even though i'm at work, it still feels like the holidays. i've spent the better part of the day saying "happy new year" and catching up with coworkers and friends (on IM). i got up at 8am after hearing rustling downstairs. yeah, my parents and grandparents left soon after for the airport to fly back to dallas for two weeks. it was a fiasco, though; their flight got cancelled, my dad booked a new flight, they found out the flights were for *tomorrow*, he had to re-book new flights on a different airline for today, and they barely made it in time to board the plane. luckily, they're in dallas now after all that.
after they left, i contemplated going back to bed, but i didn't feel sleepy anymore, so i just IM'ed various people (grace, jimmy, greg, etc.) as they popped online. it was neat knowing that i was one of the first ones to be logged in, and i could see when people arrived at work.
my family's weird, and not in a good way. my dad's enveloped in his job, and my mom (and brother) are wrapped up in religion. there isn't much positive communication between the two parties. in some ways, it's good that they have passions in their lives, but they're not very inclusive, as far as family cohesiveness goes. it makes me sad, actually. it's like they found hobbies that are very singular in nature, and they can't make room for other members to participate with them. and i'm left in the middle to watch them shut each other out. *frown* like i said, we're less of a family and more like a collection of very independent individuals who just happen to share the same last name.
i actually didn't see much of my mom or my brother when we were in LA. they had this big church conference in anaheim that took up the mornings and late afternoon/nights. during the drive back one day, we picked up my brother and some of his church buddies. suddenly, while driving back on the highway, my dad rolled down the window, letting this cold air blow in the car. i was like, WTF? later, he told me that someone farted, and it totally stunk up his side of the car, and he just couldn't take it anymore. haha! i wonder who it was, and how he had the audacity to drop such a bomb in the company of so many people in a closed space. :)
are old people attracted to other old people? i mean, like, we think young people are pretty because they look good and aren't wrinkled and stuff like that. but when we get older, do our standards of beauty change? hm. look at hugh hefner. he still likes young tarts. i ask because my dad's mom remarried (i think), and i just wonder if the two of them find each other attractive. you see old men with young women all the time (um, anna nicole smith?), but you rarely see the reverse, right?
yeah, i don't know who laminated the fob picture. but i was very uncomfortable when my grandma insisted that i e-mail the girl. i took one look at her, and i was like, "uh... NO." i have no idea where my grandma dug up this woman.
i had a dream about pinkberry yesterday. i think i'm obsessed with the stuff. i dreamt that there was a store on stanford campus, and i was at the coffee house, trying to get to it. the problem was, i got knocked down to the floor by someone, and i had to crawl through these giant walking inflatable beings to get to the door. very weird. why am i dreaming about frozen yogurt? ugh.
what kind of flowers is appropriate to send when there's been a death in the family?
i am puzzled at certain soaps. these are soaps that you lather on, and they make your skin all slippery, and you have to rinse and scrub an insane amount of time before they wash off. are you really supposed to do that? or are you supposed to leave your skin slippery and moist? at my uncle's house in LA, he had this kind of soap (i think it was blue irish spring), and it took me like half an hour before i got my skin back to normal. it was very infuriating!
i need to starting gelling up my hair. people have been giving me shit about my rooster/trojan helmet/mohawk, and i finally saw some pictures of me at the wedding over the weekend, and boy, does my hair look bad. it looks like somebody carved my hair into a pointy triangle. i did gel my hair for the NYE party, and paul commented that i got a nice haircut. so yeah, i think i need to do it more often.
ok, that's it for today. gonna leave in about half an hour to watch the warriors/mavericks game. it feels good to blog normally again. i'm back, baby! here's to a good 2008!
so for NYE, i went to paul/leeya/aimee's place. beforehand, i went to safeway to grab a 12-pack of root beer (barq's) and to look for some whiskey. i tried looking for bushmill's, but they didn't have any. that was actually a good thing, because it gave me an excuse to go to the secret liquor store next to pho nam and buy a bottle of black bush (special black label bushmill's), which john raves about. it was a little pricey ($32.99 for a 750ml bottle), but it was really good. smooth. it might be the best whiskey i've ever had.
paul and company cooked a whole bunch of tasty stuff, including prime rib, fred's steak, and some other side dishes. christi brought over some tuna and scallops as well. mikeT ate an enormous cut (1.5 inches!) of prime rib; his appetite for cooked cow flesh never ceases to amaze me.
i had about 3.5 shots of whiskey and two shots of tequila later, but i didn't even feel buzzed at all. when midnight rolled around, the 17 of us who were around toasted with champagne. dick clark looked ridiculous. how old is that guy? i wonder how much plastic surgery he's gotten. jay told me today that he had a stroke about two years ago. we chatted, played some guitar hero and nintendo wii, and had a good time.
i left around 2am, and i saw a horrible overturned SUV accident on 101 southbound. there were tons of flashing lights, and traffic was backed up for at least one exit. i heard on the news that there were just under 3,000 DUI arrests and 7 fatalities on NYE. luckily, i didn't get pulled over, although i was completely sober with my 6 drinks. (i had a little bit of a headache, though.) i fell asleep within 5 minutes after the 3am sportscenter came on.
on new year's day, i got up around 12:30pm. everybody that i called was either sick or still asleep, so i just grabbed some taco bell and watched the florida/michigan game as well as the rose bowl. my parents and grandparents came from LA (drove up) mid-afternoon.
check this out: my grandma told me about half a dozen times to get married. she even pulled out a LAMINATED (why?) picture of this fugly fob girl and told me she wanted me to set me up with her and that i should e-mail her. wtf? the laminated picture was the kicker. she repeatedly forced the picture on me, and i just kept pushing it away. she kept telling me that i needed someone to clean the house, to cook for me, etc. man!
we went to darda seafood (again) for dinner. the wait for the 5 of us was about 40 minutes. you have to order the right stuff there, which in our case, is their onion bread and knife cut chow mein. their other dishes suck. my mom was pretty disappointed with the other stuff that she ordered.
after dinner, we dropped off the grandparents at the hotel and went back to my place to watch the sugar bowl. man, colt brennan and hawaii look horrible. they didn't even belong in the game, imho. i had a smoke with my dad and went to bed at 10:30. and that was it for my vacation.
all in all, it was a good break, although, of course, it went by too quickly. NYE was the most fun i've had in a while. i've had pretty shitty NYE's in years past, though. and now i'm back at work. boo fucking hoo.