Explosive Donut

After work on Friday, Melody made me her Chicken Tikka specialty while we watched the movie we ranted the night before. The Chicken Tikka was awesome (as usual) but this time I got Melody to make me almost five pounds of it. I’ll be eatting Chicken Tikka until I see her again. She also made a fruit dessert with shortcake and whipped cream which was tasty.

The movie, “McDull, The Alumni,” was…interesting. McDull (one of the few Cantonese words I could correctly pronounce) is one of several barnyard animals that attends an elementary school in Hong Kong. When I was studying at HKUST I thought this was the Hong Kong equivalent of Sesame Street. However, this movie was really confusing for us two adults, let alone children. The movie kept bouncing between the animated barnyard schoolchildren and what I assume are the human adults they later become. McDull, a pig, wishes becomes an office lady so that he doesn’t have to wear pants. Others become bank robbers with poor taste in take-out food or oral chicken feet bone removers. Maybe the movie makes more sense to HK natives. Maybe.

I think I’ve figured out why I’m often so tired at night. My TV is sucking out my brain through my eyeballs.
Usually I’ll be talking to Melody when I’m driving home from work and make dinner. Melody usually has to go sleep around this point so I’ll turn on the TV and eat dinner. Since my computer records all of my TV shows, I never have any lack of shows to watch (unless my computer crashes and forgets to record 24, grrrr…). There’s about 25 episodes of The Daily Show on my computer right now that I’ll probably never ever watch.
I didn’t watch much TV last week because I was trying to finish “The DaVinci Code” before the movie came out. Instead of watching The Office or back-episodes of The Colbert Report, I was trying to read and eat dinner at the same time. It’s tricky using a fork while you’re turning a page with the other hand.
Instead of passing out in front of the TV, I was consciously getting into my bed. Well, there one time I passed out reading, but I woke up pretty quickly. I was following my 11th grade English teacher’s reading technique (thanks Mr. Kapteyn!) and was reading the book above my head. When I fell asleep I dropped the book on my head and woke up again. It’s pretty clear that it’s time for bed when you’re dropping books on your head. I was also getting out of bed within 15 minutes of waking up. It seems as though there’s something about TV that makes me really sleepy. I think I’m going to try watching all of my TV in the gym – I’ve never passed out on the eliptical machine.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately (and not just computer programming books). It started when I was reading Harry Potter #5, which was mostly a result of wishing to finish a book I had restarted several times over two years because I would forget what happened.
The next book I read was “The DaVinci Code”. It was a pretty good book. Sure, nothing I would expect to read in any English class, but more like reading a season of 24. The main motivation for this one was to finish it before the movie came out. And although I hear nothing but negative reviews (a lowly 17% on the tomatometer) I’ve committed to seeing it. I’d like to have liked the story once before the movie makes me hate it forever.
Now I’ve (re)started “Diary” by Chuck Palahniuk. I have no real reason for reading this one other than I want to. I’ve read about half of his books already, including Fight Club, and all of them were great. I also can’t resist a book which starts off with a man threating “you” over a missing kitchen.
Reading also is giving me a reason to take the bus. It gives me something to do while I wait for the seemingly randomly appearing Seattle buses to show up. At this point I don’t really care when they come – it’s nice to get to work but I wouldn’t mind just reading my book instead. I used to play video games but they’re a pain to take out of my backpack and are hard to play on a bumpy bus, especially when you don’t have a seat. I think the games make me really aggitated, which is not the best of ways to start your day.
I’m thinking that buses should just have a sharing library that you could take or donate books on (or even check out with a deal with the real library) Make it a library that gets you to work (and sometimes on time!).

Pistachio just baked some brownies and he’s getting ready for work tomorrow. I should remind him to bring a lunchbox (full of pistachios of course!).

A few weeks ago I got a catalog called “American Girl”. It has a picture of a preteen girl in a bathing suit and holding a doll with a matching bathing suit. I’m not sure how or why I’m signed up to recieve a catalog featuring clothing for little girls, but it certainly feels dirty.
The really strange thing is that this is not a catalog for little girl clothing. It’s a catalog for little girl doll clothing. The doll didn’t have a matching bathing suit – the girl had the matching bathing suit. It’s dirty and creepy.
If you want to experience this for yourself, go to the American Girl Website and picture how you would react getting this delivered to your door randomly. Although the site is clean as a whistle, somehow it might be worth looking at home rather than work (at least depending on your age).

I brought Pistachio (one of) my very large stuffed frogs into work last Thursday. If you haven’t met…I’m surprised. He’s huge. You can’t miss him:

I admit, Melody gave me the encouragement to bring him in, although I didn’t need much. I also brought in brownies that day. So of course, I just combined the two happenings into one email I sent to the hundred or so people in my group:
Pistachio (pictured in the attachment) is very excited to see [where I work]! He wanted to visit so he told me it was “Bring Your Frog To Work Day”. Unfortunately for him, I realized this was not a real day. Instead, he decided to bake brownies as an excuse to check out the … building.
So, if you would like to try one of Pistachio’s delicious fudge brownies, swing by [my office]!
Thanks,
Mike and Pistachio
P.S. Do frogs count as occupants in the HOV lane?
You would think that my workmates think I’m crazy. You’d probably be right, but I don’t think they thought otherwise before Thursday.

The only thing I did yesterday of any usefulness was finish some leftovers. Most of the day, I was either playing video games, watching TV, or eating. It’s bad when eating is when you’re at your most productive.
I was so disgusted with myself that I spent the entire day getting things accomplished. This was a difficult task as it was a bright 70 deg (F) outside and I really didn’t want to spend the day in my apartment sorting paid bills and shreding the credit card offers that have been gone from stacks to hills to small mountians.
My first important task was to celebrate pancake day. Again, I was eatting – but this was using up my near-endless supply of pancake batter. After that I worked out and even lifted weights too.
My next task was to clean my car. I threw out all the old yahoo maps that I printed over the past few months along with more than a few parking receipts. Chilumba had clued me into a place called “Brown Bear” where they have self-washing stations for cars. I got the inside vacuumed and then did the whole gambit of washing options. At Brown Bear, you pay for the washing station by the minute and have to keep pumping in quarters. If you don’t do it fast enough it ends up costing you extra money as well. It’s a pretty cool idea, although I suspect the constant quarter pumping is to distract you from how much money you’re spending on the wash. I suspect the whole thing costed me about $10, which is probably what I would have paid if I just let the machine wash the car.
It was getting pretty late for lunch so I decided to get some groceries. I walked over to the Safeway so I could get some milk and other things to use up my last box of Mac+Cheese. I also started reading “The Davinci Code” since the movie comes out next week and I told Melody I would see it with her. After reading a bit and finishing lunch, I took a nap. I’m not sure if naps count as accomplishments but it was pretty satisfying.
I woke up a bit later and took my car outside to wax it. I realize it seems silly to wax a ‘97 Camry (especially with the large number of spots with chiped paint – thanks Mom!) but I love my car. A couple of hours and blue fingers later, my car was at it’s shiny best.
I gave Melody a call and made Ma Po Tofu (one of my favorites). Not only is Melody doing well, but dinner came out great too. I even have some leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch.
My last accomplishment of the day was, of course, updating my website.

I went paintballing with my friend Siri and some of his friends from work. We headed over to Monroe, WA, which I had previously been unaware of. It’s surprising how quickly you can go from software-conglomerate suburban jungle to moutain man paradise.
It’s also suprising how quickly the weather can get crappy. While it was a sunny 70 degrees (F), Monroe was a rainy 50. The paintballing course did not rent camoflage pants or jackets. This was unfortunate because I assumed they did and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Not only was I easy to spot, but cold and easy to welt. I remember thinking “I hope nobody hits me in the arms” and minutes later getting hit in the arm.
Paintball is a lot like dodgeball, with some exceptions. The most notable exception is that it can really hurt to be hit by a paintball, especially if you get hit in the skin. Dodgeball (at least with our foam balls) does not leave marks that last for several weeks. Another exception is that you can see the dodgeballs but you can’t see paintballs. Well, you can’t see paintballs until they hit you. Then everyone can see them just fine. Lastly, it’s a bit harder to match your skills against other players. After playing dodgeball for a few games, your skills tend to plateau. In paintball, there’s always someone with a better gun, more paintballs, better vision, or just better skills. It takes way more time, money, and “Red Dawn” viewings to get good at paintball.
After a few hours I was getting into it though. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t get my gun to fire straight or I was so well-painted that I could have been confused for a gay-parade float. I think I hit a few people (although they may have already been out) and that made all the difference. There was somebody there even worse than me.

This is Mike and Sasha, some friends of mine. Awesome.