I just got ran over by a truck with vegas plates

Or at least I feel like I did. I got back from my vegas trip sunday afternoon for my coworker's bachelor party. Oh man, did we do alot of damage that weekend. I met up with a couple of friends and their kids in vegas for dinner on friday. It was good seeing them again.

The other group in my party went to dinner at Emeril's. A couple of them ordered this 10 course meal where each serving was tiny, and had a story attached to it. The waiter would lean down, and explain what was on the plate and how it was cooked. One of my coworkers, who's real chatty by nature, had quite a few drinks, and was completely on all weekend. Through out dinner, he'd say "BAM!" (Emeril) and then later "Monorail!" (Simpsons) when we were on the tram. That pretty much continued the entire weekend.

I played craps and blackjack, and pretty much lost my shirt that night.I think I spent about $300 that night and lost it all by the end. The next day the bachelor arrived, I lost my shirt again when we played poker at the poker area with each other. We then ate at the steak house in Luxor, and ran up a bill higher than some people's mortgage. They ordered a couple of really expensive wines, and our group was 11 people. Still that's some ridiculous amount of money.



The rest of the night I can't really talk about, but I already reached the maximum amount of my atm withdrawl limit, and had to borrow more money from my coworkers.

I came home with a hangover, slept early, and woke up this morning like I got ran over by a dump truck, with vegas plates imprinted on my forehead.

One of my coworkers didn't make it in to work today. The rest of the group speculated he forgot to wipe the glitter off his face when he went home, and his wife is now disposing of the bloody rags.

You always think you're right

"You always think you're right!"
This isn't the first time I've heard this from my then gf's at the time. And it's usually at the end of the relationship when we're breaking up, when all the things that piss you off usually comes out and surfaces in a violent explosion that disregards feelings. I've heard this from all my girlfriends (there were only three), which makes you think if you really did do that. So thinking back, I would probably say that was true, with good reason. While I don't ever claim to know everything, I'm not exactly stupid either. And if there's a subject that I'm no familiar with, or meet somebody who really knows what they're talking about, I'll intently listen. And when I am wrong about something, I'll freely admit it without hesitation. But when I'm right, I'm usually right. This has caused friction between my ex's in the past, and they say I'm condescending because of it. But my experience has taught me to trust myself. When I'm persuaded with no reasoning or proof against my original thoughts, I'm almost always sorry I didn't listen to myself initially.

Why am I pondering over this subject? Well the favor I did for my friend, picking up a $750 PS3 gaming system because she didn't have time to get one during v-day, the favor that I initially had thought was a bad idea, had gone awry. Apparently her bf had received a ps3 as a present from somebody else the day after, and she wanted to return it. And of course they already opened the box and used it. I find out later that target won't accept the ps3 for return after it's already been opened. At least not without a 15% restocking fee, if they even accept it at all.

Now I know I kinda wanted one, but I wasn't willing to pay the $750 for the system, game controller, and game. I was going to wait a year or so when the price comes down and better games came out for it. However I did figure if I did get stuck with the system, that it wouldn't be a total loss. Though, I shouldn't be stuck with it, since my friend had already taken ownership of the unit, but it can come back to me way too easily.

Thinking that I'm right is such a double edged sword. But I don't think there's anything wrong with that as long as I can still accept input.

V-day Sucks!

Yah, Vday sucks. Again I'm alone on vday. So what did I do on vday? Went to Target to buy a PS3. No it wasn't for me, it was for my desperate pleading friend to give to her BF because she didn't get a chance to buy one. I told her she better pay me back ASAP as it ended up being almost $770 after the console, tax, a game, and extra controller. Now I remember why I never bought one.

Go Team Gold Watch!

Forgot the funniest photo of the night last weekend. My parents bought me, my two sisters and my brother in law all matching super shiny gawdy gold watches. We all agreed to the next time we're all together, we're wearing and showing off our new bling.

Also some pics of my parents playing with the Wii with my niece.

Vegas Baby! (hopefully)

Next weekend I'll be off to Vegas for my coworker's bachelor party. We'll be there causing havoc, breaking hearts, indulging in an excess of booze, gambling, and strippers! We're staying at the excalibur because that's the cheapest hotel room on the main strip, which unfortunately isn't very cheap that weekend. We all have our own rooms because, well, frankly we don't know each other that well, or maybe we do know each other well enough to know to get our own rooms. I booked my flight on us airways, but the website was having major issues when I booked it. Web pages would constantly error out. I finally made it to select my flights and seats, entered my credit card in, hit the final submit button, and then I got a web page timeout! Nooo! There were only 3 seats left on the same flight that a couple of my coworkers had already booked. 5 minutes after desperately trying to get back in the website, I get a email telling me my ticket has been booked succesfully. It had a ticket # seat number and everything. I look down at the purchase price and it said $0.00!
Uhoh, what the heck just happened? The next day I call up the airlines and asked to see if everything was ok with my ticket. I even told them the website was acting all funky and the amount I got charged was $0.00, but the ticket person said everything looked fine, then thanked me and to have a nice day. While I'm all for getting something for free, I'm really afraid that I'll show up at the gate, and they'll say that my ticket is no good, and the flight is full and if wanted to go to vegas, I would have to pay full price. So I'm crossing my fingers and hope everything goes ok with the ticket.

*update* I just checked my credit card activity, and they did indeed charge my credit card correctly. Looks like no free plane ride for me.

Dinner was a hit

I decided to go Iron Chef on my family and decided to make Maple Pork Chops, Glazed Carrots, Roasted veggies covered in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and Mashed Potatoes. The night before, I made a costco run and grabbed two large packages of pork chops because I didn't think one 16 count package was enough, so I ended up with 32 pork chops total for 5 adults and two kids. Yah, looking back at it now, one package was plenty. The pork chops was going to be my centerpiece of the meal, and they usually come out really good! So the sat morning, I prep the brine for the pork chops and brine them for about 5 hours. I also grab some zucchini, squash, broccoli, corn, and a shallot for the roasted veggies. Potatoes for mashed potatoes, and carrots for the glazed carrots. I've made the pork chops once before, but everything else I put on the menu I was going to try for the first time by myself. I decided I couldn't handle everything myself, and I haven't even decided on a salad yet, so I took up my brother in law's offer to help, and asked him to bring the salad and give me a hand in the kitchen on some of the other items.

My dad calls me on saturday and tells me I don't have to cook, and that they're bringing food over to cook at my place. What the !@#!@!!! No way, I already bought food, planned everything, and they did not say anything about this before! But they say they already bought the food and cooked some of it, and insists on bringing it. Fine, bring it, but we'll probably not eat any of it because I already have more than enough. Plus the fact that my parents can't cook very well. It wasn't until I got older that I really realized how bad my parents cooking was. I think it really hit me when I had my first girlfriend, and would spend alot of time at her parents house eating dinner with them. Their meals were always really good compared to my parents, full of flavor. I'd go back to my parents for dinner and notice the big differences in their culinary skills. To the point where I'd rather cook instead of them cooking for me.

Anyway, the kitchen was really busy with me, my brother in law, both my parents, and even my oldest sister, who was supposed to be relaxing since it's her birthday. We were all vying for counter space, knives, utensils, stove top and oven. Luckily my kitchen is huge and there's enough room for all five of us and not feel cramped.

Pork chops came out moist, tender, and full of flavor. Brining does absolute wonders for pork chops and should be required by food law. The maple sauce was really good and had a bit of a kick from the chili powder. Glazed carrots also came out really good. The roasted vegetables could have spent a few more minutes in the oven to get the veggies a bit softer, but still was really good. Mashed potatoes came out good too. It was a bad day to be on a diet. My parents brought some ribs that they already had cooked, and some beef (I think it was a tenderloin) that they broiled. I put my thermometer in it so I could monitor the internal temperature while it cooked. I'm horrible and guessing if it's cooked or not without my trusty thermometer, and these things were really thick, so it's even harder. My mom however kept insisting it was done and I had to almost slap her hands away when the temps barely registered 100 deg F. When the temp alarm went off at 135 deg F, it was a perfect medium rare. Unfortunately it didn't brown due to the fact they didn't put any oil on it. It was also pretty bland. We didn't even try to cook or serve their ribs as there was too much food as it was.

My 2nd oldest sister brought a coffee crunch cake from japan town, and that was by far the best coffee type cake I've ever had. The shop she got it from was famous for that cake, and I can see why.

After dinner was over, my niece was brought her wii controller over, she played wii tennis with my parents. My parents, who never play video games, got pretty into the tennis. My dad would swing the wiimote about 10 seconds too late, while my mom would rapidly swing the 5 seconds before the ball would arrive, and continue to swing the wiimote 5 seconds after the ball gone past because the ball was nowhere near her. My niece would be watching my parents and laughing so hard that the ocassional time they returned the ball back, she'd totally miss it which ensured that even more laughter would ensue. In between fits of hysteria, she'd say "But I was watching them!" then pointed the wiimote at my parents, which at that point I doubled over with laughter.

I was volunteered

I'm not sure how it happened, but when I was talking with my parents and sister on the phone, I was volunteered to host a dinner this saturday at my house for Chinese, err, Lunar New Year's, or as my ex used to say "It's Lunar New Year's! The Chinese does not have exclusivity on this holiday!" So apparently I'm also cooking dinner for everyone too.
Panic mode has started to set in. I'm not sure what to make. I made an emergency Ikea run a couple of days ago in order to get some more plates. The house is still a mess. My paperwork and mail is still all over the place. Thankfully I scrubbed the toilets clean. It's funny how motivated you get when your ex comes over, looks at the toilet, and exclaims "Don't bring a girl over, she'll run screaming when she takes one look at your toilet!"

I'm thinking of making some maple glazed brined pork chops for saturday's dinner. I made that one time and it turned out really well, but don't know what else to make with it.

If I were you, I'd be crying

My conversation with my friend L

L - "What'd you do this weekend?"

Me - "Didn't do much on friday, stayed home, watched tv, played some video games. On Sat, my old roommate had a birthday thing at a club / venue called slide in SF, right next to Ruby Sky. I was going to meet up with them at the club after dinner, but the organizers were being a real dick and not letting people in that's not on the guest list, or not with a girl. Since I was by myself, they didn't let me in. Grrrr, I hate that place. My roommate and her date didn't have any cell reception inside, so I couldn't get a hold of them. I tried calling them for a while, but couldn't get a hold of anybody, so I decided to go home since I was so pissed at slide. I was actually in my car driving a couple of blocks away when they called me. We were going to head to another club, so swung back around, parked, and waited for them outside ruby sky, where I bumped into my coworker. We chit chatted a bit, he suggested we head to crash when my old roomie showed up. We walk to the end of the block and then she realized that she lost her ATM card. Back in the club they go, while I converse more with my coworker. Eventually they come out empty handed, and we head down to crash. By the time we got there, it was about 1:20am, and crash was still charging $20 cover. There was no way we were going to pay $20 for 30 minutes, and left disappointed. Walking back, my ex roomie got emotional from all the stuff that went on, including the fact that nobody else that was supposed to come showed up, or got turned away and left. After trying to comfort her, we decided to try to go to cityscape on top of the hilton for a couple of drinks, but never made it up since they had already closed up for last call. By then it was too late, so we just went back to my ex roomie's bf's house to chill for a bit before I headed home. Sunday was spent cleaning the place up some more and watching the rest of my netflix dvd's."

L - "Are you crying?"

Me - "huh?"

L - "If I was you, I'd be crying. It's so sad, you're alone all weekend, and you try to go out on saturday but you ended up doing nothing, and again you're alone sunday doing nothing."

Me - "?!@#!!. Why are you my friend again? Yah, it's so bad, I should just end it all now. #$@$! Seriously, why are we friends?"


So the next day, I see my coworker at work, and he tells me somebody got stabbed at Ruby Skye later that night.
We were just talking how we don't go to certain clubs because they're too ghetto, and I didn't want to get shot or stabbed. And how I don't really go clubbing much anymore because of that, but mostly because most of my friends are married and or with kids.

I am being watched...

I had a interesting phone call last week. A deputy from Alameda County called up my cell phone and told me that somebody had used a stolen credit card / identity theft and ordered some stuff through Sears and had my address as the shipping address. He had talked to a few of my neighbors and asked them some questions. I of course didn't know anything about this, nor have I seen any packages by my front door. But then again I always go through my garage so I wouldn't notice any packages at the front door for days or weeks on end, unless I was expecting some. It seems a bit creepy that someone was using my address. I doubt my neighbors think I steal stuff for a living, but then again I don't talk to one of my neighbors very regularly.