last night, ting surprised alan for his birthday with a guy's night out at pampas, this brazilian bbq in downtown palo alto. she dropped alan off, and jack, jay and i were there (jeremy couldn't make it, and peter was stuck in surgery and showed up after we had finished eating), and we said "surprise!" and then ting took off. alan figured something was up, but i think he was happy and touched anyways.
the food was pretty good. jack had to leave early because amy and mandy were sick, so he got the pork ribs a la carte. but jay, alan and i got the full rodizio menu for $44. that meant that we got all the meat we could eat, along with the side bar, which had salad, vegetables, and tasty lamb balls and mushrooms (the two things i enjoyed the most). it was pretty gluttonous.
i got there the earliest, at 6:15 (our reservations were at 6:30), so i sat at the bar, ordered a jameson on the rocks from their well-stocked bar (they had johnnie walker blue for *$49*!), and watched the lakers/nuggets game. i saw that they had midleton (high-end irish whiskey), but i was afraid to order it and find out that it would be outrageously expensive, but when i saw that it was only $9 (it was only 2007 vintage), i ordered it after i finished my jameson. it was decent.
we stayed until like 10pm. and then, i took alan home. i forced him to drink; i was going to order him a long island iced tea, but that would have probably fucked him up a lot. so he ordered a grey goose and tonic instead. i would definitely go back to pampas again, but only for special occasions; $44 is a lot to pay for a meal.
unfortunately, jay got really bad food poisoning or something. ugh. alan said he felt a little ill, too, but i was fine. maybe my two whiskeys killed whatever germs were lurking in my stomach? *shrug*
and tonight is another birthday dinner; i'm taking jennie out to krung thai. we're getting good jun pad poo! yay! i've been diligently coding in anticipation of our celebration. i wrote another 1,000+ lines of verilog today, this time, the variable min/max detection in the nonlinear block. slowly but surely, i'm getting this thing done. i just won't be on schedule. :( fyi, i'm just over 9,000 lines of code right now.
after i got back last night, i watched AI on my HD DVR. it was really nice being able to fast forward through the long commercial breaks. tonight, i'll be watching it recorded as well. i haven't seen _glee_, though. i checked on twitter's trending topics last night, and people seem to be liking it.
re: AI, some people say that the battle between adam and kris is like the democrat/republican debate. adam is progressive, gay, non-religious, etc. and kris courts the conservative, religious, clean-cut crowd. it's like a blue state/red state thing. i really like kris, but i like adam more (i voted for him twice last night). what's intriguing is thinking about who danny gokey's voters will go for, and i'm afraid to say that they'll probably swing towards kris. i saw a poll on an internet website last night, and kris was way ahead of adam. i guess we'll see tonight.
our latest chip is coming in at 11pm tonight. the apps guys are actually coming in at that time to work through the night to bring it up. i think that's really uncool of the company to ask them to do that. what's one night? can't they wait until morning?
yesterday, i had a brief moment when i was peeing in THREE streams.
at pampas last night, peter, alan, jay and i were talking, and we decided that we're going to try to plan a trip to vancouver. why vancouver? because apparently, gentlemen's nightlife in canada is supposed to be extraordinary. hehe. the other choice was toronto, but that's a transcontinental flight, while vancouver is only a few hours away. we'll see if it happens. i guess people are getting tired of vegas? or is canada really *that* much better? i've heard that chinese food is really good up there as well.
for the first time since i can remember, i got really horrendous non-curry japanese food coma today. i wanted a light lunch in advance of thai food with jennie tonight, so i ordered tempura zaru soba at sunny v cafe for lunch. just soba and some tempura. i guess the tempura batter was really greasy and thick, so the grease must have gotten to me. when i came back, i conked out for like 25 minutes. my stomach must have sucked all the blood out of my brain trying to digest all of that fat.
i don't know if this is a fundamental issue with my house or a function of the weather, but the upstairs bedroom has been pretty hot. maybe heat comes in easily but finds difficultly leaving in my place? i hope that's not the case. the weather's been much cooler these past few days, but upstairs has still been a little toasty; i've been sleepy with only the two thinner layers of blankets instead of my regular three. hm. i don't like that. maybe i should open the windows at night. yes, i have AC now, but i don't want to spike my electricity bill by using it when i don't need it badly.
i still haven't tried my electronic cigarette. i intend to do it soon, though. i'm starting to feel guilty about smoking more and more often. sometimes, right after i light up, i think, "damn, i'm poisoning myself." so yeah, i'm going to bust out the e-cigarette in the near future and test it out. what i need, though, is a carrying case for it; i don't feel right just carrying it in my pocket.
ok, 6pm. one more out and i'm outta here. i guess i'll go back to coding now. damn, after 9,000+ lines, it's starting to get a bit unwieldy. and i've got more to do.