judyonthenet

Kelvin’s mother Lyn and her friend Paul came over Saturday to have dinner and check out the new apartment. We were still cleaning up and making dinner when they came, so we let them play Wii Sports as a diversion. Lyn and Paul got into Wii bowling very quickly. Even though Paul was much better at delivering a throw, Lyn scored better with her totally bizarre throw form. (Check out her insane follow-through.) Our place isn’t very big, and Lyn came very close to hitting the TV a few times. The wiimote even flew out of her hand once (thank goodness for wrist straps)! Now we have to find a Wii for her (along with one for my mother). It still amazes me how much non-gamers get into this thing.

Sunday, Kelvin and I went to his grandmother’s one year memorial in San Jose Japantown. We got to see all of Kelvin’s uncles and their wives (who were interested in knowing when we’re going to tie the knot… I think they want to go to a wedding), along with with a couple of Kelvin’s cousins and all of Kelvin’s immediate family. Kelvin’s cousin Bronwen has a really cool son named Logan Kai. He’s 9 years old, has a big head, and likes Naruto and Transformers. He said he’d help out with wedding decorations; he suggested a Naruto-themed wedding :)

Yeah! We can decorate with walls with shurikens and kunais!

Kelvin and I were fairly overdressed for the occasion, considering the uncles were wearing shorts and Hawaiian shirts. The younger generation were all in nicer outfits, guys in dress shirts and ties. Kelvin used the occasion to really dress up so he could match the nice watch I got him. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of his getup.

Kelvin’s starting school again, so he’s getting up pretty early. The alarm clock wakes me up, but usually I can go back to sleep. I can’t go back to sleep, however, when loud obnoxious cell phone talker neighbor guy is walking around the apartment complex. We’ve been closing our windows, so he doesn’t wake us up anymore usually, but if I get waken up by something else, I can’t go back to sleep with him talking, even if the window is closed. Yesterday at 7AM, this was the case. I was so tired, I ignored my avoid-confrontation-at-all-costs tendencies to actually go outside and asked him very timidly to move elsewhere. And he did. He even went back into his own apartment and shut the windows, so that was nice of him to not be mean to me (which I kinda expected him to be since he kinda sounds like jerk… his cell phone talking voice sounds like loud sleazy car salesman). And for some reason, he felt the need to mention to me it was a “medical emergency”, which I’m pretty sure is BS (unless he has a medical emergency everyday all day for hours at a time). It started getting really hot yesterday, so we’ve had to keep our windows open overnight. I wasn’t awakened by loud cell phone talking, so I guess he’s being considerate for at least another day. I’m really proud of myself for getting guts to ask him to stop. But I mean, really, who the heck talks that loud on his cell phone at 6-7AM in morning (actually, he talks all day, but the early morning is the only time it really bothers me) OUTSIDE OF HIS APARTMENT WALKING AROUND THE COMPLEX? Weirdo.

I saw a giant plume of smoke in the sky today when I was driving back to my mom’s place. It turns out it was from an apartment fire near where Prospect crosses 85. I wish I could have taken a picture, but I was busy driving. After dropping by my mom’s house and heading home, two more fire trucks passed me by. I remember thinking it was odd that firefighters were showing up this late, but apparently it was a really big fire.

New thing I learned today: Sydney White is a college comedy (teen comedy, really) starring Amanda Bynes coming out this September 21st. It’s based off the story of Snow White; the original working title for the film was Sydney White and the Seven Dorks.

Mike and Bobby somehow obtained two pairs of sneak preview passes for the movie at work. I get the feeling they were never used…

… but I have a DS game to play. I got my Play-Asia copy of Phoenix Wright 3: Trials and Tribulations in the mail yesterday. I was attempting to make a legit blog post, but all I can think about is playing that game. I know I’m not hip with all the cool kiddies who are playing Metroid Prime 3 right now. I ordered my copy online, so I’m still waiting for it. Though, it’s mainly for Kelvin to play; I still want to play the first Metroid Prime. And Super Metroid. And Metroid Zero Mission. Bleh.

Anyway, I just finished the first case in PW3, and I love it so far. I miss my adventure games. I can’t wait for when Zack and Wiki comes out! Hopefully, a blog post about my boring life will eventually conjure up tomorrow.

New thing I learned today: Screw learning. Time for Phoenix Wright!

Edited to add: Okay, I told Kelvin to teach me something. VPS stands for Virtual Private Server, which is a step up from shared hosting (thousands of domains to one machine) and below dedicated server (one site to one machine). VPS is usually about less than 40 to one machine. Apparently, Kelvin is tired of our crappy hosting, so we’re going to be switching soon from shared hosting to VPS. And I’m gonna get my own domain name (judyonthenet.com)… yay!

A little over a week ago, I went to downtown Willow Glen during lunchtime to pick up Kelvin’s engagement ring (yes, he has an engagement ring now). I decided to get lunch while I was there, so I went to the local Noah’s Bagels and Jamba Juice to get some bagels and a smoothie. I figured it was a fairly healthy, not-greasy meal, especially since I was still recovering from a bad cold at the time.

Little did I know something like THIS would come up. Potential hepatitis A exposure for people going to the Willow Glen location on August 1-3, 6-9, 11 and 13-16. I remember seeing the article yesterday and thinking, “There’s no way I went on one of those dates”, going through leftover receipts in my purse, finding the Noah’s Bagel receipt, seeing the August 15th date, and muttering “Oh shit.” Then I spent a lot of yesterday reading articles on the Jamba Juice exposure and reading up on hepatitis A to figure out what I should do. I was worried about exposing or spreading it to other people, particularly Kelvin or maybe even Mike, who ate a leftover gyros I couldn’t finish last week (btw, those things are gross). After much reading, I learned that hepatitis A has an incubation period of, at quickest, 2 weeks, so I couldn’t have been infected and contagious yet since it had only been eight days. That’s why the vaccine is still an option for folks exposed within the last two weeks; earlier than that, well, you get to wait and see if you get fatigue, loss of appetite, jaundice, nausea, diarrhea, and fever.

I sorta got all these thoughts settled today, so I decided to go get this hepA vaccine that was recommended by city health officials ASAP (otherwise I’d keep being paranoid about if I’m really diseased until I did get the vaccine). Earlier today, I went to a lab to do routine blood/urine tests (the same tests I was supposed to do MONTHS ago… oops). It was next to a doctor’s office, and I asked if I could get the vaccine. The lady said I have to go to a clinic, so she gave me the phone number for the immunization thingy for the county. All the city clinics are not close to where I work, so I called nearby Good Samaritan Hospital to see if I could get the vaccine there. Apparently, hospitals don’t have hepA vaccines? The lab person I was directed to didn’t even know who I should contact about getting one. Lame. Actually, if I hadn’t dropped by the random doctor’s office this morning, I’m not sure how I would have found out about the city vaccine locations; it’s really hard to find straightforward info on what to do and where to go.

I finally accepted the fact I had to go to one of these stupid city clinics during their stupid limited hours to get the vaccine. I left during a meeting (yay!) to head to the clinic near downtown San Jose. These clinics also offers cheap vaccinations and other small clinic services, so there’s usually a bunch of people waiting there. The website had warned that people should show up earlier than 30 minutes before closing, since often times the maximum amount of patients allowed has already been reached by then. The clinic closes at 4PM, I arrived at like 2:10PM, and there was already a sign up saying no more patients for the day. Luckily, the exception was for people looking for the hepatitis A vaccine, so thankfully I didn’t waste my time driving all the way there.

Even better news was that I didn’t have to pay for the shot. To get the shot, they make you fill out some forms with some personal information and some basic medical history. One of the questions asks when you ate at Jamba Juice. They don’t ask for any proof about whether or not you went to Jamba Juice. So basically, it’s free hepA vaccine day at the clinics for the next few days. I think hepA folks were getting priority or something, as people around me had been waiting for like over an hour, but they saw me in like 20 minutes. My visit was quick tho. They just verified my information, poked me with a needle (the nurse was super-good at vaccine injections… didn’t feel a thing), and sent me on my way, telling me to come back in 6 months (hepA vaccine is a two-part treatment). Not that it was affecting the regular flow of people much. According to the nurse, only about 10 people had shown up for the vaccine that day. I remember seeing an elderly couple after me who were also there for hepA cuz of Jamba Juice. So apparently not many people are as paranoid as me. Not that they’re wrong or anything; it’s very unlikely that anybody got sick. But if there eventually does turn out to be an outbreak of hepatitis A, I know I’m good to go :P

While this was all a hassle, I was at least glad I was exposed during the period where I could still get the vaccine. If I had been exposed earlier, I’m sure I would spend the next five weeks being incredibly paranoid of any weirdness in my body. Being exposed later, I can still have some peace of mind, and I get a free vaccine. Despite all this, I don’t think I’m hesitant about going to Jamba Juice again. I think they did all they could given the circumstances.

New thing I learned today: A chronometer is an automatic (no battery) watch that is certified as meeting strict Swiss timing and precision standards of the COSC (Swiss Official Chronometer Testing Institute… in French). Quartz watches (that use batteries) are not subjected to these standards, as they are considered much more accurate than purely mechanical watches.

A chronograph is a watch with both timekeeping and stopwatch functions. When you see a fancy watch that has a bunch little dials on it, those dials are probably for an analog stopwatch, and the watch is a chronograph.

I got Kelvin a fancy shmancy watch (a chronometer, but not a chronograph :P ) for an engagement gift (to balance out the ring he gave me). In the process of picking it out, I’ve probably learned more than I ever needed to know about the world of luxury watches. Basically, it’s a guy-with-too-much-money hobby. It’s weird reading popular watch forums; it’s pretty much like a jewelry (women-with-too-much-money hobby) forum, except with men. They talk about which watch they wear with what and what bands they use and what works with their wrist type. I guess it makes sense, since a watch is pretty much a man’s main accessory.

I was originally going to complain about how neurotic and high strung I am (and how I can’t parallel park worth shit), but the last couple days I’ve discovered something that has greatly improved my mood. I went home during lunchtime last couple days, and I’d eat a quick lunch and take a nap (sorta… it was a really light nap, so I’m not sure if I actually fell asleep). The nap (plus a soda after) greatly increased my energy and improved my mood for the rest of the day. While it’s nice to find a fix for the bleh-ness during the day I’ve been feeling, I’m hoping this isn’t something I’m going to be dependent on.

Kelvin and I went to check out Rush Hour 3. You know, it was bad… but I didn’t think it was 20% bad. Sure, some situations were totally unbelievable, and half of the jokes were racist or not that funny, but overall I left the theater feeling positive. There was enough action and non-sucky action sequences. Jackie Chan is the man, even if he is getting old. Chris Tucker is just… annoying. The French taxi driver was pretty cool. 4.5/10

I saw this article today about May Zhou. She was a girl in my year back in college. I didn’t know her personally, but I remember she was in some of my classes, and she did problem sets with folks in my dorm hall. Based on what I saw during those pset sessions, she was REALLY smart. I think she had a boyfriend or something at one point, because I remember thinking she must be perfect: she’s smart, nice, pretty, works hard, and has time for relationships. So when I first read that she committed suicide in weird circumstances, I figured something MUST have happened to her, especially since the cops were revealing no info about their investigation. But after reading this new article… it seems like it really was suicide (despite what her father says). It really hits home, that someone who had so much potential (A LOT of potential) just wanted to go to sleep forever. I wish she had known there were better options, and I hope she’s happy whereever she is.

New thing I learned today: A “free right turn” is where it’s legal to turn right at an intersection without stopping when the light is red. Most common example is where the right turn has its own designated lane, with a sidewalk island with the traffic signal separating the lane from the rest of the intersection. When the traffic signal is to your left (and no other traffic signal or stop sign is to your right), you may yield (meaning if there’s no cars, you don’t have to stop) into the intersection. I also learned those triangular islands are called “pork chop islands“.

You know, I always thought you had to stop at every intersection when you right turn, unless you had a dedicated lane in the road you’re turning into. Kelvin always said it was a yield, so I guess he’s right. While it’s good to know this, I’m worried that people think this gives them a right to go barreling into your lane when you have the green. (People already do that a lot now… Mr. Roadshow really needs an article to remind people what “yield” means.) Or people will think it’s okay to turn right on red without stopping at EVERY intersection. This newfound knowledge doesn’t really change my way of driving, since I have to significantly slow to almost a stop to see what’s coming in my direction. Before knowing this law, I’m pretty sure I was doing “California stops” anyway; it’s just now I know I shouldn’t get a ticket for it.

If you have, I just want to make it clear “milk brothers” has absolutely nothing to do with my personal life. If you haven’t, well, you’re clueless like me, and you should either ask Sandra or consult Urban Dictionary about what it means.

While my Friday was pretty busy, my Saturday was also busy. It was Kelvin’s brother Keni’s 40th birthday, so there was a family dinner at Kelvin’s dad’s place. (There’s a bigger celebration over Labor Day weekend, celebrating both Keni and his wife’s b-days.) So we were there for most of the early evening, playing with the niece, watching small clips of various DVDs since Naomi kept wanting to switch movies, and talking with family.

While we were there, Greer (Kelvin’s stepmother) asked us if we were free next Sunday. I was like, we should be free, what’s going on? Greer looked puzzled, and she said (Kelvin’s paternal) Grandma’s 1-year memorial was on Sunday. Kelvin and I were confused; we’d never heard of this happening. Greer said an email was sent out while back about the event. We ask Susie, Kelvin’s sis-in-law, and she said an email was sent a long, long time ago. Sure enough, when we got home, 1) I never got this email… which is fine, since I’m technically not family (but I always get emails now, since Kelvin’s apparently have little faith in him responding to anything, so they send it to me instead), 2) Kelvin’s dad sent out the email to Kelvin (& family) over 6 months ago. It’s very informal, says lunch location is TBA, asks for comments… so even if I had gotten it, I wouldn’t have thought about putting it in my non-existent calendar. I mean, are Kelvin and I weird? Are we the only one who don’t use calendars? I used calendars and planners for school to keep track of assignments, and at work we use them because, well, we have to. But I don’t have a calendar for personal events. Usually, last minute discussion of the organization of the event through chats and email is enough for me to remember. Do you guys keep calendars? Would you have remembered? Time for a poll!

If you were invited to a get-together through an informal email, would you remember to attend 6 months later with no further notice?

• Yes
• No

View Results

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After dinner, it wasn’t too late, so we gave Sandra a call. She was in town for her dad’s birthday (also on Saturday), but because of all the different things happening this weekend, we didn’t have a chance to meet up until now. She came to check out the new apartment with other people from high school: Chris (we all know Chris), Brian (who also happens to be Clarence’s cousin), and Jay (who I’ve seen… maybe once since high school graduation?). There wasn’t any activity planned, so we just sat around and chatted in the living room. Despite only have seating for two people, it was pretty nice and chill, and it was good to see friends I haven’t seen in a while. I have to go down to LA sometime… just need to figure out a good time…

Kelvin bought Super Metroid (AKA one of the greatest games of all time) on the Virtual Console and has been playing it all night. It looks decent, but I didn’t have an SNES as a kid, so it’s not as nostalgic for me, nor am I as fully aware of its innovation in gaming (in 1994). And it’s not a fun game to watch, as there’s like no story, and all Samus does is run around (reeeally fast) and find upgrades for her upgrades for her suit. Part of the fun is exploring and figuring out what to do next, so Kelvin showing me all these secrets probably isn’t good for when I want to play this eventually.

You’re not going to play this anyways, so who cares?

New thing I learned today: The K in K-mart stands for Kresge, as in Sebastian S. Kresge. Along with being a founder of K-mart, he was a philanthropist. Apparently his legacy includes contributions to colleges around the country.

When Chris mentioned Kresge College (or Kresge something) at UC Santa Cruz, I was surprised it shared the same name as an auditorium and oval lawn at MIT. I didn’t realize Kresge was the kajillionaire behind K-mart… felt kinda stupid once Chris told me.

Last night, we had another MagiX the Gathering (get it? heh heh) at my mom’s house since Jeff was back in town for a few days. Aside from Jeff, it was me, Kel, Chris, “the coworkers” (Mike, Bobby, Ted, and Clarence… tho he really is now an ex-coworker like Jeff), and Clarence’s friend Nate. The evening started off with four large Cicero’s pizzas: two “Bobby Yang specials”, a Hawaiian, and a pepperoni + mushroom. It ended with leftovers of Hawaiian and pepperoni + mushroom. Clarence jacked sodas from work, so thanks to Clarence’s work for providing beverages. Mike’s five cases of unopened sodas are now sitting at my apartment (actually, only four are… my mother jacked one for her party). btw, I think we all still owe Bobby and/or Mike for pizzas… at least me and Kelvin do.

Since Mike had to leave early, he didn’t draft or play, but acted as our own personal DCI judge, minus the dorky striped polo. He also acted as everybody’s draft-pick-consultant. As a result, I think everybody had fairly decent decks. Also, Mike sitting out left us with 8 people even, so with 4 pairs it was a good match setup.

My deck was green/white, giant green creatures with some green mana acceleration and white protection spells and weenie creatures. I played against Chris first, since we were both convinced our decks sucked. I won 2 out of 3 (lost 1). Chris’ deck was black-blue; his gimmick was to use Megrim and discard spells. It wasn’t enough to deal with Rhox (rare in my first pack) and his wurm buddies. After our three games, we observed other people’s epic battles (Clarence and Nate seemed particularly epic) until they finished and we could play more people.

I played Kelvin second. His deck was also green/white, so it was similar to mine. However, he had a heavy emphasis on elves, which I think made his deck a little faster. I lost two and won one, but the two I lost were really, really close, so I think our decks were comparable.

By the time Kelvin and I finished, Chris, Ted, and Mike had already went home, so there were six of us left. We decided to go for an epic-est battle of all epic battles with a 3-headed monster match. It was me, Jeff, and Bobby against Clarence, Kelvin, and Nate, with team simply based off the current seating arrangement at the dining room table. Tho Jeff and Bobby seemed to have decent decks, we came to the realization that perhaps they weren’t optimal for 3-headed giant. We made a rule to not allow any sideboarding, in the hopes that it would equalize the crappiness of our meant-for-1v1 decks. However, Bobby’s was still extra crappy, as a major mechanic of his deck was to draw and discard cards, which means his library was going to get burned quick. I forgot Jeff’s major mechanic, but my deck was plain and boring large creatures, which Kelvin also had. With Clarence’s damage heavy deck and Nate’s large library full of tricks (including a Millstone), I was pretty convinced we were going to get owned. However, with some luck and strategy, we somehow avoided it. Bobby describes how it went down more dramatically than I can in his blog. This picture (made by Kelvin) pretty much summarizes how we won:

Holy cow, though. 3-headed giant was such a freaking headache. I expected it to be long, but the amount of strategizing and team consulting and pondering of all the different potential outcomes every turn… along with how close the game got towards the end, I think I almost vomited several times. If I ever do that again, I’m going to need more soda. It was still very fun, but I think it took a toll on me.

The party was over with the end of 3-headed giant. Ted and I had split the box of cards, so Kelvin and I spent the rest of the night sorting cards, figuring out whose rares were whose. After surprisingly long time (like over an hour) figuring out incorrectly written down numbers in Ted’s group and weirdly written down pack lists from my group, we eventually got all the cards sorted.

Overall, I think the Magic get-together was pretty entertaining, so I declare it a success. I wasn’t frustrated this time around either. I was okay with the last draft, so I think tenth edition was a good choice for draft. No theme specific block mechanics means less awkward combos and more straightforward strategies. I’m feeling okay about MTG again; I think I even want to make decks! Just need to go sort my cards…

New thing I learned today: Rhox is originally from the Nemesis expansion and was some boring dinosaur looking thing. It wasn’t until Tenth Edition that it became some bad-ass double-horned bipedal rhino with a giant club.

Instead of hooking up my laptop and doing some work, I observed some DotA replays Kelvin had saved on his computer. I had asked him how his last game went.

The guy called me a faggot and left.

(I know I’ve used that Kelvin talking thingy in the last three posts. It’s not on purpose. I just happened to find some appropriate places to use it for once… or maybe Kelvin is just talking more than usual.)

I was curious to what happened, so he showed me the log.

Mac_Dre (Bristleback): u are annoying
*Bristleback gets pwned by Syllabear*
Mac_Dre (Bristleback): weak
White_Flag (Syllabear): yeah, you are
Mac_Dre (Bristleback): yea
Mac_Dre (Bristleback):and ur a fucking faggot
White_Flag (Syllabear): lol
Mac_Dre (Bristleback):queer ass bitch
Mac_Dre (Bristleback): learn to random ur heros u faggot
White_Flag (Syllabear): that’s all you got huh?
*00:15:42 Mac_Dre leaves*
*00:15:46 Mac_Dre gets banned*

btw, this was for a game where you can pick your character, so the “learn to random” comment doesn’t really make any sense. Also, DotA games are usually 30min to an hour, so leaving at 15 min is pretty quick.

Kelvin has a banlist program that automatically bans people who leave too early. These people are automatically labeled as “leaver” by the program, but Kelvin will add extra descriptors if they’re extra lame, so Mac_Dre was “childish leaver”. The program also saves all replays, so I watched a few with more interesting labels. Kelvin also gave me the rundown on how DotA works as I watched.

More DotA observations in the spoiler show

I’ve come to the conclusion that I still don’t understand the appeal of DotA. It still seems… incredibly mindless and boring. And I don’t understand the appeal of online play. Reading these logs and observing things like the chocolate milk incident… ugh. I ask Kelvin why he bothers; every time he plays DotA, almost every match ends with the banlist program saying “Leaver detected” and “Player banned”. Kelvin says it’s for the 1% that aren’t retarded and stay for the whole game, but I dunno.

Clarence sent me this video a while ago. Kelvin seemed to appreciate it.

Edited to add: I guess DotA can get you womens? I don’t think it works the same if you’re not a hot Swedish DJ. And I know the guy calls himself Basshunter, but I like how the signs in the crowd say “Asshunter”. *snicker* Asshunter…

New thing I learned today: Mac Dre is a Bay Area rapper who grew in popularity from the early 90s up to his murder in 2004. He was a contributor to the hyphy movement and creator of the Thizzle Dance.