When I Grow Up


Yes, I know there was this huge gap between my last blog and this (I think I missed two Saturdays), but [enter excuse here].

Actually I do have a valid excuse. I've been sick... a-freakin-gain. I had to miss a day of work last week when it was bad. I think it's just a cold, but I'm such a baby when it comes to headaches and sore throats and mucus and clogged ears and schtuff. I should be fully over it by Tuesday though.

Anyway, I was watching this MTV show "True Life" yesterday and they were talking about competitive eaters. It seems like the ones that do the best in these eating contests are the skinny/fit ones, which struck me as odd. But whatever the case, I've decided to pursue a career as a competitive eater!

Let's see... all I have to do is eat 22 pounds of noodles every other night. I already eat 1/22 of that!

Okay, I'll probably never become a hot dog eating champion (maybe a CostCo polish dog champ). Actually watching those people eat so much makes me sick. It's not normal.

Speaking of athletes (we weren't, but I needed a segue), I'm so glad the Winter Olympics are ending. About the only person I cared to root for was Michelle Kwan and since she dropped out, I've been dreading its two week run. Two weeks meant lack of the few NBC shows I watch; namely Scrubs, Earl, and The Office. So having them back next week will be a breath of fresh air.

Next week also brings Ellvin Kelvin and his girlfriend (I'm not sure at the moment if I made a Routes identity for her). They'll be here for their Spring break where they'll hit up Disneyland and Magic Mountain and CURRY HOUSE. Then they'll high tail it to Seattle for a few days. Not sure what's in Seattle. Sounds kinda backwoodsy to me.

So because they're coming over, we've been cleaning house like mad women with black diaries. I'm finding it easier to throw away stuff. Things that I found valuable as keepsakes years ago find their way to the trash in a split second. And it feels good, you know? Years ago we had rats running around the house. I cleaned out some dresser drawers and found some old rat poop! Freakin' nasty.

Okay, that seems a little too much information. So let's leave it here.


Hacking up a loogie,

Ricky
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FedUp With FedEx


I'm suprised at how well the name FedEx lends itself to being hated, as evidenced in the title. Also, this blog contains massive amounts of swearing and the act of getting things off my chest.

FUCKIN' FedEx! They were to deliver my new software today, of all days, a glorious Saturday when I'm actually home to sign for the package and what happens??? They come at 9:34am, while I was awake, but I hear no doorbell or knocking. Abso-fuckin-lutely nothing. The package needs a signature upon delivery and the next time they'll try is on Tuesday. Well fuckin' shit on me ya damn bastards. Thanks a fuckin' lot. Now I'm screwed. Don't even try on Tuesday or Wednesday because no one's gonna be home. Maybe I should hire a maid for the day just to sign for my fuckin' package.

Oh yeah, and I called FedEx to ask them about delivering next weekend, but I got routed to some guy in Texas who couldn't speak fuckin' clear English! What the hell??? How come I couldn't understand a goddamn word he was saying!!?! Probably because he has a fourth grade education, likes to be impaled in the butt by bulls, and voted for Bush.

Shit!

Well, if anyone has dealt with something like this with FedEx before, let me know what you did after the "Final [Delivery] Attempt." I managed to understand the Texan guy say that the package is held for ten days at their facility before it's shipped back to the deliverer, but what the hell can I do about that? Can I go to the facility to just pick it up myself? Goddamn, I fuckin' wish.


Making up clever alliterations: Fuck FedEx for fuckin' fuck fuck fuckity fuck shit.

Ricky
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Ricky Routine


Hi.

We're well into February and not so much as a peep from me. I'm going through a bit of writer's block. I keep racking my brain trying to find something worthwhile to blog about, but nothing seems to be going on. Is this the result of my work routine?

Every morning, I wake up at 5:30am, shower, get dressed, get to the train station. Then on the train, I fire up the Nintendo DS and do my Animal Crossing chores; find fossils, pull weeds, drink java with pigeon milk, assemble snowman. When we arrive at Union Station, I walk to the bus, ride to my work building, get breakfast; breakfast burritos, omelets, or waffles. Then I hunker down in my cubicle for eight lovely hours of software testing, answering the phone, and other fun stuff. After work, it's the train homebound, dinner, TV shows, and perhaps the gym. That's about it.

And there we go. That's the most interesting thing I could think up to blog about. Hopefully things will pick up soon. I think we have some sort of party to attend. At least I'd have a picture to post. Something to keep this thing interesting.


Mmm, Go-Gurt good,

Ricky
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Pattern Saturday


Welcome to the routine. Seems like Saturday is Blog Day for me.

Well, I'll take this opportunity to get something off my chest.

I've been taking a lot of heat for being an Apple computer user and it's all from the same kind of people... PC loving dorks who have never used a Mac. I get pokes calling my iBook a "toy" and that it's not a real computer. Hi, dumbass. It does just about everything a PC can do, but looks and feels twenty times better. Plus, it's forty times easier to use. People think that just because it's easier to use, means it's less powerful. Bullshit. Everything's just more intuitive. The only thing Macs don't do well is games which means nothing to me since I let Nintendo handle that. Computer use is fun and smooth with OS X. Utilizing Expose to easily get around open windows and a wealth of keyboard shortcuts have me flying through my everyday computing with amazing fluidity. These features are things that I can't imagine living without. At work, I hate using that stupid Dell machine because it's slow and Windows is clunky. Yeah, Microsoft will copy Apple with Vista, but I'm content with Apple.

Just the other day, Razor Ramon gave his reason for not liking Apple: "You have to keep buying expensive software." Another perfect example of people not knowing what the heck they're talking about because they refuse to take the time to learn about the alternatives. Sure Apple releases updates to their software packages (iLife each year... OS upgrades every two years), but they aren't forcing me to upgrade. If I want the new features they've added to iPhoto or iMovie, then I'll pay for them. It's no different from other companies, like Adobe. Upgrades equal return buyers. The thing about Microsoft is that they let you sit on their OS until they're incredibly obsolete. Apple upgrades often, keeping up with advancing and innovative technology. Who wouldn't want their software companies to continually improve themselves?

He could have brought up a valid complaint about Apple with their expensive hardware. $150 for their webcam is ridiculous (although it does work very well, easily, and integrated with many programs).

It's stupid really. I'm just trying to live life using a Mac and people who I guess are threatened for some reason or another have to open their mouths and talk down to me. I mean, who the hell is in a position to say which system is better? I for one have used a PC forever (and still do at work) and know for a fact that OS X on Macs is the superior system. That's fact. And unless those PCers step off their high horse for one minute and get to know life on a Mac, they'll never know what their missing. And their opinions will never matter. And they'll continue to be bathed in viruses and spyware (or their equally annoying anti software).

Enjoy your security flaw patches, fools.


Virus/Spyware/Headache/Hassle-free,

Ricky
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Same Ol' Story


Yet another week goes by and again I've nothing to talk about. No stories in particular. No tales from work. No news on life. No tips o' the week. Just nada.

I suppose I could scrounge up something to chat about.

Let's see. Ah, last week I asked my boss if I could take a week off to go to New York and he happily approved. He said that it's important to take some time off (as long as I'm not looking for another job in New York hehe). And yesterday, I solidified the plans by making flight reservations. We're (Timotei, Samantha Wu, and myself) flying JetBlue late April. We'll be staying with Ellvin Kelvin natch. And we already have tickets to see both Wicked and the brand new Tarzan musical (which features aerial choreography ala Cirque du Soleil). I'm pretty excited about that. I also plan to see the new Wedding Singer musical starring one of my favorite comedians Stephen Lynch.

In other tidbits, I'm about ready to remove my wisdom teef. I'm actually really anxious to get them taken out. They've been irritating the sides of my cheeks and my gums for a while now. I will be requesting that I be gassed so that I won't feel a damn thing.

But, other than those plans, it's just the same old. I'm still playing on my DS furiously. Animal Crossing is still sucking up my time and I just bought Electroplankton, Polarium, Bust-a-Move DS, and Viewtiful Joe. At this rate, I'll probably never play these games. But first things first... I gotta complete the lawyer game!


Needing a jump start,

Ricky
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Trying to Get my Mitts on Mitzi


So for the past few weeks, I've been completely obsessed and engrossed in Dementia. What's Dementia? Why that would be the name of my town in the DS game Animal Crossing: Wild World.

But it's not only me. Our carpool buddy DJ Smiggles, Timotei, Agent J, and Rionheart have all caught the Animal Crossing bug. And by bug, I don't mean a walker cicada. Har har har.



And you know, I'm so obsessed that I might just stop writing this blog and go play the g

Chim-Chim-Cha-Ching!


Yesterday was un otra dia buena or something er-rather.

My awesome manager called me into his office and told me how great a job I'm doing and that, well, they're increasing my salary by 10%. He also said that mid-year, I'll get another bump in pay. My first real raise!

I think I got a cost of living raise at Disneyland from $6.15/hr to $7.29/hr or something.

And after a year from my old job (that my brother is doing now), I got an additional $1/hr.

So yeah, I'm very excited. I think I'll finally buy that digital camcorder that I've been lusting after.


Raising da roof,

Blingy
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Is This Anyway to Start a New Year?


I had every intention to start the new year off with a new blog; you know, on January first with the hoopla and the hollerin' and the oom-pah-pah, but alas, I didn't have time.

You see, back in December, I won two free tickets to a Laker game on New Year's Day. I decided that Father Routes and Timotei should go since they're big Laker fans. I enjoy watching the Lakers play... when they're in the finals, but I'm not necessarily an avid fan. Anyway, news came on Friday that Kobe wasn't going to be playing because the idiot was suspended, so Father Routes decided not to go (since they were gonna lose anyway). So I ended up taking the ticket.

I wanted to go to our big family New Year's party, but we couldn't let the Premium VIP seats go to waste.



So I went. This was the first time I'd ever been inside Staples Center and although it felt smaller than I pictured, it was still an impressive venue. Very nice that it glows green too.



Well, before the game, Timotei and I pigged out on nachos and sodas and ice cream. The seats were awesome. Center court, not too high up. The only thing that bugged me was this really flaming guy who was yapping to some associates about marketing throughout the entire game.



In the end, the Lakers sucked and they lost. The game was pretty close, but the Lakers were always down like loo-hoo-sers. We stayed until the final 20 seconds and beat most of the traffic out of Staples. Then we raced to the party where people were already leaving. Oh well.

The next day, I woke up at 3pm and watched some movies. I've still got this horrible horrible cough. Mr. Sick just won't seem to let me go, that bitch! I guess being out in the rain didn't help my cold recovery one bit.

Well, I'm really tired.



Zzzzzz,

Ricky
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End of Year Sneer


It's a good day today! My head honcho boss let the entire department off early for the weekend. However, Timotei ain't a part of my department and so I am sitting here listening to the Newsies soundtrack and writing another interesting chapter to the saga that is my blogga.

I'm actually quite saddened by the lack of well thought-out stories this month. I've been lazy. You'll forgive me because I've been sick most of this month and busy with gift finding. So cruel is the life of mine.

In any word, I thought I'd just use this blog as a year wrap up since I don't anticipate any further blogs for this year (see Laziness above). But I'm not really good with remembrance, so I'm just going to post some random thoughts.

Did I ever tell you guys about the time my belt broke at work? I was called into my manager's office to review something on his computer. As I'm leaning forward to check his monitor, I hear a peeuoo and a ping! and the pressure at my waist felt light. It was when I looked down that I noticed my belt broke and my pants were starting to drop. I had no idea what to say. I kinda just grabbed the two ends of my belt and kept my pants from falling. My boss then looks at me and I just blurt out the obvious, "My belt just broke." I didn't think I had gained much weight, but perhaps only inches around the midsection? Nonetheless, at that moment, I thought I was getting really PHAT (piggy hands and toes). My manager picked up the screw to my belt from under his desk and handed it to me as my face turned cherry red. Apparently the screw on the belt had been loosening all these years and finally gave way at the worst (or best storywise) time imaginable. If my life were a movie, my pants would have fallen and a co-worker would have walked into the office. Oh awkward predicamento!

Angel Wing Jasmine and her bright-eyed best NorCal friend Sunshine came down for a weekend of Holiday Disney exactly two weeks ago. I only got to spend the Friday night with them and it was much fun! Erico Suave saved the day as he got us into the parks for free and also hung out with us to boot. Here are some very overdue pictures:

Ellvin Kelvin came back to town last week. It's been fun having him around. I wish he could stay longer. But you know New Yorkians. Why would they choose anywhere else to celebrate the new year when they have the ultimate block party countdown in Times Square? Well, our family got him a PSP for Christmas. I got Timotei an iPod protector he wanted and the second Lord of the Rings movie on DVD.

Now more importantly, the gifts I received! (Please note that I still haven't received gifts from some and I will edit this blog to reflect their gifts once we get a chance to exchange.)

Ellvin Kelvin - a FFAT (furiously fine and tumultuous) pair of DKNY sunglasses (because you know, he's an eye doctor in training)
Timotei - The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for GBA
Father and Mother Routes - $100 towards the purchase of Ellvin Kelvin's PSP
Angel Wing Jasmine - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (a seriously FATT [fantastic and titillatingly titular] Nintendo DS title), Futurama comic books and calendar, and a Graeme Base book that I've been wanting since I was in the first grade)
Erico Suave - Trace Memory for Nintendo DS, a Metal Gear Solid comic collection that I've been wanting for months
Princess Karlita - Spelling Bee soundtrack
MacArthur - a comfortable as hell green Mossimo jacket
Family - 2 Gamecube/PS2 games, Simpsons Operation, Harry Potter Scene It, bathroom essentials, gift cards, poker chips, and money!

Overall it was a good haul.

And here's our holiday card if you wish to see it and become merry:



Well, I'm just about out of this office. I thought I had more random thoughts and stories to tell you, but I didn't or I don't have enough time. Oh well, I've got all of 2006 for all that. Gotta save some stories for the future, otherwise my readership would go from two people to one.



Have a PHFATT (potentially healthy, festive, and terribly trite) new year, ya buncha FAT (flabby and tubby) asses!

Ricky
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Secrete Santa. Bleed Santa.


I'm supposed to write what we got everyone this year, but I think I'll let Lind-z write stuff instead.

Take it...

So, to start off. This Christmas gala has been quite splendid, BUT i am damn tired. Maybe we should have stopped after the second hour of playing that new Harry Potter trivia game Rickina (new name given to Ricky by my sister Chelsey) from his Secret Santa. The Secret Santa thing turned out to be fun and surprising. Anyways, the food brought was scrumptious as usual. We had a mix of asian food and not asian food. [Rickina loves Simple Plan] We also ate cake, in celebration of my aunt's bday. The ham, however, was delicious. After eating, we played with Rickina's new game, which was VERY entertaining. There was much time spent on movie watching. We saw War of the Worlds (some parts TWICE), Batman, and now Pirates of the Caribbean. [Rickina stapled his finger while watching the old, fat lady who-delivers-the-mail pass by at work] Finally, as the clock hit midnight, we rounded up our family for the traditional picture taking, a time of impatience and unwanted cuss words. This year we decided to be on the smart side by using only ONE camera and having that unfortunate person email EVERYONE a copy of the picture. [Rickina is scared of pigeons with no fingernails] And then after pictures, it was time for PRESENTS!!! Rickina probably would have put on here how he received a gift that he had wanted for a while. It's OPERATION (SIMPSONS STYLE). It was fun watching everyone concentrate really hard just to get that small hammer toe or pea brain without setting off the guy's nose. However, the night came to an end as all the tired people left. Rickina and his family are sleeping over because...i don't know. We warned them already that my sisters and I recently bought bright nail polish. I personally think that Rickina would look swell with bubblegum pink nails. [Rickina ate too much ice cream that he had gas the whole night and had to make numerous stops to the bathroom] Timoteo already warned us long ago to never put nail polish after our first incident. When my sisters and I were younger, we put nail polish on Timoteo's nails while he was sleeping. Then we placed one of our most prized Barbies next to him. I don't know what the Barbie was for, but it seemed funny at the time. Anyways, so now it's almost two and I am in some need of sleep. Hopefully tomorrow Rickina will prepare the crepes that he and I set up today. I guess we forgot to make them today with the craze going on today. O ya. Our cousins, such as K-mart, brought their new puppies. They are adorable. There are two of them, one being a boy named Frankie and one being a girl named Angel. K-mart originally wanted the names to be Luke and Leah, which would have been cute. Anyways, this whole blog thing is getting too long and most of your readers are probably bored of hearing my perspective of the day. So I shall end here and leave the rest for Rickina to type. Maybe he'll read what i wrote and delete it all for his readers' sakes. And if you are wondering why there are little comments in these [], they are put there to see if Rickina would find them. Anyways, I am finished. Tonight was a good night. Well toodles for now!
-Lind-z
O ya.. below is what my cousin Sean wrote. He's quite the funny one isn't he....
This is s-dawg and im think lin-z is nuts!!!

Also, I don't get Rickina's title at the top. I think he should explain below...

I don't know what's written above, but the real title of this blog should be "Secret Santa; Secret Blogger." It's very late right now. So instead of reading the draft Lind-z wrote, I'll just trust that she's not calling me anything floopy.



Guest bloggers rock,

Ricky
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