Helpless...I mean...Hopeless...err...Homeless

For the past week or so, on my drive home from work I've noticed a quarter on the side of the road at the Stevens Creek exit off I-280.
I first noticed it when I was stopped at the red light. I pondered jumping out to grab it while the light was red and frantically jumping back into my running vehicle, but was too chicken shit to take the risk of the BMW behind me honking and freaking out if the light turned green.
I really regretted this for a couple days. The next two passes I had a green light, but I did slow for the turn and confirmed it was still there.
Then, two days ago, I saw it again at a red light, but there was one of the 3 or 4 regulars with a sign asking for my loose change.
In all likelihood, one of the regular bums dropped this quarter or forgot to pick it up after hiding behind the sign while a driver threw coin after coin at them in some misplaced fit of rage.
I headed home.

I was all set to jump out of my car and snatch it up today when this happened:
The light was red (YES!)
I was the only one in that lane (SWEET!)
It was still there (SCORE!)
An obese woman with a sign did the penguin waddle into my field of view to the tune of..."wah wah waah"

The decision before me was to:
A) ignore it again, hoping it will last until next week and I can grab the overlooked treasure then
B) start throwing 24 or less pennies (to keep this a profitable venture) at the lady to distract her and grab the quarter
C) get out of the car and hope that the bum does not jump in and drive off in my ride while I'm bent over picking up a quarter
D) tell the lady, "there is a quarter on the ground"

While I'd like to draw this out and ask for votes...I went with D.

I rolled down the window and Danny DeVito's sister waddled excitedly over to my car thinking I was going to hand out some money...

"There's a quarter over by the sign there. I think you or one of your colleagues might have dropped it."
"Where? I don't see it...oh, thanks."

Green light.
I headed home, once again without found money.



Note:
(most of) the image is obviously courtesy of Lasik Plus.
The above actions and expressed views in no way reflect those of Lasik Plus, who are in fact responsible for the bum's botched surgery, prohibiting her from noticing the 25 cents on her own.

Briefless Mottos

I stumbled upon an Internet Anagram Server and wasted a few minutes of my life.
It's pretty fun.
Below are my favorites for a few of you...

Soid Quintero = Squid Toe Iron
Baby, when the Humboldt Squid washing up in San Diego start to get wrinkly tentacle tips, you can be there for them. We can solicit donations from PETA for your plane tickets!

Laura Bolter = Real Oat Blur
God sis, always making grains visually indiscernible!

Josh Heinze = Jeez...Shin...Oh!!
Broinlaw, always banging his leg on the coffee table.

Alex Simand = Dim Anal Sex
Watch out in poorly lit corners...Alex lurks.

Bryan Rogerson = Señor Barn Orgy
Bryan is always looking for a hay filled shack romp.

Dominique Osburn = Bunion Mod Squire
If you want your bunions customized, go see Domi...she's in training, but she's good.

Andrew Potopov = Ardent Poop Vow
Shit brothers unite!

Alright, that's enough for now. Don't get offended if I didn't do your name. I still love you.
Except you Alan, I did try your name, but apparently "Alan Qian" is all we can muster in this language...


In closing, since this is all about me...
I really like stepping on dead, dried up, crunchy leaves when they are on concrete. That is all.

Act your age...divided by 8

Have you ever fallen victim to someone telling you to do something so they can take a picture, but then they trick you and are really taking a video, but you keep doing that something for the picture thinking maybe it just hasn't focused yet?

This is what it looks like.

Southwest Airlines 737 VS. Cessna:


Thanks Brandi.

Come pear an apple to an orange

She's crafty.
My sister has started an online boutique: happiest things.
Since high school, she's been chartered by many for various creative tasks - from altering clothes, making pillows, creating a formal dress from scratch - to making quilts and blankets.
The above picture is of a blanket she made for me. The logo is inspired by my tattoo, a "lifespike" I call it. It derives from an audio signal and an EKG display. She gave it to me as a birthday gift several years back.

She is good. And now she will get paid for it. Maybe life is just.


Disclaimer
This post has no bearing on the title, or vice versa.
Sometimes when Ewe sit in traffic, a random paronomasia sends a smirk to your face.
Mite as well share it.

Think of it though...pelting an apple with pears until it finally rolls into an orange...so fruity.

...a term that was used by his friends - one of affection, one of respect...

I am lucky in friendship. The majority of my friends have had the title since kindergarten. Like me, most of my best friends went down to San Diego for college.
We grew up in shit-town-Stockton.
We deserved the time down there, and we made the best of it.
There exists some ridiculous feud between "Nor-Cal" and "So-Cal" and fortunately for me, the common awful human you collide with in San Diego and Stockton was side stepped because I had a strong base of brothers with me to begin with.
One such brother went to Italy to study painting, became awesome at it, met a gorgeous sweetheart to marry, and made a wonderful child.
Neither of us are religious, but I persuaded Matt, or...he persuaded me...to be Olivia Evening Taylor's "Godfather". Which, to us, really just meant I would be there for Olive and her parents in any way I could. Olivia just turned 3. She had a party at a park in Santa Cruz.

Olive and her mom:


Maybe a cliché but "I remember her barely crawling, now she's a running princess..."


It was a blast to be outdoors in Santa Cruz, visit with those whom I truly consider family, and sit back and smile at genuine, blissful youth.
Matt and Cheryl did a great job hosting the party.
Cheryl and her treasure map:


Matt, the Chicken Monster, RUN!!!


Olive got two cakes:


They even had a piñata - which was about to be broken by the kids, but I pushed everyone out of the way so that I could be the hero:


I am so selfish...


Listening to
Saul Williams - The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust...this is what hip hop wishes it could be.

Watching
Entourage
The Simpsons
The Usual Suspects
Pushing Tin

Playing
Fallout 3 - I beat it!
Metal Gear Solid 4
Crysis

Reading
Exile and the Kingdom - Albert Camus
(Awesome short stories)
This blog
Tape Op - The Creative Recording Magazine

Drinking
Too much. One should never lose control of emotional or motor functions.
Break time.

Structured Signal

I am sort of a gear head. I love reading about and playing with new gadgets and improvements to old gadgets for cars, space missions, computer parts, home entertainment, guitar gear, etc.
I mentioned before I used the OMG WTF Free Phone money to buy guitar pedals. The two new additions are the electro harmonix pedals: the big muff pi (fuzz and sustain) and the micro synth (octave generator and filter). I am like, totally stoked with the sounds I am getting bra!!!
The picture above is pretty self explanatory. I play a Fender American Deluxe Strat with a bridge humbucker and two single-coils (holla Steve!) and a Gibson Les Paul Studio (thanks so much family!)...
Yeah, I play a Strat and a Les Paul...I used to skateboard Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays and I'd rollerblade on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays (Fridays I played N64 and Playstation). I'm Irish and I think U2 sucks. I have a Mac and a home-built PC running Windows...Vista. Yeah, so I'm a walking contradiction...and I fucking hate Green Day...
Wow, how did it get to this...
Oh yeah, so the picture shows the signal flow from my contradictory pieces to the Fender Hot Rod DeVille 4x10. This is the first configuration I've used with the new additions. It sounds good, but I'll definitely experiment with the effects chain. Mutation facilitates evolution right?
For now, I'll just try to explain my thinking for the initial chain...maybe I can get some feedbacks (as someone says) from anyone wanting to venture an opinion...Steve, Justin...I'm looking your way...

The loop station is last and is a pretty obvious choice for the end pedal. This is a phrase recorder, allowing me to loop and layer guitar parts. I surely want to be able to lay a lead part on top of a rhythm part - different sounds - it makes sense to modify the sounds before they get to the recorder.

Similarly for the delay pedal, I want the effects to "echo" along with the notes themselves...so the signal going in to the DD-6 is desirably wet.

I think the wah pedal is also nice at the end, since this is a more dynamically expressive effect. I can take what the prior effects yield and...um...make it go "wah haw wah haw"...

...I don't know...
...I don't know...
...I don't know...
...I don't know...

And finally, the tuner goes first. You definitely want the cleanest signal straight from the guitar as the input to the chromatic tuner so you can tune with greatest accuracy.

Alright, I'm going to go now. I love you.

Listening to
Dredg - The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion...over and over and over again...I love this album.

Watching
Entourage
Grumpier Old Men

Drinking
All of the Heinze's wine and champagne...

Up To

It has been a busy forty days for this cat. But of course, nothing happens until you post something about it on the interwebs...yielding many posts (that ship has sailed) or one large post from this egoist.
And thus the latter begins...

Taholerette
My sister and her fiancé decided to have their bachelor and bachelorette parties together in Lake Tahoe. Josh (the aforementioned brother-in-law-to-be) flew us from San Jose to Lake Tahoe which was awesome because I had finals the following week and was happy to be in a plane for a bit over an hour rather than in a car for a bit over three hours.

The Landing:


We drank and danced in Tahoe...the normal family fun (I climbed some horse statue, got in a fountain for the sake of photography, watched my twin sisters dance together with a bald Nepalese dude, and rode tricycles on the bar).

Me and the bride:


The maid of honor:


Congraduation
My wonderful girlfriend finished her B.S. in computer science. We went out to club WET, where my roommate had previously...left his mark...
Turns out I had been there before it was renamed to "WET". Little had changed...an abundance of bags and hags of douche...but they did put some fish tanks in the wall, which was kind of cool. When you don't want to have your senses annoyed by the environment, you can look at a shark and blow fish and eel stuck in a tank in the wall of the club...neat?
All said and done, I did have a good time. I like to dance. I love any time at all with mi muñeca and friends.

Club:


Grademony:


G(I/O)gle Conference
I picked up my girlfriend from the Caltrain station last year on her way back from the Google I/O conference. It was pretty amazing...good music (Queens of the Stone Age - Make It Wit Chu), good food (taco bell on the way to the station), and good conversation (my baby and her friend telling me how awesome the conference was as I drove them home). So this year, I decided maybe it'd be even amazinger if I went to the conference myself...
I still got to drive us home from Caltrain, so no loss in that realm...
The conference was well worth the $50 academia registration fee. The food was delicious and the talks were informative and inspiring.

And here is my ass, easily located with Google maps:


Oh yeah, and they gave all attendees a free phone...wait, what?!
Yes, all ~4,000 conference guests were given a Google (american apparel) t-shirt and an HTC Magic Ion G2 Android Google phone (I don't know which of the six names are correct, or in which order, so I just put them all...basically, it's a touch screen phone that is or is not better than the iPhone).

OMG WTF I got a free fucking phone LOL:


Another highlight was the "after hours" party. There were innumerable (not really...~4,000) nerds (~ means "about" or "approximately").
Nerds can eat. And nerds like it dark (to hide facial asymmetry). And nerds like video games. And nerds like to walk around with beer pretending to like it.
Google likes nerds. It was an orgy of deliverance.
Spherical caged picture-taking robots, Lego robots, arcade games, finger foods, Sierra Nevada, chardonnay, modded everything, and finally, DJ Mike Relm and DJ Scotty Boy providing aural goodness. I had fun. I guess I am a nerd.
Google posted these pictures of the event.

This is one of them and I am proud to have been one of the few present to talk to a girl...ever:


The best thing about the conference actually happened a couple of days ago, a week or so after the conference. I sold the HTC Ion Magic G2 (OMG WTF free phone for short) for $500 on Craig's List. Yeah, okay...they were going for a bit more here and there on eBay...but I'd actually opened and used mine, activated the SIM card that came with it, etc. Also, I essentially got it for $50. I am no mathemagician...but that's like 10% profit or something! YES!
With the money I made I bought new stuff for my fish tank...to be posted later...and a couple new guitar pedals, also to be made real at a later date.
My girlfriend is now selling her OMG WTF free phone here if you are interested...
[Update] It's been sold...for another huge profit.

Holy Shit...er, uh...Matrimony
I now have only one sibling with a common last name. But I have a brother-in-law and larger family...which is awesome in case competing local clans come to raid our land and livestock. We have increased strength and numbers now you fucking aggressors...try something.

Is my sister not the most beautiful bride ever? I know she loves the frozen dead dude, but Walt Disney ain't got shit on this reality:


And the McGees (one full McGee, three half McGees):


Now that all is in sync with reality and network...piece oot.


Watching
NBA Finals
Stigmata
New Blu-Rays (The Boondock Saints and Pineapple Express)

Listening to
Silverchair - Neon Ballroom
Massive Attack - Danny the Dog
Elliott Smith - Either/Or

Drinking
Trader Joe's Unsweetened Green Tea With Mint
Squirt + Cuervo♦