Wow, I just rembered...I think I'll be getting a wake up call tomorrow. There's this new Ninja Turtles cartoon my little cousin is bonkers over and really wants me to see. If thats the case, my phone is going to be ringing in my ear around 9:55 tomorrow morning. *groan* Little cousins, huh?=)
6/14/2003 02:22:52 AM
Well, things are settled. Now I can really just relax for the next 9 days.
Ah, did you know? We're having a GBM crew get-together...in Vegas=) How nice. It was really all Ger's doing. She's the one who got things rolling, and y'know, with a little momentum, anything is possible. And so it is. I'll be flying down on friday the 11th of July to LV to meet up with the crew plus 2(Cinny, if we thought there was an inkling of a chance your parents would let you go, we'd invite ya=) and the debauchery will ensue. With the promise of a little cash in my pocket, I've got no spot of guilt taking this little mini-vacation.
There may be a chance I'll be down in San Diego the following week for the Siggraph convention. We'll see.
Tomorrow I'm going downtown to do a little shopping. 3 things I promised myself when I've got a little money rolling in, a cellphone (done), a new state-of-the-fucking-art-bakes-your-biscuits-toasts-your-bread-and-brings-you-the-morning-paper-with-your-slippers-to-boot computer, and some new threads.
I just finished reading Angela's Ashes last night. I started reading in bed around 3am and couldn't put it down till I finished it off around 6am. I kept trying to find a nice stopping place; the end of a chapter, the end of a thought, something...but whenever those things came, I told myself, "ahh, nice...well, I'm going to put the book down, but I don't think it'd hurt to have a little taste of what I'd be reading tomorrow night." So I'd read the first few lines of the next section, which turned into the first few paragraphs, and before your knew it, I was again looking for a nice stopping place for the night. Its really a beautiful book and ends at the close of the protagonist's boyhood. Many describe the way it is written as lyrical, and I agree. It is deceptively so. I'm thinking about picking up the book he wrote afterwards, which is a direct continuation of this one. But perhaps I'll read a book inbetween, so as to clean the palette, if you will.
You know, I think I may just go to bed early tonight and try to work it back to something resembling a normal schedule. Ideally, I want to be in bed by 11pm in 9 days time. Yesterday I slept at 6, tonight, 2:15. Not bad at all...
6/14/2003 02:07:35 AM
Monday, June 09, 2003
So it finally happened. After years of peer and social pressure, it finally happened. I have moved out of the stone age onto say, the Roman Empire. You probably already know by now huh? I got...a...cell phone.
I suppose if you go back far enough, it probably all started with those archaic things from days of old that sat in your pocket with the little clip hanging out. The size of a small brick, they were the cornerstone of every "hip" highschoolers social life. Of course I speak of...the beeper. I had one back in the day. I'd do all the corny things you do with beepers back then. Call people and fakey-ass text message them (y'kno, using zero as an O and 7 as an L) goodnight and morning. I'd get those pages from people just to say hi and keep in touch. I'd leave dorky greeting messages. Oh, how I shiver now, thinking back to those times. What was it, like 3.50 a month? I think so. Ahh, but to be young and dorky.=) I'll probably be saying the exact same thing 4 years later about myself now. Anyhoo, when I moved up to San Francisco all those many moons ago, I disconnected the beeper and did it caveman style, all the way till today. I'm still one of the only guys I know with traditional dial-up internet(who has never fully tasted the extasy of broadband at home) and up until today was only one of 2 people I knew without a cell phone(off the top of my head). I always get the "gaddamn Dan, you're a hard man to get a hold of" comments. But no more! gyahahaha....
I'm still fumbling around with my phone. I'm such a fucking celly illiterate bastard. Onto the user manual!
Well, next time you call me, remind me to give you my new number.
I spent the day down in Milpitas with the folks and bro. It was the usual quality time. Mom cooked a vietnamese lunch, we ate, lounged, went to the mall...ate some more. Y'get the gist.
Yesterday, I went to the Zoo with a couple of friends to sketch the animals. It was my first time out to the SF zoo and, well, I think I've been completely spoiled by the San Diego Zoo. I kept hearing the SD zoo was one of the best in the nation when I was a kid, but having nothing to compare it to, I just took it for granted. Then making my way around the SF zoo, I grew a quick and complete appreciation for my hometown zoo.
I think the saddest exhibit I saw there must've been the hippos. Now, hippos are big m'fuggin' animals. Huge. And they had 2 of them stuffed into a small circular "pool" which was barely 5 body lengths long, and just barely wide enough for one hippo to turn around. It was pretty sad man. Just looking at their sorrowful eyes, and the fact that they are so damn sedentary. They just stood there in the water, and judging by my half an hour or so I spent with them, they do that pretty much day in and day out, save feeding time, wherein a zoo keeper drops whole bananas and apples, one by one, into the open hippo's mouth. Another thing. In the wild, natural wear and tear rub down the teeth and keep them in check, kind of like a hampster's. But these hippos' teeth were unnaturally long. Freakishly so. It just added to the general feeling that these guys were not happy campers.=T
I can't say any of the animals seemed awfully spry, but, well, who am I to say. Maybe the animals are all diggin' the easy life. Maybe that sad look in their eyes are just the way they look...naturally, kinda like how dolphins always seem to be smiling. That reminds me of a video I recently borrowed about Koko, the signing ape...oh, but don't make me go there...not now, not at 3:17 in the morning. I know most of them live signifcantly longer in captivity than they do in the wild...such as the lions for instance. 12-15 years in the wild, 20-22 years in captivity.
I stared a lion straight in the face. He stood maybe six feet away. As he stood there looking straight at me, I imagined what it would be like had those bars not been between us. Seeing an animal like this on tv is absolutely no substitute for seeing it in the flesh. The massive, lean musculature. The veins running throughout its powerful body. The way it rubs it's nose. The massive claws(imagine me saying this in a frenzied Aussy accent a la Steve Irwin) that could tear an animal to pieces. And those teeth...the jaw. The crunching sound as it tries to scrape every last morsel of meat off the bones that its gnawing on...while looking you straight in the eye. Oh, its a wonderous thing, imagination.
Well, thats about it for me. Its late..me need sleep...so off to eat a tad, read a bit, and sleep a whole freakin' lot.
6/9/2003 03:35:00 AM
