit embarrassing to get caught stalking the wrong person.  If you’re going to be creepy at least get it right.  There’s this adorable pair of lesbians living in the place currently – anyone have cute lesbian friends they could send over as a re-negotiator? 

Meh, back to the market board for me, I’m sure something else will turn up.

We’re having a work sponsored “Wee for Wii” contest where we’re asked to volunteer to bring in pictures of ourselves as kids and people are supposed to guess who the pictures belong too.  Person with most correct guesses wins a Wii.  Of course because I work with the most mature and thoughtful group of people ever, they took it upon themselves to generously contribute pictures for each other.

Unfortunately they didn’t quite understand the nature of game and wrote stuff like this is Kevin age 5:

and another with Patrick age 3:

For a bunch of gamers, they sure don’t understand rules worth a damn.  Now we’re out two easy guesses.  Spoiler bastards.

I must confess, I hate Bikram Yoga. I hate the smell of the collective B.O. from 30 sweaty strangers, I hate the constant sting in my eyes from sweat pouring in them, I hate the awkward poses, but most of all, I hate the horrible oppressive heat with suffocating humidity that makes me feel like hell hath arrived on Earth and the fucking devil is telling me to stre-e-e-e-e-tch.

I knew I would not instantly take to this yoga class before I ever started (I bought myself a 5-class card to force myself to go back) because I’ve never been one to enjoy intense heat. When the temperature gets a tad above 75, I get cranky. By the end of a proper Bikram Yoga class, the temperature should be 105 degrees with 60% humidity, but even before then, I would lay on my mat wondering what the hell is wrong with me and why I would voluntarily walk into a giant Easy Bake oven. Then I would randomly catch a whiff of my eco-friendly yoga mat and wonder how the hell did the cat piss mat evolve to a marmot den that has been baked in the mid-summer sun (think hamster/rat pee + mud + decomposing grass + heat).

Of course, I also made a rookie mistake of showing up to class on Sunday with a hangover. Yeah, despite my good intentions I went out Saturday night for 2 birthday parties and woke up with a bad case of cotton-mouth on Sunday. Later that day, in the middle of yoga, I came up with a bad case of I-wish-I-was-dead. If you’ve had a bad hangover before, you’ll know how it feels to have poison sitting in your system and the best cure is to either poison yourself into oblivion again, or to lay on a couch all day and let the poison slowly seep out. With Bikram Yoga, the heat is supposed to force toxin out of your body, so imagine having all that poison trying to escape your body at once. The best part of this was that we’re not supposed to leave the room once class started so all the joy, hope and magical wonder was mine to behold.

Unfortunately for me, the hour and a half of detox only caused the poison to seep into every part of my system and I felt “ick” all day Monday, and the only thing I can come up with to get rid of the ick is to go back to another yoga class to flush the rest of that crap out. So instead of waiting till next Sunday, I dragged my very very sorry ass up at 6 this morning to attend the 6:45 class. I have to say, I felt like a million bucks after today’s class. All day long, I felt all loose, light and limber but as the day progressed, my muscles slowly but surely felt heavier and tightened up again, leaving me with the urge to go back to another class to chase the limber euphoria. I can’t wait until the next class!

I think I actually found a condo that I like that’s somewhat in my price range, meets all my criteria and it’s in a damned good location. It’s right smack dab in between Sung’s, Brian’s and Jesse’s place. That means I can simultaneously stalk three guys without leaving the comforts of my own home.

So where exactly is this wonderful place? Well…um, you know I read blogs too and I understand that when you get into reading some random person’s blog too much, you start to think of this person as your friend. Then you think you would like to just meet this random person and touch the person’s hair. If I read your blog consistently, I’m probably standing outside your window right now. It’s not creepy, it’s flattery at its best, just wait till I show you the shrine I’ve built of you and the BFF necklaces I had made with our monograms.  It’s so sweet, you’ll cry when you see it.

I probably shouldn’t be talking about this place too much because it could jinx my chances of getting this place, but I’m slowly morphing to a big hippie that says stuff like, “Well if the universe intended the place for me, it will be mine.” Of course like a good hippie, if I do get this place, my first decorative purchase will have to be a nice hand blown glass bong.

On a side note, I just found a video of one of my favorite song of all time, so I must share. I think of Goethe’s Faust everytime I hear that song – yes, I’m a big dork.

Tis the week of booze abound. There’s been many a fancy dinners this week which means red wine galore and because “vegetarian” means “contains cheese with names you can’t pronounce so that we can justify the cost of this plate” in fine dining, I’ve eaten more cheese in the last week, than my entire life combined.

We had a team ice cream social today at work. Yes, a sweet coworker of mine bought us a bunch of different ice cream and toppings (with fresh strawberries, yum!) and stuff to pour over it. The “stuff” included hot fudge, strawberry topping, Bailey’s, Frangelico and Kahlua. Needless to say, ice cream with toppings quickly degenerated to booze with a smudge of ice cream and toppings (read strawberries only) on top.

We all sat around, had some booze ice cream, and chatted. At one point my coworker Joe pointed out, “I love how Champagne just asked if it’s Friday, then went back to pour in more Kahlua when she found out it is Friday.” It’s true, I have no shame. It’s not everyday that we have good “ice cream” at work, I’ve got to think of the years I’ve spent being the hungry child in China and make up for lost time. Okay, so I’ve only spent a week in China a few years back, but who’s counting, lost time is lost time.

I’ve got dairy coming out of my ears now…and booze too. All I want to do is not go out this weekend and just cook a small forest at home.

There will not be any wonderful misadventures in the great outdoors this weekend because I’ve got a list of potential condo-I-might-want-to-buy to visit…because as much as I enjoy sleeping under the stars on top of some mountain, I do like the idea of having a place to build a pillow fort somewhere – lugging that many pillows up a mountain without the aide of a handy sherpa is a lot harder than it sounds.

Random links:

Fortress of Solitude found.

My new crack of choice. Seriously, this game is addictive, it’s like Bejeweled on crack….which is like saying crack with a side of heroine…which is to say, “Run! Save yourself while you can!”