Christmas is over!

Ok, christmas is finally over. No more gift buying or receiving. No more family obligations, etc. My family celebrated christmas at my sister's along with her husband's massive family. I remember hanging with my sister's husband's neice and nephews back when they were in their early teens or earlier. They're all grown up now, ranging from around 22 to 27. It's kinda strange to hear them talk about their clubbing experiences, drinking, puking, etc. It just made me feel OLD! And of course, I had to play older brother, and tell them about my recent loss of a friend from a drunk driver. That made me feel even older at that point. Then I realized that the girls that I'd be picking up at clubs and stuff are gonna be the same age as them, maybe younger. Woah!

More of the couch fiasco

And that's the gouge in the wall the delivery guys made when bringing in the couch. I just noticed it a few minutes ago. Crap, now I gotta go call them up and complain about this, then get somebody out here to fix it. And it's gonna take two people to fix it, one to do the drywall, and one to paint. I just wish the delivery guys took more care not to gouge up the wall. I moved the old couch in without any problems and gouging, and the movers my ex hired did no damage taking an equivalent sized couch out.

Why oh why is just getting a couch becoming such a hassle? And my carpet is not red or brown as in the picture. I think it's from the white balance of the camera. It's closer to the shade of the wall.

Couches are here, almost

My couches arrived today, except that the loveseat (which also reclines) has a rip in the upholstery. So I refused delivery on that piece and took the couch. As you can see it reclines too. I can finally stop sitting on the floor watching tv or playing games. After trying out the couch, one bad thing I didn't notice before is the cushions are a bit shallow. Trying to slouch in the couch without reclining is a tad uncomfortable as my legs aren't support very much. Reclining on the couch is alot more comfortable however. And sleeping sideways is a bit too cramped for my tastes. But then again, I won't be the one sleeping on the couch, my guests will be. They only have one more loveseat in the whole bay area, so after a few phone calls with the sales guy and warehouse manager, I need to wait until the delivery truck returns back to the warehouse before they can reserve the one loveseat sitting at the warehouse in Santa Clara. I'm just hoping nobody else purchases the loveseat until then, otherwise I'm gonna have to get a whole new set again.

It's all about the Wii

My sister was looking for a Wii for a couple of weeks, ever since my niece wanted a Wii, and only a Wii for christmas. She was ever so shocked that I lined up at 2am at ToysRUs for a Wii and called me crazy. Well apparently my sister's family has caught the Wii fever and is now Wii crazy. Desperate to find a Wii for christmas, my sister's husband went to stand in line at 1:45am at target. Target was not releasing the amount of Wii's they'd get in. So apparently standing in line at 1:45am got him in position #22. When they opened, they said they only had 12 Wii's in stock. Then the mad scramble to find someone else who had a Wii in stock, but everywhere else already had a line that exceeded their supply.

She's been after my Wii ever since she found out I bought one. She's resorted to pleading, guilt tripping by using my niece. But I'm not caving in. No sireeeee. For a while, I was considering giving it to them for christmas, but the memories of standing out in line in the cold for 7 hours quickly snapped me out of my daze. You can pry the wii out of my cold dead hands. However I will bring it over to their house for christmas dinner so I can torment my niece.

The Setup pt. 2

Ok, after insistence of Cindy, I'm writing up pt. 2. Been busy with work, and way too busy with my crack to keep up my writing.

After the chorus, we head to her house for the after party. One thing my coworker is famous for is throwing theme parties. I mean she totally gets waaaay into the theme. She's very into a certain tvstarship and explore new worlds. And not just the original, but all iterations of the show. And she's into a certain novel with a kid, his magic wand, and magic school. Those parties are the most elaborate of them all. So obviously her little after party wasn't exactly a small event. Unfortunately that also meant she was running around all night setting out party stuff, putting things in the oven, etc. In fact, this happened all night, and she didn't rest for more than 30 seconds at a time. Not enough time to really mingle or even talk with my coworker for more than a few seconds. So after everything we went through, it turned out to be a bust, not because it didn't work out, but because there was no time. So we eventually went home at around midnight. Plan A was a failure.

**edited some stuff that didn't get deleted for some reason**

The Setup pt. 1

Here's the background, quite a few of my coworkers think that these two other coworkers would be a good match for each other. I'm closer to the male coworker as he works in my dept. For the last 2 months, my fellow partners in crime, one of which sits next to the female coworker in question, have been trying to scheme or setup some sort of social gathering where they both can "Hook up". But plans fall through, or something happens. But last weekend, our female target was participating in a choral concert. We thought it was a perfect time and place to do the setup, because right afterwards, there was a party at female target's place. We decided to do the setup, and all of us in on it agreed we all should go in support of the hookup. Now choruses are not my thing, and especially when I had to pay $30 to attend. I didn't think it was going to happen, and didn't buy my tickets until the day before after finding out that everybody actually bought tickets and was going to go!

So the day of the concert comes, and I am thinking I'm going to be aurally assaulted and my patience tested to the limit. One of my other coworkers says he's going to bring a flask, but depending on how long the concert lasts, there might not be enough to share. I agree but I don't have a flask, though I do remember another coworker who isn't attending does keep a flask with him, and ask to borrow his secret flask stash, still full of single malt scotch. Normally I don't really like scotch, but I was pretty desperate, so I borrowed his flask for the night, and promised I'd pay him back somehow.

We decide that we should head to El Torritto (a place that's down the street from us) for happy hour and have a couple of drinks and appetizers before heading down. So we promptly got ourselves liquored up and headed down to the concert. When I got to the concert, I realized that I'll be inside a church and a bit of catholic guilt came over me for taking out my flask and drinking it inside the house of god. Therefore we decide we should take a quick gulp before the concert starts, so picture 3 guys standing outside the doors of a church taking a couple of swigs out of a couple of shiny metal flasks.

Now the concert was beautifully sung, and music performed by the San Jose orchestra was equally as beautiful. The songbook was only 6 short pages long, and we were hopeful to a speedy torture. Did you know that choruses sing along at a speed that would make glaciers seem like olympic sprinters? To top it off, the first half was like I was trapped in a old disney cartoon and I can't get out!

Intermission finally occurred in what seemed like a years time, but my clock said it was only an hour later, and I made a beeline to the bathrooms which was outside. My fellow instigators saw me take off, and thought I was making a break for the car, and was preparing to tackle me on the grass. I had to reassure them I was only heading to the bathroom with no intention of escaping. We then huddled together outside in the rain and took a couple of more swigs to make the punishment a bit more bearable. This time we were a bit more buzzed and decided to sit behind our group, which was almost in the very back row. At this point, we were in ADD mode and started to poke, make faces, and joke with our fellow group members while making as little noise as possible. We were doing a pretty good job at it until I saw my fellow cohort reach inside his jacket for his flask. Again my catholic instincts took over and promptly swatted his hand with my program guide, which inside a church, made a sound similar in decibels as thunder. In horror to what I had just did, I did the only thing I could think of, and hide my program guide and look like I didn't just hear a loud booming sound. My flask wielding cohort on the other hand froze in complete shock, either because I swatted him, or he was stunned by the sonic boom that just hit his hand, and had his face and hand frozen in time as he was reaching for his flask. A couple of my other partners in crime turned around and started laughing so hard they almost fell out of their chairs.

After the event was over, we congratulated our performing choral coworker on how great the concert was, and then proceeded to her house for the real reason we came, the party.

Pt. 2 coming shortly.

This is my crack

Hi, my name is James, and I am addicted to crack. I've always been addicted to crack ever since I was a baby. Yes, I was born a crack baby. Throughout my life, I have been feeding my regular crack habit. I would do anything to satisfy my crack habit. I'd steal, lie, hang out with the bad crowds, get into alot of trouble. Eventually as I got older, I would work to pay for my crack habit. My crack habit wasn't always bad. But sometimes I would go on a bender that would lasts weeks. But nowadays my crack habit has gone more sophisticated and more expensive. I still maintain a good job and can usually function as a good member of society, but lately my crack habit has been getting the better of me. All I can do at work nowadays is think about my next hit of crack. My place is a mess at home. I was able to get a couple loads of laundry done last night in between hits of crack, but that's about all I was able to do. I even left the milk out for a few hours last night by accident because I was too busy with the crack to remember. I haven't been getting enough sleep the past week because I've been too busy with the crack to sleep. Yes, I am addicted to crack.

The crack that I am speaking of isn't really crack cocaine. Nope, never touched the stuff. Matter of fact, I've never touched any of the recreational drugs. Nope, my crack is gaming. I've been playing with my Wii and Xbox 360 every single waking moment of my life that I'm not at work. Before that I was playing Battlefield 2142 with my friends on the PC. But my 2142 addiction wasn't quite as bad as my current crack addiction. Though my current crack addiction is nowhere near as bad as when I was playing a MMORPG game (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game). That lasted about a year when I was into and playing Asheron's Call. Now that was some bad crack. Thank god my credit card expired, which stopped me from playing long enough not to go back. Those MMORPG's consumed all of my time and life, and I told myself I'll never go back to something like that again. One of my coworkers is now into World of Warcraft, the addicts current choice of crack, and has threatened to get me a free copy. I just said "No way in hell!". I can't imagine what would happen to myself if I ever did. That stuff looks way too fun in a bad bad way.

My crack habits always seem to pick up right after a break up, and my current habit is no exception. Maybe it's because I have all this free time, so I look for something to fill it with. As I write this blog entry, my eyes are a blurry from lack of sleep. Dammit, I need some sleep!

Regret

I hate regrets. I hate thinking I just did something wrong. I also hate to think I overpaid for something. Take my couches for instance. I thought I got a decent deal at levitz. I paid more than I wanted to, but I think I got some good couches. Now I was looking online at another furniture shop in milpitas, and saw what looked like some good couches, for a few hundred dollars cheaper. Crap, now I'm thinking I should have bought it there, and they probably have it in stock and can get it to me sooner than the 21st. I was looking at this set of couches.
They're running a 20% off sale which would have made the reclining loveseat and reclining couch $1300 before tax & shipping. The thing that's keeping me sane is that I haven't sat on the couch in milpitas, so I don't know how comfy it is. Might turn out to be not comfortable at all, and I made the right decision to begin with.

I also bought a xbox 360 controller from buy.com with a $20 off $50 purchase and thought I was getting a good deal. After I submitted my order I checked amazon.com and it was cheaper by about $7 even after all the discounts from buy.com. Unfortunately I couldn't cancel the order from the buy.com website, I had to do everything form the google checkout site, which isn't quite the same. I hope it gets canceled before it ships because I ordered the controller from amazon already.

Gaming heaven or uncontrollable spending?

After just buying the Wii, I found out that Microcenter has a $100 rebate on the xbox 360. I just couldn't pass that up, broke down, and bought one, along with Rainbow Six Las Vegas. Ugh, I just bought a Wii too! I spent close to $1,000 this weekend on games! Looks like I already spent my bonus check this year. I am now buying the rest of my 360 accessories online at buy.com since there's a $20 google checkout discount.

Looks like I'm eating ramen for the rest of the month.

My Wii hurts

After standing in line at Toys R Us in sunnyvale since 2am, I finally got my Wii. Let me tell you, it's not too pleasant standing when the weather is almost freezing. Me, my friend Danny, and friend Wendy all stood in line for the Wii. We were number 14,15,16 in place. There were people standing in line since toys r us closed at 10pm. I bundled up as much as I could. 2 pairs of sweat pants, tshirt, fleece, big ski jacket, fleece beanie, my big ski jacket and hood, and snowboard gloves. I even brought a folding beach chair, while danny brought his blanket that we all huddled under, shivering. It all paid off when they gave us tickets at 9am. They only had 40 in stock, so all the people that showed up later were out of luck. I purchased a Wii console, extra wiimote, and the Zelda game. Wow, the wiimote really works, the included sports game was really fun. This really is going to change how I play video games. The only bad thing is the graphics aren't much better than the game cube / PS2. But everything is definitely more fun with the fact that you have to hold the wiimote like a tennis racket and smack the ball. You can even put some top or underspin to the ball. I definitely think the Wii is going to have a big market to itself. Games are going to be totally different and throughly enjoyable for the Wii. After playing with the Wii for most of the day, my Wii arm is starting to hurt.

Wii'ing in the cold

Yes, I'm crazy, I don't know why I'm doing it, but It's a few degrees above freezing outside, and I'm about to head to toys r us to stand in line to buy a wii. My friend danny called me up and wanted to know if I was gonna go stand in line with him at 2am to go buy a Wii.
I don't know why I'm doing it, but I'm gonna go do it.

Hopefully I'll have a Wii by tomorrow morning.

Winter is here, almost.

Winter is finally here, almost. It's sure cold outside, somewhere near freezing at nights, but still not enough snow in tahoe to go boarding. There hasn't been a big enough storm to dump some snow up in the mountains to make it pleasureable to board. Most of the resorts are open, but have a few pathetic slopes open. Hopefully there'll be enough by the time I take my 2 week vacation around christmas. I plan on going up boarding more often since there isn't much to do nowadays. The question is, can I find people to go with that often?

My mom called me the other day wanting to give me a portable space heater, but I informed her that I don't need it since I have a fireplace in the living room, and I turn the central heater on. She about flipped out saying how expensive it would be to use the central heater, and how much cheaper it would be if I used the portable space heater. My memories of living at my parents place in San Francisco during the winter involve me freezing my butt off standing in front of the space heater, which was doing a pitifully poor job of heating anything up that's not 6 inches in front of it. My parents wouldn't turn on the central furnace, and gave me varying reasons like "there's stuff in front of the heater vents, it'll catch fire", or "It'll cost too much to turn it on". Never the same reason twice. Now I have to admit the furnace dated back to sometime just after man invented fire, so it was probably very inefficient, but seriously, I was freezing my butt off! Now that I have my own place, the heater is set to a comfortable temperature, with the programmable timer set to turn down when I'm not around. Also since it's a townhouse, two of the four walls are not outward facing, so there's alot of insulation from the outside. It doesn't take very long for the whole house to heat up, and it doesn't cool down for a long time. My PG&E bill doesn't go up very much in the winter months, so the money I spend per month is well worth staying warm and not freezing my ass off.

Oh, I finally bought a set of couches today. I was almost set on buying a set of couches at Jennifer Convertibles. It was a microfiber loveseat that reclines and a regular microfiber sofa for $700 before tax & delivery. But when I sat in it, my butt just did not feel happy in it. It wasn't quite plush enough, and the quality just didn't seem there. But for $700 for the set, the price was cheap. I went shopping around other places, and ended up at levitz, and found a set of microfiber reclining sofa and reclining loveseat. While they were more expensive, my butt felt very happy and at home on the sofa. It was nice and plush and the quality felt much better. It was nearly double the price, but I figure I'll be keeping the couches for a long time and it'll be money well spent. The set came out to be $1,399 after discounts, so tax and delivery came out to be about $1600. The only bad thing is it's not in stock locally, so it has to come from sacramento, which puts the delivery time two weeks away. I won't have my couches until Dec. 21st. Ugh, more sitting on the floor. Looks like I won't be having guests over for a while.

Here's a photo of the couch, it's even called the Mr. Comfort collection, in a lovely shade of mushroom. (I didn't have a choice of color, since that's all they had)