pres.umptuo.us

Farewell to pres.umptuo.us. Head on over to ericlim.com for my new blog and update all bookmarks. And stop using valloq.com. I know who you are!

My views on consumerism and the value of money have changed so much that I didn’t even bother blogging when the Apple iPhone was released. Things like gadgets and cars that I used to drool over no longer matter to me as much as they used to. Granted I’ve still had many discussions with friends about the iPhone and its impact on the cell phone industry, but it’s not a product I’m going to be owning myself for at least a couple of years.

My point is that a lot of my interests are no longer all that blogworthy, and the rising popularity of community link sites such as Digg and Reddit have rendered a lot of my quickies redundant. So let’s see what’s been going on in my interesting life.

My roommate bought a munchkin cat and he’s both cute and annoying at the same time. Annoying cause he loves biting feet and apparently when I fight with the cat it looks like a big kid trying to discipline another kid. It’s not my fault that he likes drinking my herb tea and getting his head stuck in my chair and unrolling the toilet paper.

I’ve been on track with my reading resolution. So far this year I’ve read:

• Gould’s Book of Fish
• Being Dead
• Life of Pi
• The Things They Carried

I’m currently reading “Fortress of Solitude,” although it’s a heftier book, so we’ll see if I can stay on track and still finish two books this month. No one asked for reviews, but I’ll give ‘em anyway. Gould’s Book of Fish: eh. Being Dead: eh. Life of Pi: Alright. The Things They Carried: Highly recommended.

300 comes out in theaters this Friday. It’s the first movie I’ve been really interested in for a long while. I’ve got tickets for the Friday Imax viewing, and it’ll be all the better for the sweet CG renders. I’ll be disappointed if I don’t come out of the theater shouting “SPARTA!”

After sampling Supreme Commander and Command & Conquer 3, neither of them can stack up against Company of Heroes in the RTS realm. Granted I’ve heard multiplayer is a vastly different experience for both games, but from the single-player demos I tried, they didn’t even come close. Both games had essentially the same strategy of building up a giant force and then sending them out to crush the other side. CoH has the constant back-and-forth of holding key territory and choosing the right upgrade at the right time. I’d like to hear what the really good CoH players think of Supreme Commander and C&C3.

My health benefits kicked in as soon as I started my new (old) job, and a regular check-up for me was in order. I can’t say I was too surprised to hear my cholesterol is a little high, although a bit scary for sure. I’ve been on a “lazy” diet ever since, consisting mostly of Subway and Souplantation and lots of fruit every day. I still indulge myself every once in a while, but always in moderation. I go back to the doctor’s in about a week to see how my month-long diet has been helping.

I started watching Battlestar Galactica. The first season was a bit slow but still interesting, but then they ended it on an amazing cliffhanger. The first episodes of season 2 were just amazing with the story development and several main characters in peril, and of course season 2 ended with another great cliffhanger. Now I need to download season 3 and try to catch up with the regular network airings.

Dwight: Do you ever watch Battlestar Galactica?
Guy: No.
Dwight: No? Then you are an idiot.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and welcome to 2007.

The apartment is pretty much done at this point. I feel kinda empty having been occupied with apartment furnishing and decor matters for so long that I don’t really know what to do with all my free time now. I find myself looking for random stuff to buy that I don’t really need to fill that void. I love how I just have that innate consumer behavior.

The biggest hurdle of moving out has been finding cheap food. Fast food’s always an option but it’s so bleh. I’ve been making a map of places to eat in the Irvine area using CommunityWalk based on personal knowledge and a couple of OC foodblogs I frequent (Monster Munching and Chubbypanda). If anyone has any recommendations I’m open to it.

I tried the carne asada fries at Taco Spot in Eagle Rock, located across from Oinkster. They paled in comparison to the ones from Alerto’s. I’ve still yet to find a decent place in LA for carne asada fries.

I made a New Year’s resolution to read at least two books a month. It should probably be more writing related, but I gotta start somewhere.

I am moved into my apartment in Irvine and I am slowly getting settled in. I am a regular at Target (open until 11 for the holidays!), IKEA, and Home Depot. The neighbors seem to complain about noise when all we’re doing is bowling on the Wii. There is crazy fun go-karting down the street. I am slowly becoming a consumer whore.

I am in the midst of changing jobs right now, and with that the changing of zip codes. I am heading back to Irvine and finally moving out on my own, and living across the street from a Tapioca Express, which means I will smell like noodles and boba.

As many people have oh so cleverly noted, I’m becoming the Fight Club guy with all my Ikea furniture and browsing through the catalog while taking a poop. I am very sore from building Ikea furniture, and their breakfast is about as good as you’d expect from a $1.99 breakfast (I went for the deluxe. I roll big.)

I played with the Wii. Somewhat underwhelmed. I played Gears of War for the Xbox 360. I need an Xbox 360 now.

1. Do not forget your wallet, or else you will never hear the end of it for the remainder of the trip.
2. Kicking your friends’ asses at Tetris DS is extremely satisfying.
3. It’s even more satisfying if done while drunk and taking a dump in the bathroom.
4. You will only win at roulette if you use an extremely dumb method to choose the winning color.
5. I have aged a lot in a span of three months. I went from being carded at every casino to being carded only once.
6. I do not like Jägermeister

Me and seven of my friends got jaywalking tickets in Old Town Pasadena, at that weird intersection right in front of Buca de Beppo where there’s that big sign saying “Do not cross here.” Instead of paying a bail fee of $114, they should give us the option of attending walking school, with the curriculum consisting of “Walk only where the government allows you to walk.”

My friends made me dance like a fool and get my ass spanked at Hooters for my birthday. Then they all gave me a DS Lite and I was kinda sad cause friends are awesome and they shouldn’t have. I still haven’t seen any photos or videos from the night, so I imagine they’re editing them together to make a “greatest hits” compilation which will probably make its debut in Youtube.

I’m finally getting around to finishing the Firefly DVD Set. Such great TV, and yet watching the show only causes great anger at Fox for canceling it. Bastards.

No super wide-screen video iPod like I was hoping. The new Nanos look just like the old minis now with their aluminum casing and look rather blah compared to the first gen Nanos. New shuffle design is pretty sweet though. For anyone who’s interested, Apple’s selling refurbished first-gen 2GB Nanos for $99.

The Nintendo Wii has a release date of November 19 and a price of $249. I want.

I have bug bites on the sole of my foot. How did I get bitten there, you ask? The bastards get me while I sleep, that’s how.

They hurt like a bitch, too.

Iowa was awesome this year. I started on my novel, and despite the fact that I’ve only added a paragraph to it since I’ve been back, it’s really gotten the thoughts and ideas flowing. I’m trying hard to sit down for at least an hour a day and write, and if not write then do nothing else but think of the story.

Why don’t we tip flight attendants? We tip people who serve us our food in restaurants and people who park our cars (I could go into a long rant about how lazy we must be to have someone else park our Mercedes for us, but I think that says it all), so why not the flight attendants? I dare say the flight attendant has to do way more work than the average waiter does.

I read through David Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day” while in Iowa and waiting at airports. I’ve found myself emulating his style in my writing. He’s so smooth and flowy with his writing. Really funny stuff too. Some of it didn’t do it for me, but most of the time he was on the money.

I’ve been using WriteRoom to write my novel, and highly recommend it for anyone else who has problems concentrating. Plus it looks damn cool to be working on an all black screen with green text on it. Makes me look like some hardcore writer dude.

My desktop machine has died on me for no reason at all. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s the power supply or the motherboard. Either way, I imagine it could be a blessing in surprise disguise since I no longer have access to Warcraft 3 (Damn that footmen frenzy is addicting) or my music. More time to write write write!

I’ve been meaning to write up reviews for The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon but just never got around to it, and then today I finished reading Crossing California by Adam Langer. I came to the quick realization that I didn’t care much for either of the previous books, but will heartily recommend Crossing California.

I can now categorize books into one of two categories: Books that I recommend to anyone and everyone to read, and books that I tend to forget I had read and won’t say much about unless provoked by someone else. Of course there’s always books that are horrible and I abhor and will probably tell everyone how much I hated it, but that usually has more to do with my own personal taste in novels.

And with that, I will say nothing more about The Alchemist or You Remind Me of Me

I am in Iowa attending the Summer Writing Festival once more, this time taking a workshop on starting the novel. We just had our first meeting and I’m feeling good about our instructor (Leslie Schwartz) and the workshop. She told us not to share our work with anyone else unless they are writers themselves because only then will they understand our plight.

That’s cool cause that makes me feel better than all the non-writers. You hear that? I’m better than you.

I saw fireflies for the first time in my life today.

I drank coffee for the first time in a long time the other morning. And by coffee I mean straight coffee, not a latte or a cappuccino or a frappuccino or a mussolinoccino. And it made me poop.

Does anyone know what part of the coffee it is that induces the pooping? I drink soda all the time so I’m doubting it’s the caffeine, unless it’s the concentration of caffeine that’s doing it. In any case, I believe I shall get another cup of coffee in the morning just to make sure it’s the coffee making me poop.

And yes, I prefer the word “poop” to “poo”. “Poo” just sounds incomplete to me. Gotta finish it.

Banking

A nice feature of Washington Mutual’s online banking is how it will scan in deposited checks just to jog your memory of, “Oh yeah, that’s what that check was for.”

Of course, what’s even better is seeing what I put in the “for” field for the checks I write to my parents as part of my living expenses:

I’m waiting for the day when the Feds call me up about this.

Fed: Sir, we’re calling about this check you wrote for…hookers.
Me: Yeah?
Fed: Well, you wrote a check for…hookers?
Me: Her credit card machine was broken.
Fed: *Long pause* Oh.
Me: Yeah.

Chatting

Another nice, although seemingly worthless feature (to me at least) is Gmail chat’s ability to go “off the record” and not keep a log of a current chat conversation. This is the only real use of it I’ve found:

aadarab: i think its near mathematically impossible for me to fail out, but i don’t want to take property again
aadarab: that shit sucked
me: time for us to rob a bank
me: oh wait
You are now off the record
me: time for us to rob a bank
aadarab: hahahahaha
me: I love that feature

Mr. Bayati is convinced that going off the record actually forwards the conversation directly to the CIA.

The Beginning

It begins with a letter from Washington Mutual, informing me that I should have already received my new ATM card, and if not, to call and let them know. Seeing as how I had not yet received my card and fearing the worst, I called and requested they resend the card. Easy enough.

Continue reading “Mail Trouble”

Chess

I try to play at least one game of chess a day, in the hopes that a) I’ll get better over time, and b) My brain won’t completely atrophy from lack of use.

And what have I learned so far? I suck at chess.

Ashes and Snow

Went and checked out this exhibition at the Santa Monica pier. The exhibition is in the Nomadic Museum, a temporary structure built out of shipping containers. It looks pretty sweet from the outside, and once you’re inside you would be none the wiser as to what it was made of.

The photos themselves are all amazing, and what’s even more amazing is that they’re all on handmade Japanese paper. The exhibition has some films being shown as well, although they got boring after a while since they consisted mostly of slow-mo shots of humans and animals interacting.

The best part was the gift shop where they had a museum-quality collection of all the photos from the exhibition selling for $8,000. I’m sure a big chunk of that money went to supporting the Flying Elephants Foundation, but I can’t imagine anyone would go to an exhibition expecting to purchase something like that..

Ashes and Snow goes until May 14

Room Redecorating

I’ve reorganized my room. For those who had seen my room before, the big desk in the middle of my room is now gone. You’d be amazed at how big my room seems now.

I’ll write more about this soon enough, and hopefully some photos as well.

Asking For it

I left the Thai Restaurant with a big brown paper takeout bag with a “Thai Dishes” menu stapled to the side, and realized that since it’s noon on a weekday and I’m dressed in a t-shirt and jeans that anyone who saw me probably figured I was delivering Thai Food. I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to feel about that. I guess I do fit the part, though.

I Heart Commas

MyBodyIs4Sale: you want to watch inside man?
valloq: what are we watching inside, man?
MyBodyIs4Sale: actually i think you already saw it
valloq: lol
valloq: I guess you didn’t get my pun

He’s Touring with Chicago!

Quite possibly the greatest “thank you” I’ve ever received, after sending Justin the classic song “Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News, followed up shortly after by his not-as-big hit, “Do You Believe in Love?”

My wife says to thank you for filling the house with more cheesy music.

Must…Debug…

I’ve spent so much time writing javascript lately that I have this urge to click the javascript errors button in Firefox any time I see it light up while browsing the web.

Go Design some Snowboards!

Completely random plug for Jorge Fino, PDF Designer. Well, not that random; I just find it amusing that his portfolio consists of nothing but a PDF, and I thought it’d be totally awesome if he advertised himself as the first and only PDF Designer.

Wow, I just visited Jorge Fino’s portfolio and realized he updated it. Well, that blows. So much for me heckling him about his PDF Portfolio. I’m still gonna try my best with keywords to make sure he comes up for Jorge Fino PDF Designer

Update again: He still has his old PDF Portfolio up! Score one from the Fino, PDF Master!

I went out to lunch with my family and met a few of my aunts and my grandma at the restaurant. During the course of the meal my grandma received two calls on her cell phone. It was then that I realized I hadn’t received a call on my phone in almost a week, and the sad fact that my grandma was way more popular than me.

At least she didn’t have a RAZR or answer her phone with, “Where you at?”

I have little patience for video games these days. It’s not that I don’t enjoy playing them; it’s that I don’t find many that I enjoy playing. In the past four months I’ve gone through eight games, and only one managed to hold my interest long enough to finish it.

“Eight games,” you ask, “don’t you have anything better to do?” The answer to that would obviously be yes, but why do anything productive when I can play games? That question was rhetorical. I know you were all ready to start leaving comments. Bite me. But I digress.

Continue reading “Insert Fun”

I’m so excited. I got my first wedding invitation in the mail today from Amanda and Pierre. I should probably make some French jokes there but I can’t think of any.

The invitations themselves are covered with flower petals and grass, and the petals look like they’re about to fall off. I’d hate to think that Amanda and Pierre spent all their time making these, but at least she didn’t lick the toxic glue on old invitations and die. That would be bad, what with the wedding and the living and all.

Continue reading “Do I Smoke the Grass?”

Sweet, I’ve been tagged by Ken. I think this is the first meme I’ve participated in.

Continue reading “Four Things”