| The Great Push Forward and Slam bam! |
[06 Sep 2008|04:23pm] |
The Great Push Forward
Right now, I feel like a sort of mid 60's socialist country executing a program to to enhance the standard of living. To that end, I have a great technological advancement program in place! *Stalin smirk*
*New Computer (check!) I just got a nifty new laptop with pretty much all the bells and whistles one would want who isn't a complete and total online gamer nerd. It's decently fast with a Pentium dual core processor, built in wifi, DVD-ROM/CD R/W and widescreen monitor. Sweet!
*New Phone (check!) How fun, I'm keeping my number, but for roughly the same amount I'm paying for service with T-Mobile, I'm getting a much better plan with Sprint and a Centro Phone with it. It's not the most techiest of phones, but it suits my needs with unlimited internet, gps, texting, microsoft office aps, MP3 player and oh yes, you can call people on it too! And yes, I'm getting a blue tooth too.
How wicked is this though, not only is the phone FREE, but they're actually sending me a $100 rebate on top of it! Let me repeat so you don't misunderstand; the phone is free BEFORE the rebate and then I get $100 back on top of that!
If I told you how to got a deal like that, I'd have to kill you.
*New Car (coming soon): Gonna look at one today. Groovy baby!
So this is my 3-point program to upgrade Stuart's standard of living. Glad you enjoyed the propaganda!
Oh, and speaking of propaganda...
Slam bam!
<a href="http://hepkitten.livejournal.com>Hepkitten</a>, jealous of my superior bloggingness maliciously tried to kill me on Thursday September 4th with her automobile. She obviously had been tracking my commonly used route to work by bicycle and chose last Thursday to lay in wait for the kill. At her opportune moment at just past eight in the morning, she caught sight of me coming down Visitacion on my beloved bicycle (named Curtis) and gunned her accelerator to grind me down.
But because of the hell of a guy that I am, I survived to tell the tale.
My apologies to the City of Brisbane if I got any blood on your precious fresh spanking new asphalt.
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| Fight for the future |
[24 Apr 2008|02:11pm] |
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A man was walking with his friend and exclaimed, "Look! A dead bird..." His friend scanned the skies and said "Where?"
THEY WALK AMONG US
A man had just come off a plane and was looking for his luggage at the baggage claim. Unable to find his luggage, he went to the lost and found to inquire about his lost belongings.
"No problem," said the airport clerk. "I'll help you find your luggage. I just have to ask you a few questions. First, has your flight arrived yet?"
THEY WALK AMONG US
I don't drink and I don't really gamble, but one thing I LOVE about Las Vegas are BUFFETS!!!!!
I recently joined www.yelp.com to write reviews and you can find reviews on two of the buffets I went to therein.
So what was I doing in Las Vegas? I attended a most awesome leadership conference.
Then I met some people, hung out with friends in the area and generally porked my way through the buffets.
At one point in time, I was babysitting a friend's two year old daughter. Paul called me while I was doing so and was of course wondering how one ends up in Las Vegas babysitting a two year old.
"The actions of a Timelord are difficult to explain sometimes," I said.
But I'm telling you, I ate so much prime rib in Vegas, I think I'm going to be eating bags of salad for lunch for a few weeks straight.
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| Largely Inadequate |
[21 Nov 2007|04:30pm] |
There is absolutely only one reason I haven't posted in recent times nor read many of the journals on my friends page.
Sheer laziness.
So let me just recap a few things, much like the taglines that run on the bottom of your screen during a news program.
*Myself and roughly fifty percent of my belongings have moved across town and I am now living in the house of Carmel's grandparents. Carmel is a great housemate, even if she doesn't do dishes and makes lots of noises with her girlfriend in the next room after lights out. =O
*A long time (I haven't kept track) has passed since I stopped calling a girl whose name I've just about forgotten. In fact--what was I talking about?
*Out of sheer boredom, I just printed out some paper signs with Microsoft Word to adorn my cubicle. I contemplate which of my co-workers is most likely going quietly nuts.
*I love my business www.goldenmountain.mychoices.biz. Just love it.
*I have the primordial beginnings of what potentially could might be the start of a crush on a co-worker at the Xebec. We do not share any shifts so I try to make my non-work visits coincide with her shifts to get to know her.
*Danny passed the BAR exam, has just turned 27 and has finally just about had it with his girlfriend. Good for Danny. There is now at last someone in our age cadre who can legally practice law.
*You already know most about Paul. The most exciting thing is that his DUI, alcoholism, de-pedophiling program is finally coming to an end. Welcome back to society, Tookie.
*At the moment, while still at work, I am wearing a Phantom of the Opera Mask and a feather boa. Co-workers are looking askance, but I offer no explanation.
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| Spring Break 2000, 2002, 2006 I, 2006 II & 2007 |
[22 Jun 2007|03:40pm] |
This entry is mainly a jumble of notes I'm using to compile a write up on the Brisbanian* Spring Break tradition.
Paul and anyone else, pictures from Spring Breaks 2000 and 2002 would be greatly appreciated (2000 being the trip to Santa Cruz with Jamie Lines and 2002 being our Las Vegas adventures). There seems to be a gap in information regarding Spring Breaks 2001 and 2003 - 2005. Whoever can fill in the gaps with anecdotes, pictures, etc. would be greatly appreciated.
*Don't you like the way "Brisbanian" sounds like a Southern European or Balkan word? Brisbanian is not necessarily a geographic reference to Brisbane, as Jamie Lines was living in Windsor (near Santa Rosa) at the time. I use it as an anchor term to describe persons from or around Brisbane, CA, persons involved in the former BWOW moniker, persons involved in the current or related P-Tip moniker.
Spring Break: A Brief Introduction
Spring Break. Ah...Spring Break. Spring Break! Spring Break! SPRRIIIIIING BREAK! Spring Break.
I hope you're following so far.
Obviously this tradition has its roots in the one or two weeks given off to students during March or April so named because it is politically incorrect to call it "Easter Break". Tracing its roots farther than this gets rather murky so we won't bother.
The first recorded Spring Break as we have come to know it in the Brisbanian tradition was in early Summer of 2000 (both Paul and I were out of school so we weren't on break as such, in fact very few recorded Spring Breaks occurred in Spring at all and sometimes there were two Spring Breaks in a year...confused yet?). What started as a simple day trip to Santa Cruz involved the frightening use of a photo booth, rubber duckies and a hair net. Paul gave one such hair net to Jamie and labeled it "Spring Break 2000" because he thought it would be funny since it wasn't actually Spring. The tradition took hold.
Eventually the idea morphed such that every Spring Break would include it's own album. There is always a theme to every Spring Break and music forms the sound track to Spring Break.
Spring Break 2000
Actually, it occurs to me that Spring Break 2000 might actually have occurred in June of 2001, adding merrily to the confusion.
In the days of my good ol' Jeep which I always referred to as "The Teutonic Warrior" in private, Paul and I of Brisbane decided to go with Jamie of Windsor to Santa Cruz for a day trip. "The Teutonic Warrior" as I called her, was adorned with two or three yellow rubber duckies on the dash for everyone to see. It baffles me why I ever stopped that tradition.
After buying breakfast to go from surly Jim of what was Brick Oven Pizza, we set out on the open road for Santa Cruz over the twisty, forested, mountain roads of Highway 17. I was a fairly new driver and Jamie and Paul liked to count how many times I changed lanes in a minute. I'd like to think I've calmed down since, but the truth may be otherwise.
The day was a typical one for three college (or college aged) kids going to Santa Cruz, or so it began as such. We went to a beach first near the Boardwalk and got Mexican food which I remember criticizing as not being so authentic.
The first thing one does at the Boardwalk is of course go on the rollercoaster! The best part of this was Paul's shouts of "I'm not afraid! That wasn't scary!" only later to see the video capture after the ride revealing some very tightly closed eye lids on Paul's face. Okay, Paul, I believe you.
Before a group of underaged teenage girls got caught trying to buy beer, they took photos with Paul and I under the belief that I was Irish and Paul was Austrian. We don't blame them for their error as we were employing some very convincing accents. It was a point in our sad, pathetic, lonely lives in which we used foreign accents to meet girls.
The Boardwalk is exciting for at most, two hours, espcecially if you're a broke early twenty-something (I am now a not-quite-so-broke later twenty-something). We had to move on.
On our journey north out of Santa Cruz, we listened to an interesting compilation of nearly every known version of the rubber ducky song, a silly piece of cheesy euro-dance called "Let Me Be Your Squeeze Toy" and Uncle Cracker.
We found ourselves for some reason heading north on the inexplicably long El Camino Real somewhere in the Silicon Valley bumping the original Ernie rendition of the Rubber Ducky Song when we pulled up to a stop light next to a bright yellow Mustang convertable. A sunglasses clad Latino man sat at the wheel who dripped more cool than Tom Cruise in his Top Gun days.
He looked at me and seemed to dig or non-cool cool, listening to Ernie belt out his ode to his favorite bath time friend. He eyed our squadron of rubber duckies on our dash and I picked one up giving it a demonstrative squeeze. The Latino Top Gun Tom Cruise held out his hands, and I gave up one of my beloved rubber duckies for adoption. The yellow rubber matched the brilliant hue of the yellow Mustang convertable and the man placed the rubber ducky impeccably on the dash.
Hold onto these moments, because they are made of pure magic.
What we were doing in on a golden afternoon cruising El Camino in the Silicon Valley, I don't remember. I think we wanted to find an Indian shop for Paul to buy a turban. This predated my Indian food craze by years, otherwise my 4X4 would have been sagging with loads of garbanzo beans, garum masala, cardamoms, papadums, jars of chutney and vindaloo sauces.
The evening was concluded with Paul giving Jamie a hairnet as we dropped her off at her house way up north in Windsor. He labeled it Spring Break 2000 and told her to treasure it forever.
Jamie now lives with her fiance in Ventura County in Southern California and when last checked, still has that hairnet.
Spring Break 2002
This was my first time in Las Vegas, and much of it is a blur as I had just turned 21. This was a point in my life in which innocent, old fashioned, drunkeness seemed like the hip thing to be. It is worth mentioning that I nowadays limit my alcohol consumption to St. Patrick's Day, Oktoberfest and a few other major holidays.
To be continued....
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| That's so GAY! |
[18 Jun 2007|09:56am] |
Someone told me, "You're cute, and you need to put that ass away." I guess it was a compliment on my rear bumper?
Pity it wasn't from the girl of my dreams.
Pity it wasn't from a girl.
As happens when one's best friend is a butch Lesbian, Carmel invited me to come with her and her girlfriend Ingrid out into the city to go to some sort of pre-Pride party (which for those of you who are uninformed, basically means that there would be a lot of gays and lesbians there).
The two main things of interest occured.
*As mentioned, I totally got hit on by a gay man. Yep, I still got it!
*A lesbian I met named Jennifer asked to exchange numbers so that we could go out dancing together again in future. I guess I know how to move and groove!
So either I'm doing something right or something incredibly wrong.
I think the best part was teaming up with Carmel and playing pool. It took them over an hour to knock us off the table. That's right baby!
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| Life Changes... |
[11 Jun 2007|03:30pm] |
*My younger sister finally has a boyfriend
*My childhood best friend just came out of jail
*Another childhood friend just graduated from Law School and will soon be taking the Bar Exam
*I make more money than I ever have, but I'm feeling like I may be fired or demoted at the restaraunt due to skill level.
*I'm deeply smitten with a single mom and her daughter.
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| Las Vegas Log: 1 |
[21 Apr 2007|07:50am] |
Captain's Log....
I've been set back fourteen hours behind my time table to leave for Las Vegas.
I was originally scheduled to depart yesterday via car rental from Enterprise. However I was unaware (as are most people in the civilized world), that you can only use a debit card if you are NOT renting from an airport location if you are local. This harkens back to the the great Enterprise Rent-A-Car fiasco in Midway Airport, Chicago back in October with Paul.
Well, local branches are just opening up. I'm going to call, get showered and dressed.
Think positive, Stuart...
Ace out.
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| Stuart the Scoundrel |
[20 Apr 2007|01:23pm] |
I am actually not very proud of this.
I was talking to Danny last night who is nearly done with Law School and will soon be a bona fide, honest to goodness lawyer. During our conversation, he had asked me if I'd been to BJ's recently to visit Paul.
This is the bit I'm not so proud of.
I told him that I was not exactly welcome there and wouldn't be for quite a while and related this story to him.
One day while wearing a very nice suit, I decided to visit Paul at his work at BJ's, a chain brewhouse restaurant. It was pre-dinner shift and most of the staff were milling about, laughing, fooling around and generally not being productive. I thought it would be a hoot to pretend to be one of the owners of BJ's or something and introduce myself under the alias of Jeremy Finch to these ruffians.
Many were skeptical, but some believed me.
Then the manager came in.
I had a decision to make. I could just get the hell out of there and forget about it, or I could raise the stakes a little and see if I could convince the manager that I was his de facto boss. Unfortunately, I was already on a roll and I'm never one to turn down a challenge.
"Hi, you must be the manager?" I said.
"Yes, I'm Trevor." said the manager, shaking my hand.
"Hi, I'm Jeremy Finch, I'm one of the regional co-owners."
Reading his body language, I could tell Trevor believed me as he tensed up a bit perceiving me to be one of the big bosses. I think I was successful at convincing him I was such by my serious, direct, assertive, but friendly manner and I really tried to put him at ease as I really didn't want him to be nervous as I really wasn't his boss.
After the conversation, he went in to do his duties and that was when I realized I was in hot water and had to get the hell out of there.
At first, I felt pretty satisfied with myself and pretty smug, but I soon began to feel bad. I'd made a fool out of Trevor and he'd soon find out. I began to wonder if I'd ever be able to use my "powers" for good.
I later got a text from Paul which in a nutshell meant that the jig was up and they'd all figured it out. I wasn't in any trouble as I was already miles away, but I still felt bad as I could've potentially jeopardized Paul's job.
Danny told me that for legal reasons, I would be better off not going anywhere near BJ's for a while as I could get into serious trouble.
Despite that, after this blows over a bit, I will go in personally and apologize to Trevor because I did play him the fool.
But is it wrong that deep down inside of me, there's a little part of me that is just the tinniest bit smug?
Stuart the Scoundrel I am. I am sooo a pirate.
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| ¡Baila! ¡Salsa! ¡Gucci! ¡Gucci! |
[20 Apr 2007|10:04am] |
The story so far...
Carmel had given me a suit she got from somebody last week. It was very nice but needed to be fitted. It was sort of a late birthday present from Carmel and I was jazzed about picking it up on Saturday. I then took a Muni home driven by the world's most irritated bus driver.
I was scheduled to arrive at work at 4:30pm that day, but I was running late. Saturday afternoons are usually slow anyway, so why worry.
I had forgotten about the quinceañera.
A quinceañera is a massive party for a young girl celebrating her 15th birthday; a transition into womanhood.
So when I arrived at work that afternoon, I stumbled into a party already spinning into high gear! Most of the guests were already seated, a mariachi band was playing and there were gorgeous people EVERYWHERE!
In addition to a new hostess named Yolanda, I was also surprised to find that the boss had pulled staff from one of his other restaurants, namely Didi, Mela and Rosie. Yolanda was an attractive, young, but shy Latina girl who was even more confused about things than I was. Didi, another Latina girl a bit younger than Yolanda was a little more gregarious. Mela, also a Latina spoke not a word of English and despite being possibly in her forties was unabashed at flirting with me and even violated me a little (well she pinched my abdomen). Rosie was a sweet older lady, again a Latina but spoke English. Old or young, English or not, I impressed and delighted them with my psuedo-Salsa dancing abilities.
The interesting bit was helping Saif at the bar as that was where I was most needed. You have to understand, I'd never tended bar in my LIFE! Okay, so I knew how to serve water, soda, beer and simple cocktails like screw drivers, jack and coke and rum and coke, etc. The cool thing was at the end of it, Saif said I could be on my way to train to be a back up bartender. Cool huh?
Oh yeah, and I almost forgot the bit about dumping not one, not two, but three, THREE glasses of red wine on a table. Whoops! The main thing in that situation is to apologize, get the whole thing cleaned up and get them their wine.
All told, the party ended at midnight, but myself and the crew remained until 2am cleaning up! TWO IN THE MORNING FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!! More than a full day's work, it was a nine hour shift.
But it was all well fun with salsa music, dancing and getting our groove on Latin style!
¿Quieres bailar?
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| Stuart Yee, the Novels |
[13 Apr 2007|08:27am] |
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Let's suppose my life was a series of novels.
I wonder what the titles would be....
*The Stuart Yee Adventures
*Stuart Yee and the Rednecks of Doom
*Stuart and Paul Strike Back
*Stuart Yee and the Hong Kong Triad
*Stuart Yee and the South Bay Girls *Stuart Yee's Arizona Adventures
*Stuart and Danny Tame the Wild *Stuart Yee and the Girls From Korea *Stuart Yee: Destitute in Los Angeles
*Stuart and Danny and The Snows of Lake Tahoe *Stuart and Paul: The Great American Adventure *Stuart Yee and the Hoodlums of the Ghetto *Stuart Yee Meets Mama Africa *Stuart Yee: Stranded in Barstow
*Stuart Yee and the Las Vegas Luck Lady
I would read these books
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| The Dawn of a New Era |
[02 Apr 2007|05:15pm] |
It is the dawn of a New Era.
The past week has been jam packed with some awesome experiences.
I started a month long "class" at VWR Scientific after quitting my job at Redwood "BOWOL" Financial.
I also started as a server at the Xebec which totally rocks. My experiences include:
*Serving to the Rich and Beautiful
*Speaking servicable German to a bunch of Austrian tourists
*Getting called "Chino!" by the Mexican cooks.
*Serving bottles of wine to 9 Japanese tourists
*Using my wit and charm for financial gain in the form of tips! =)
But this is just the BEGINNING!
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| Classical music |
[24 Mar 2007|03:58pm] |
This is very hard to put into words, but I'm going to do my darned best.
When my dad borrows my car, he sets my radio to the classical station. Usually when I get into the car, I have an idea of what I want to listen to it's a habit to pop in a CD and not listen to classical music.
But while I was about to do so the other day while waiting in the car for a friend, something interesting happened, I didn't want to change it!
The violins, or the horns or something latched onto my psyche with an iron grip and wouldn't let go! Rythms pulsated through every fiber of my muscle and I rode a rollercoaster of intense drama that only classical can deliver.
I started really getting into it. I don't know classical music. Well, I know it a little and I figured I was listening to either Bach, or Beethoven or Mozart. Whoever composed it, it was epic! I have no idea what the story was behind the piece, but I imagined knights and soldiers in battle armor clashing on a grassy field. I imagined angels falling from the sky in fiery streaks with God's vengeance in their eyes! It was intense.
I was moving my fingers and even closed my eyes! This was hardcore and I began to pick out the sounds of violin sections and I could see the wave of sound as crashing as the crescendos rose.
Then I began to think about this music. It was centuries old and harkened back to a long lost time. Who were these people of old that made this music. What did they know? What did they feel? What did they eat?
And then asked myself why it survived to this day. Why did this music live long after their creators?
With my pedestrian mind, the only conclusion and observation I could make was this (and classical music enthusiasts will slap me for saying this), it's sort of catchy!
I'm going to have to do better than that. I think I'll do a little research!
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| The life of the life of the life of me |
[22 Mar 2007|10:37pm] |
In no particular order are some random stories from the past few months. Check it!
Pre Valentine's Day I was going to write about this way before. It involves how I met a girl at the Elephant Bar about a week before Valentine's Day. When I started to write about it, the story was anti-climactic because nothing came of this except for maybe a little practice in meeting girls.
Paul is yet again proven wrong that girls do not find it creepy when a good looking guy (such as myself) introduce themselves in gentlemanly fashion to them.
Valentine's Day Proper 
I have two Valentine's Day subplots (I sound like a scriptwriter...). But I will start with the fact that I don't fully understand the bitterness that comes from people who happen to be single on Valentine's Day. Well, I suppose if you're lonely, it is a bitter reminder. As for myself, yeah, I'm single, and slightly lonely, but I wanted to celebrate Hallmark's artificially fabricated holiday and spread some love!
The first subplot isn't really a story. Mainly I dressed in black and red with my co-workers as pictured above and handed out Valentines. That's it really. It was fun though. I should be worried because the excitement of the day reached a climax when I found that I had gotten the latest installment of Doctor Who through Netflix that day. Oh yeah, and I let a couple heartbroken female friends cry on my electronic telephone shoulder a bit. Not bad!
The second story involves sending out Valentine's Day cards. This consisted of a surprise attack of grade school style Superman and Spiderman valentines sent out to unsuspecting victims. Liz allied herself with me in this assault with Snoopy Valentine's. The element of surprised was emphasized as most cards were a full week late in the sending! We'll do better next year!
St. Patrick's Day 
All I really wanted to do on St. Patrick's day was have a laid back Irish stout and relax as per Irish tradition. As it turns out, I am partly Irish and my middle name is Patrick.
I picked up Paul that night and we took local transit to downtown to go to Kennedy's! Let me elaborate on Kennedy's.
Kennedy's is not your typical American bar. It more closely resembles a true Irish pub in that the lighting is a bit better and cozier, there are more games such as pool, air hockey and such, and in British fashion, it is conveniently attached to an Indian restaurant. Going to Kennedy's is not like going to a bar, it is like going to a laid back coffee shop that happens to sell alcoholic spirits. In short, Kennedy's is a great place to relax and lounge.
The evening was a bit cold, so on our trek from Market St. to Columbus, we decided to stop at a place we found on Kearny called Murphy's to warm ourselves with a first round of stout. How Irish is that?
Murphy's was a decent sports bar type situation, but it was vastly too dim to be comfortable, so we left as soon as our beverages were exhausted, whereupon I met a half Japanese guy named Kenji. How Japanese is that?
Continuing on what would sort of be an old fashioned Irish pub crawl through San Francisco, we entered Chinatown. I'm not sure I would have bought the above pictured Commie Uncle Mao hat if I weren't a bit twatted. I would have bought the round one with a fake braid hanging down the back.
In the shop in Chinatown, I met a man named Chris and his wife Rene from Wisconsin. I apologize for the poor picture quality, as with cowboy hat and velvet sports coat, this guy was larger than life!
It turned out that he was a radio host for the ONLY radio variety show west of the Mississippi. You can listen to this show online as I will later post the web address.
We then went to the Li Po Lounge where as the picture suggests, Paul bought me a Tsingtao. It was my first Tsingtao ever, and as it turned out, I didn't really like it until I put a lime in it. The cool thing about the Li Po Lounge is the classical Chinese decor and the loads of Chinese music on the jukebox.
Our crawl continued through North Beach where we stopped in a cafe for gelatto and coffee. This of course is not part of a traditional Irish pub crawl, but what the hell! We then met up with Dave Velasco who is one of the horniest persons I know. His catch phrase is "My face tastes like cherries!".
We finally made it to Kennedy's which was everything I hoped it wouldn't be, dimly lit and crowded with barely legal college students looking to get drunk and laid.
Despite that slight disappointment, it was an overall good St. Patrick's Day.
The Jacket I had some business in downtown San Francisco near the Transbay Terminal one night, when I ran into what appeared to be a man down on his luck clad only in a t-shirt. This was most remarkable because it was a rather chilly evening and his arms were folded inside of his shirt.
This Black American seemed homeless as it were, ragged and scruffy in condition and shuffling about aimlessly at the Transbay Terminal. He however did not ask for any money. As I said before, it was chilly and I felt sorry for him.
"A bit cold, isn't it?" I said sympathetically.
"That it is." he said.
I meant to be sympathetic, but I felt like a jackass in my wool sports coat, french cuff shirt with cuff links and silk tie.
As providence would have, I had a slightly ragged sport coat in my car! It had a few tears, needed a bit of stitching and a new lining and I'd been meaning to take it to a tailor. Screw that! I'm too much of a procrastinator.
"Sir," I said. "As it turns out, I have a jacket in my car you can have."
He followed me, dubiously at first like a shy dog to my car. I pulled out the jacket and it seemed to fit him nicely!
He liked the lining!
I was a bit hungry, so assuming he was a local, I asked him where there was a good place to get something to eat.
"There's a Jack In The Box on 1st between Mission and Market." Fast food wasn't what I had in mind.
Walking to the Jack In The Box, this newly jacketed man followed me.
"Are you hungry?" I said.
"Yes I am."
"I may be able to remedy that."
So waiting in line, just before I can say "Order anything you want", he says "Get me two Ultimate Cheeseburgers, a Large Fries and a Strawberry Milkshake."
Now I'd assumed he would order something big, but TWO Ultimate Cheeseburgers was unexpected. Oh well. I did however object to the milkshake.
"Why?" he said.
"The cholesterol will kill you," I said. I am a man of principle. "Water is the ticket for you!"
"How about a coke?" he asked.
"Bad for you as well, there's chemicals in that stuff they use to clean the rust of ships! Water is the best thing for you!"
"Lemonade?"
"Too much sugar. I'll splurge though. You can have TWO waters!"
"Thanks man, I'll pay you back."
How on God's green earth he thought he was ever going to be able to pay me back, I'll never know.
A Red Truck, A Union Bricklayer, A Novia and a Bit of Rope My dad borrowed my car (his was in the shop) so I was taking the bus home. Nearly in Brisbane, I get a call from Paul. Coincidentally, his car had stalled out in the middle of the road just two bus stops up and wouldn't start. I got off the bus and had a brisk walk to Paul's red truck.
Now if I were a smarter man, I would have stayed on the bus, gone home and gotten my car. Whereas just Paul was stranded, now it was two of us!
Luckily, a latin dude pulled up in a truck and stopped to help us get Paul's truck off the road.
"Thank you, sir." I said.
"Don't call me 'sir', I'm in the bricklayer's union. Call me Walter!"
"Okay Walter!"
After getting Paul's truck safely off the road, Walter was nice enough to give us a lift back into Brisbane. We asked where he was headed and he told us that he was on his way to his girlfriend's house when he stopped to help us. Obviously helping us out and giving us a lift to Brisbane took him out of his way and he was probably running a little late to his little novia's house.
Walter's phone rang as we pulled into the first stop light into Brisbane. Looking at the caller ID, I could have sworn he smirked and said "check this out!"
Putting the phone on speaker, Walter said, "Hello baby!"
"Hello amor!" said his girlfriend with a lucious latin voice.
"Where are you baby?" said Walter.
"Where are you?" she asked. I love how Walter is obviously late for his date and he asks where she is!
"I am with two good friends." said Walter.
"Who?"
"I have two new friends now, amor!"
"Who are they?"
"They are strangers!"
There was a brief exchange in Spanglish intermixed with a few cat growls and Walter dropped us off.
What a guy!
At my house, Paul and I got into my car. We were both starving so Paul bought me dinner at IHOP figuring we could figure out his truck situation better with a fuller stomach.
Eleven at night already, we went back to his truck and tried for about ten minutes to get it started. We had no luck and Paul was worried about a nearby sign that said "NO PARKING 3AM - 5AM TOW AWAY ZONE".
I had thirty feet of rope about half as thin as my pinky which Paul proposed we could use to tow his truck back into Brisbane. I was unsure as to whether or not the line was strong enough, but more to the point I wasn't sure if there were any tie points on my car.
Not only did I not have anywhere to tie the line to my car, but I discovered that my exhaust was hanging a bit lower than it should and was threatening to fall out! Well, more on my exhaust pipe later.
Leaving Paul's truck to chance with notes posted on all the windows, I gave him a lift back to his house.
Parking in front of his family's Explorer, he starts eyeing it.
"You think we could tow my truck with the Explorer?" Paul asked.
I was dead tired, but what the hell! You only live once.
Driving the Explorer back to South City and parking just in front of Paul's truck we find tie points on both the Explorer and the front of his Truck.
Remember, I said the line I had was about half as thick as my pinky. Would you try towing a big old truck with line half as thick as your pinky? Probably not, but I tried anyway.
It's times like these where I feel smart. The line wasn't very thick but I did have thirty feet of it. Tying a bowline not on the Explorer's hitch, I run about ten feet of line to the front of Paul's truck and wrap it several times around a tie hook. Then, I took the remainder of the line and wound it and twisted it back around itself to the Explorer; by doing this, it more than doubled the tensile strength of the line as if I were using a doubly thick line. This I wound around the Explorer's tow hitch again, and wound the rest in a spiral about ten inches down the line toward the truck. It was beautiful. More importantly, it worked!
South City to Brisbane is normally about five minutes. But with a line of dubious strength and only about ten feet between us, we went at a tedious ten miles per hour. The thing about towing a vehicle with a rope is that you have to have a driver in the vehicle being towed as well and this was tricky. I drove the Explorer while Paul stayed in the truck applying the truck's brakes as necessary so as not to crash into it whenever I had to slowdown or stop.
We were towing the truck to a parking lot near Paul's house as his house was up a hill and a bit risky for our maneuver. This worked out pretty well except about two hundred feet away from the parking lot, I jerked the Explorer around a corner a bit too fast and my line snapped. Nothing for it now, we were going to have to push!
Severing the line, which was made of a polymer (a fancy word for plastic), I found that the friction of the line wound around itself was so great when towing Paul's truck, that it actually melted a bit and fused to itself!
If you want to beat gas prices, there's nothing like a Stuart powered car! Pushing it two hundred or so feet, I was EXHAUSTED. We made it just to the driveway of the lot where the truck slowed to a sickening stop just atop a small bump in the road. My legs at this point were jelly and I'd pushed myself so hard I was a bit faint and almost even wanted to puke.
Well, this situation was solved by using the longest bit of line left and again towing the truck smartly into place.
We did it!
I was dead tired and fell right to sleep last night. Whew! What an adventure!
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| Uncle Mick |
[26 Feb 2007|11:08am] |
Auntie Vikki and Uncle Mick
The thing you have to know about Uncle Mick in order to understand one of my fondest memories with him is that he is a genuine Yurok Native American Indian. So when we were watching Dances With Wolves, there was a part when the Sioux accidentally stumbled upon Kevin Costner's character bathing in a stream and promptly ran away. Uncle Mick said, "I'd run too if I saw a white man's nuts!"
I don't think Uncle Mick would win any awards for refinement nor ettiquette. I don't think he would have been a model church boy. But I know that with the gravel in his belly and his rough edged humor and demeanor, he had a huge heart that filled his barrel chest. My eyes get damp when I think how I will never get another big bear hug from my uncle ever again. He left us too soon just yesterday.
It'd only been just a little over a year since <a href="http://captainace.livejournal.com/2005/12/12/">he went into the ICU</a>. He had been warned that because of some health challenges, he had to quit smoking and not drink so much, but he didn't. In a way I want to be angry at him for not taking better care of himself, but it's too late to be upset. Maybe we were all lucky to get an extra year with him.
I think one of the funniest stories goes back many years at Uncle Mick and Auntie Vikki's annual Christmas party sometime late during the Clinton administration. This is the first time I saw my Uncle drunk, and a sentimental drunk he is. I remember his drunken monologue to me punctuated with several hugs went something like this:
"Stuart, I can tell that you are a man of honor, and I love you *hug*. And I want you to know that I love your Auntie, I love your mother, and I love your father, and I love your sister, and I love YOU! *hug* And what the hell is going on with this Clinton thing? Doesn't know the meaning of the word "is"? *drunken laughter and hug*........"
And thus was immortalized the "I love your aunt, and I love...." speech.
Throughout the years, the Mickism would continue. Favorites of mine included referring to the household mutt as "dog-ass" and remarking, "Goddam Indians don't know how to follow directions...can't find anywhere without a compass...sheeeit!" I dunno, I guess you had to be there.
His boistrous, salty humor always brought a smile to my face, including the time he told me to go get him a beer and to tell them that it was for the Yurok Indian Chief.
I'm going to miss his big heart underneath his rugged exterior as well as his stories from when he was in the Navy. Our family and the world lost a first rate comedian, a fine husband, great uncle, awesome friend and good man. I speak for my family when I say, we miss you Uncle Mick.
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| Celebrating 26 Years of Lunacy Stuart Yee Style |
[01 Feb 2007|12:12am] |
My birthday celebration started properly the day before when I skipped out of work early employing acting skills garnered late in high school to feign illness. I fake illness to leave work early only sparingly to keep it convincing. (As I write this, my boss is walking by....whew! He didn't see this!)
My folks wanted to have a birthday dinner on the day BEFORE my birthday for reasons that seemed reasonable at the time, although I can't remember why. At any rate, my brother came for dinner so it was a proper family affair. Pictures of this are on my mom's camera which she promptly misplaced that night.
For dinner we had succelent grilled salmon! Happiness sometimes starts life swimming up stream and ends up on a plate with garlicy lemon butter.
But what kind of cake did we have? Actually we have a strange tradition that I actually have a birthday TRIFLE instead of a cake. Trifle is an English desert consisting of layers or rum splashed sponge cake, custard and berries. If you live your entire life without ever trying trifle, you are a complete idiot.
Then were presented to me a kick ass Army of Darkness t-shirt from my sister, a gold bracelett from my folks and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" on DVD. It's the original Sidney Portier and Katheryn Hephburn version, not the modern travesty with Bernie Mac and Ashton "I'm screwing Demi Moore" Kutcher.
It says, "Yo she-bitch, let's go!"
My brother and I left and went to pick up long time friend Paul to go out. We encountered a slight puzzle as I just wanted to get coffee, Paul wanted a beer and Adrian, my brother wanted to get stoned (well he IS a forest hippie!). Going to BJ's at Tanforan mall solved this dilemna. Parking far in the back lot, Adrian had enough time to smoke a joint as we walked to the restaurant where I got my coffee and Paul got his beer. Everyone was happy!
Paul, my brother and I.
"That's right! It's MY birthday!"
My brother and I.
Over beer, coffee, bruschetta and a roasted chicken and garlic pizza, we three discussed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as is common among guys, as has been common among guys for centuries.
At one point, Paul and Adrian cornered me in a debate concerning my dislike of hip hop*. Paul's main point was that the only reason I didn't like hip hop was because I hadn't heard any "good" hip hop. To me, this is like saying "The only reason you don't like cooked spinach is because you've never had any 'good' cooked spinach" when a man knows damn well whether or not he likes cooked spinach or not. It is not to say that I don't APPRECIATE "good" hip hop (of which is few and far between, but I have heard), I just don't like it.
Midnight came and it was my birthday proper.
Leaving the BJ's, it became apparent, after a joint and several beers, that my brother was pretty loaded. We drove home listening to Richie, which to be honest is really bad German pop music, yet funny in a way. Adrian was spending the night with us.
At home, Adrian and I caught the last bit of Conan O'Brien just before Brooks called, being the first friend officially of 2007 to wish me a happy birthday.
***
Waking up late the next day, it was my birthday proper, and yet a mostly normal day. I don't think I got much work done as my phone kept ringing with birthday well wishing friends. The most embarassing part was getting serenaded by co-workers.
Coming back home, my folks gave me two more presents. A food proccessor which kicked ass because I always wanted one and a license plate frame that says "my other vehicle is a TARDIS". Nerdy, I know, but why not?
Carmel came by and gave me her gift: RED DWARF: SERIES VII!!!!! I was ecstatic.
Carmel and I went to her house and watched Army of Darkness and that is how the evening of my birthday was spent.
Friends since kindergarten.
***
Apparently my birthday is a three day celebration because the office had gotten me a cake the day after my birthday. Where I really scored however was $100 cash straight out of my boss's pocket which made me hideously guilty about skipping out early the day before last.
That night Danny called while I was asleep saying "Happy Birthday!" thus making me wonder which day actually was my birthday.
And that in a nutshell is how my birthday went.
I realize that many people at my age like to involve parties, lots of people and terrifying amounts of alcohol with their birthdays, but this one was perfect because I spent it mainly with the people I I love.
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| Ready to Rumble and Screaming British Girls |
[01 Feb 2007|12:11am] |
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In related news, I went to Chinatown yesterday.
I was waiting by the gates for a friend who was forty-five minutes late and probably not showing up when I pretty girl walked into Chinatown. She passed me, I turned around, saw she had a nice bum and decided to chat her up.
At a crosswalk, I address her,
"Hey, do you know of any good places to eat that a tourist like me might be able to find?"
"There's a good dim sum restaurant on x street over there."
"Awesome! I actually know of a few places, but I always get lost when I'm in Chinatown!"
"I know! (laughs) Where are you from?" she said.
"Oh I'm actually from here. I live in Brisbane now."
"Oh did you move away?" she asked.
"Oh no, I was joking about the tourist bit. No matter how often I come here, I never learn to find my way."
She laughed.
"So where are you from?" I asked.
"I'm from here."
"I see. I'm Stuart Yee by the way. What's your name?"
"I'm Maggie"
"Pleased to meet you Maggie!" I shake her hand. "So what do you do?"
"I study business. What do you do?"
"I work in the mortgage industry. It's excitingly dull."
Maggie laughs
"So where are you off to?" I ask.
"I'm getting some wrapping paper."
"Ah. Well I just got stood up for lunch. Would you like to join me? My treat!" I invite. That's what I call going for the jugular!
"Thanks but no. I'm meeting with my boyfriend later on."
"Ah." Damn! And things weren't going half bad.
"Well," I muse. "There's the egg on my face."
Maggie chuckles. "I'm sorry about that!"
"It was nice to meet you Maggie."
"ANd you! I'm turning here. Bye!" Oh well, here's to trying!
SCREAMING BRITISH GIRLS I'm not overly fond of the Beatles, but they had something. They were REAL music. But when I think of the Beatles long enough, the neural pathways in my mind eventually lead me to memories of watching film footage from their concert and seeing thousands and thousands of screaming British girls. Not only are they screaming British girls, but they are screaming British Girls in 60's hair styles and 60's dress which I find particularly attractive. If I think about this long enough, my neural pathways begin to cultivate the fantasy that I am somehow the center of attention of thousands of screaming British girls with 60's haircuts and 60's dress. The way I see it, if you're going to have a fantasy, it might as well be one HELL of a fantasy...
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| Music |
[26 Jan 2007|11:03pm] |
Music is a vastly strange thing.
I would not say I'm a music fanatic or connosier. In fact in a lot of ways I'm simply a horrid consumer of music. In short, I do not claim to have good musical taste, but I love it.
I will tell you that I know what REAL music is. Brittany Spears, Pussy Cat Dolls and Akkon for example are NOT real music. They are the flavored sugar pixie sticks of music. I'd rather listen to a herd of elephents suffering from a bad bout of dystentry than that.
My co-worker gave me a ride to the bus stop last night, bless her heart. She handed me her CD collection album and let me pick a CD. She does not have taste in music. I don't mean she has bad taste, she simply lacks taste in music at all. Her CD collection seemed to be a jumble of any CD that was ever popular going three years back. None of that was REAL music.
Now by REAL music, I mean music that actually has meaning to it and illicits some sort of emotion rather than something you nod your head to like a zombie. I suppose gangsta rap illicits an emotion to, but those are usually confined to busting caps on niggas or banging hoes.
I did however spot a Depeche Mode CD! Now that was real music...sort of. It was the most real of the bunch anyway.
"Can I play this!" I asked excitedly. Hey, I like Depeche Mode.
"Okay she says."
Annoyingly, she would advance the track half way through a song.
"You know," she said. "I don't even listen to this."
It figures, the one piece of REAL (or mostly real) music in her collection and she doesn't even listen to it.
So for some reason, listening to Depeche Mode inspired me to make a Jazz CD for my co-worker. Yeah, good ol' Duke Ellington! Maybe some lounge music too with some Deano and Sinatra. It's classy, but I tell you what, there isn't much music out there today more real than classic jazz or blues. That's REAL!
Here's where music is wierd. Depeche Mode for some reason inspired me to look up that song that goes "Hey ho! Let's go!" by the Ramones. I don't know why.
Fifteen minutes at Barnes and Noble, I learned the song I was looking for was entitled "Blitzkrieg Bop". I don't even listen to the Ramones, but I wanted that song, I mean it's CLASSIC. Honestly, I would probably lose in an argument trying to explain why Blitzkrieg Bop was more REAL than Tupac, but I like it.
I love "The Best of..." compilations. One CD, one stop shopping and you get everything thing you want without having to buy eight seperate albums. Honestly, all I really wanted was Blitzkrieg Bop and the rest could go.
So if I only wanted one song, why didn't I just download it? I suppose I have enough moral fiber to figure that it made up for all the music I'd pirated previously. Hence it all evened out and I paid my full dues for every song I had, it's just that The Ramones won the magical lottery this time around and got paid for it.
Tonight, I may look up some James Brown. Why James Brown after buying the Ramones? I dunno, it's funny how music is like that.
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| The Last Two Months* |
[09 Jan 2007|07:09pm] |
The last remarkable thing I wrote about was my cross-country trip from Chicago to San Francisco. That took place in late October. The narrative was divided into six chapters, the last of which was completed in December though the event in question was in October. Intermixed between chapters was an accounting of my Halloween adventures with Paul which did occur well after the Chicago trip though written before the conclusion of the Chicago trip. Confused?
Los Angeles in November
Thanksgiving traditionally opens the holiday season, and consequently the day after Thanksgiving is by far the largest shopping day in the United States. God bless American commercialism.
Traditionally, my family has our Thanksgiving dinner on the Wednesday before. On Thanksgiving proper, my father and I go to Los Angeles to an annual science fiction convention for business and fun. That Wednesday, I skipped out of work early, interviewed for another job that I didn’t take and then came home just in time for Thanksgiving dinner.
The thing I love about Thanksgiving dinner is it’s very much like a medieval feast.
On Thanksgiving, my father set out for Los Angeles in his Volksvagen camper van. Early that evening as the sun began to set, we made it only just passed the Grapevine in Lebec when the van’s engine conked out.
Lucky it was a camper van, otherwise I don’t know how we would’ve gotten anywhere else to stay. We made “camp” that night in the van in the Lebec rest stop. If I was to choose one and only one word to describe Lebec, it would be cold. If I were allowed two words, they would be hideously cold.
After deft use of cell phones and some help from family and friends over the phone, we arranged to have Enterprise Rent-A-Car pick us up so that we could continue the trip in order to finish business at the convention in Los Angeles and therefore ensure we had enough funds to raise money.
The thing about the convention just across the street from LAX some eighty miles from where the van sat broken down, we almost forgot about our troubles with the van. Geeky as I am, I wore a mostly historically accurate Nordic costume from the 9th Century and met the man who wrote the script for “The Trouble With Tribbles”, a very famous and classic episode from the original Star Trek series. Almost no one appreciated the effort I put in my costume.
The next day, I wore a flamboyant if not borderline-metrosexual pirate outfit. That got a lot of acclaim. If Johnny Depp had starred in a Viking movie rather than a pirate movie, my Viking outfit would’ve gotten more attention.
At the close of the convention, that Sunday after Thanksgiving, it was back to reality, we were stuck in Los Angeles. No way to get the van repaired until the next day. The thing about Los Angeles is that it is a relatively fun place to visit as long as your stay is no longer than say three or four days. On the other hand, Los Angeles is an absolutely HIDEOUS place to be kept in against your will. No wonder the locals drive like they do.
Towing the van to Bakersfield the next day, we found that it would take several days to repair. Several days in Bakersfield are like a week in Los Angeles: we went home in the rental.
A series of events which I was not a party to lead my brother and father going back to Bakersfield and Los Angeles to return the rental and retrieve the van.
Thus began December!
The Holidays
Two things were unique about my Christmas this year. Firstly, I was the first in my household to have finished shopping for my family and the first to have all the gifts wrapped. In previous years, there was often much last minute wrapping on the morning of Christmas. However, satellite friends and family are still waiting for their gifts!
The second thing were Christmas cards. I sent out thirty three Christmas cards, not including four of which are stragglers that I have at the time of writing yet to send (procrastination much?). This is in sharp contrast to NEVER having sent a Christmas card before in my life! A direct result of which was receiving between ten and fifteen Christmas cards myself, and again, I’d never received that many.
The really fun thing about the Christmas cards is that I kept receiving them even up to last Monday! I presume that Christmas card, from Susie of Minnesota (of whom I have more to mention later) will be the last for this season, but has the special distinction of being the first of the year! I found out how reliable the US Postal system is in learning that Susie in fact did not receive my card until about three weeks after I had sent it on the 23rd of December.
Another great thing about this year was that for the first time in five years, I didn’t have a girl in the picture this time around. It sounds selfish, but girlfriends and semi-girlfriends during the holidays presented an emotional burden if not totally tainting the Christmas memory for later years. This year, it was just the family and I and that’s exactly how I wanted it.
As for New Year’s, I don’t make yearly resolutions per se, but I was determined to get back into film making this year. To kick it off, I was going to do a documentary on the New Year’s celebration in downtown San Francisco.
Rich had bullied me in grade school, but after running into me recently and wanting to apologize for past wrongs, we’d gotten a beer together and found that we had a shared interest in film making. I called him in the week before New Year’s to ask for his help and he was stoked about it. I called him again a few days later to touch base to find his line disconnected. I have yet to regain contact and doubt I ever will.
Similar frustrations in the attempt to get crew and equipment together to do the documentary persisted well into New Year’s Eve. I’d phoned one guy who had in the past expressed a slight desire to go into film making with me.
“What’s the project? He asked.
“We’re doing a documentary on New Year’s Eve!” I said excitedly.
“So what’s the concept?”
“Well—that’s uh—it, really. We film as much footage as possible on the celebration and make a documentary.” I thought that was good enough.
“Well, without a concept I don’t think my business team will allow me to work it,” he said.
His last statement made no reasonable sense whatsoever and he never answered his phone again so I never found out what the hell he was talking about.
In the end, the furtive, well intentioned but ill prepared and ill equipped attempt was aborted. I spent New Year’s Eve with Brooks and Amanda and got hideously drunk.
On the BART train ride home the next morning, a Korean girl kept talking to me as I desperately tried to nap off a hangover on the train thus adding to the peculiarly growing number of Korean girls I have been meeting at random on trains and such.
Back to Normality
There’s a certain holiday spirit which vanishes utterly in January leaving you to feel like a heroine addict coming off a high (not that I would accurately know what coming off of heroine is like, I’m only guessing). Added to this are frustrations from finally getting phone numbers from Jesse and Suzanne on two separate occasions only to have them never answer their phones when I called. Both are girls I had had crushes on in high school and are in fact mentioned in much, much older entries of this journal. Jesse was nick named “Juicy” because of the clothing line she often wore and because it sounded vaguely like her name. I referred to Suzanne as Hot Korean Nights because she was in fact (and still is) Korean and because this was two years ago (a time when my friends and I would secretly refer to all our crushes as “hot so-in-so nights” whereas you inserted their nationality for so-in-so). I realize that this, coupled with my earlier reference of running into a lot of Korean girls might imply that I have some sort of fetish for Korean girls. This is an erroneous conclusion as meeting Korean girls is not the same thing as actually having a crush on them. Moreover it is a sad but true fact that I have no aptitude in telling Koreans from Chinese or Japanese and so forth (but for some reason I can tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese easily). If anything, the sad but honest truth is that I have a crush on Billy Piper, a blond British girl whom I know from afar as the actress who played Rose on the new Doctor Who series.
I digress.
The point I was trying to make is that several factors lead to a temporary depression earlier this month. But three things defeated this short lived depression.
Firstly, I came down with the flu from hell the second week in January. This may seem as a contradiction, but a flu does wonders to combat depression. Firstly, it gives you a valid excuse to be non-productive. What have you done with your life? Nothing? That’s okay, you have the flu! A flu also gives you the opportunity to catch up on TV, books and computer games. Thanks to Netflix, I watched hours upon hours of Doctor Who, thus cultivating my crush on Doctor Who. Thanks also to my flu, I played a ton of Shogun: Total War, a game about warfare in feudal Japan with samurais.
I would have to say the most awesome part of my flu was cashing in on my paid sick days at work. How sweet is it to get paid to drool at Billy Piper and conquer feudal Japan?
The second awesome thing about January was getting my car, FINALLY! I’d been without a car since August and it is nice to get back to the automotive world. Granted I got it for cheap because it needed some fix-its that are still giving me a headache, automotive repair frustration has a funny way of combating post-holiday depression because no matter how much trouble your car gives you, you still got a car damn it!
And lastly, Brooks is moving back to Brisbane with his fiancée Amanda. Granted they are moving in with Brooks’ parents and I can’t imagine how awkward or frustrating that may prove to be, but Brooks is no dummy. Again for the first time in over a year, if I want to see Brooks to hang out, waste tame and kill brain cells, I only have to walk less than a block as opposed to driving to Fremont.
The best is yet to come. My birthday is next week and I will begin a dating campaign after that! 2007: how sweet it is!
Thanks Susie!
I don’t know what factors initiated my efforts, but I’d gotten back into fictional writing recently. I again met with several frustrations in this attempt. Firstly, I have a hard time nailing down a meaningful plot. A story without a plot is simply a jumble of words that don’t go anywhere that no one will care to read, much like this journal entry. Aside from that, I noticed I lack proper character development. Without that, readers lose interest in whether or not Johnny X succeeds or not. Lastly, I seem to have a hard time integrating my usual humor into my fictional writing without trying to sound too much like a bad Douglas Adams imitation. In short, I suck as a writer and presumably have no future in it.
However, I persist. At the heart of it, I WANT to be a writer. In fact, in my lifetime, I once made $100 from the sale of a screenplay for an anti-tobacco PSA to PBS for broadcast that I WROTE! And reading about Douglas Adams in “The Salmon of Doubt” (highly recommended by the way) has added some inspiration. Reading about Douglas Adams, my all time favorite author whom has inspired/contaminated my writing style that others find witty and funny at times, I found that he had the same frustrations that I’m having and look at him NOW! Well maybe not literally, since he passed on a few years ago, but you get my drift (and I realize this gag is a bit tactless, but I think Douglas Adams would’ve appreciated it anyhow).
This all culminated when I received Susie’s Christmas card. Now Susie, I believe I told you I would be mentioning you in my journal. In the back of your mind you may be thinking that I’m making such a big deal of you and devoting a significant portion of this entry because I am secretly in love with you or something like that because that is just the sort of conclusion I might’ve come to myself. No, I’m not in love with you or anything like that, but you have fulfilled an equally important purpose. You sent me a Christmas card!!!!!
Actually, a lot of people sent me cards this year, and Susie is not the first to say that she hopes to see a published book from me, but she did so in her card at the right time.
At the heart of it what I’m saying is that Susie’s Christmas card came at exactly the right moment. She was very sweet and said that she enjoyed my posts on the AGWG thread and hoped to see a published book from me someday. Well, she wasn't necesarily the first or only one to say that about my writing, but for some reason, it's magical.
I have at one point in my life been paid to write. I have attempted to get paid again. I have even had compliments from professional writers before. But for some thing, the one thing that is driving me now is that Susie said I could.
Thanks Susie, I hope all is well in Minnesota!
*Other title ideas included “The Holidays”, “First Entry of 2007!”, and even “Captain Ace Returns!”
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captainace's journal
Kristy Yamaguchi - perhaps an unforseen but otherwise obvious result of dating and falling in love with Rhonda is noticing the distinct Japanese American look for the first time all over again.