Blizzcon 2008

Going to Blizzcon tomorrow!

Oily Lips

So a few nights ago, I showered, brushed my teeth, and decided to put on some chapstick before sleeping because my lips felt dry.

In the morning, my mom came into my room to talk to me. Yes, I am 22 and living at home. It's nice to get free food and laundry service. Just kidding, I love my mom, but the free food and laundry service are definitely perks.

Anyway, here is our conversation, but imagine my mom saying all of this in Mandarin:

Mom: Wake up, it's already 10, stop wasting your day.
Me: *mumble* Oh OK, I'm getting up.
Mom: You didn't brush your teeth last night did you? Your lips are all oily from dinner still.
Me: ...

I guess my mom really thinks that she raised a slob. For those of you that know me, I probably use 5 times the amount of napkins/tissue than the average person. Sorry Amazon rainforest, but I gots to stay clean.

Handicapped Stalls

While using the restroom at work, I had the following musing:


We all know that you cannot park in a handicapped parking spot unless you are handicapped, but can you use a handicapped stall if you are not handicapped?

And if you do, will the police give you a shitting ticket?

Note: I did that on MS Paint, using a touchpad. Imagine what I could do if I had a mouse. If you wish to employ my services, you can contact me at remikz@live.com

Redbull and Mango Cake

So the other day, I was drinking a Redbull, getting ready to study for my FE/EIT engineering exam, and decided to have a slice of mango cake. This resulted in a surprising epiphany:

Redbull + Mango Cake = Sardine

At first, I thought maybe my fridge had some left over fish, and the taste was infecting the cake, but after I took another sip of Redbull, I confirmed my suspicions.

Wet Towel Smell

Imagine taking a nice, refreshing shower, using your favorite soap and shampoo to cleanse your body of a hard day's toil. After your shower, you are spanking clean, and ready for bed. But as you're drying your now immaculately clean body, you detect an odorous odor. What the F, your towel smells like the rear end of a donkey. You used your towel just last night, fresh from the laundry, but seemingly overnight, the towel has transformed into a pile of smelly doo-doo.

I HATE IT WHEN THIS HAPPENS.

If anyone knows how to combat this offensive attack to the senses, please let me know. And using a new towel for each shower is ridiculous. I have 4 people in my family, and if we do our laundry once a week, we would need 28 towels to last a week. Even if we did our laundry twice a week, we would still need 14 towels.

I HATE SMELLY TOWELS.

B B B B BEASTIE

This pretty much describes my past 2 weeks.

THE BEAST-

LA Auto Show 2007

Mmmm so I went to the LA Autoshow back in November. Here are the pictures, courtesy of David Shao, taken with a Canon Rebel XTi DSLR. Enjoy!

BMW M5


Ferrari


Lamborghini


More Lamborghini


And even more Lamborghini


Absolute last Lamborghini


Audi R8


Nissan GT-R


More Nissan GT-R


BMW 1-Series in orange


BMWW 1-Series again


Mitsubishi Evolution


Mercedes-Benz CLK Black Edition


Lexus IS FAST


Lexus IS FASTER


Lexus IS FASTEST


BMW M3 Coupe


BMW M3 Coupe again


BMW M3 Sedan?? An extra 2 doors!


Mercedes-Benz SLR

Breakfast of Champions

To fuel me through my final day as an undergraduate at UCLA, I had 2 shots of Coke and a large cream puff. Truly, a breakfast of champions.

The GF Wants A Dog

So the GF has been clamoring for a puppy for who knows how long, and has recently decided to finally get one. She's set on getting a Pembroke Welsh Corgi. For those of you who don't know what that is, imagine a wiener dog, but furrier. A small, furry wiener dog. For some reason, that doesn't sound too appealing. Anyway, she's narrowed her search down to 2 particular furry wieners, and here they are:

FURRY WIENER A:

FURRY WIENER B:



Head on over to her xanga to vote for your favorite. She has more pictures of each, as well as pictures of their parents. Remember, xanga has a "vote anonymously" option, so feel free to vote/comment even if you don't have a xanga account.

Technorati Tags: Corgi, dogs

Posture Perfect

So Jordan and I recently noticed that we have terrible posture, both sitting and standing. I just came across this article from the Washington Post that points out some common problems and easy ways to prevent poor posture.

Technorati Tags: posture

Mmm Moisturizer

My mom just got me this:


Shiseido Men: Moisturizing Emulsion Fluide Hydratant

No I'm not gay, I'm just going to have really soft skin.

Technorati Tags: Shiseido Men, lotion

Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix 2007

On Saturday, David, Jeff, and I went to the 2007 Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix. It was my first time being at a real race, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Let me tell you, it was INTENSE, an attack on all the senses: I could see the cars racing at 140 MPH, I could hear the screaming engines, I could smell the burning rubber, and I could feel the heat emanating from the track. The only thing I couldn't do was taste the cars, but I doubt that would have been a pleasant experience.

We ate lunch at the local CPK (California Pizza Kitchen), which was right by the track. The Long Beach track isn't really a track, in the traditional sense. The track consists of normal, everyday surface streets with barricades on the side. We were lucky enough to get a table outside, thanks to David's coworkers, so we were able to eat pizza literally 30 to 40 feet away from cars going 100+ MPH into a turn. It was hard to keep the food down.

With that said, here are a few of the pictures we took with David's Canon Digital Rebel XTi (you can find more in my flickr album):

Check out the rest in my flickr album.

Technorati Tags: Toyota, Long Beach, Grand Prix

Payback

Red-light-running officers, firefighters to pay up, from WFAA.com, a Dallas news station.

I just came across this headline and thought that it rather ironic. Note my previous post. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the article:

"We have had some officers simply on routine patrol running red lights," said Lt. Sally Lannom."
"I'm in a squad car; I can do what I want."
"So, starting April 15, officers and firefighters who improperly run red lights will have to pay a $75 dollar fine."

Unfortunately, this article is from Dallas, so it may be a local rule only. Also, what's with the measly $75 fine? That's a discount of $295 compared to what I paid.

Technorati Tags: traffic light

A Series of Unfortunate Events

It all started during spring break. Chris and I were hanging out at my house, when we decided to go and get some boba at Life Plaza, the Arcadian hang-out place of choice. As usual, Chris volunteers to drive; back at UCLA, Chris drives me everywhere. And I mean everywhere, whether its to the gym or to get food. But this time, since we're hanging out in Arcadia, my hometown, I figure that I should drive him around for a change. He says that he really doesn't mind driving, but I insist that I drive for once. The GF was also at my house at the time and needed to go home for dinner, so we all hop into my car and I start heading towards her house. The rest of the story involves a red light, a right turn, and a police officer. Long story short, I received a ticket for not coming to a complete stop at a red light prior to making a right turn. If you want to read the full story, I believe Paul has it all documented over at his blog.

After I get home, I do a Google search on the violation code that the officer has given me, and find out that the ticket is approximately $270 in California. To my surprise, the official ticket comes 3 weeks later with the bail set at $370. I suppose living in a safe and fairly nice area comes at a price; the city needs to get its money from somewhere, namely drivers who don't know all the technical traffic rules but are extremely safe otherwise. Such as me. Those of you who have ridden in my car before know that I drive like a 80 year old grandmother, minus the slow reflexes and seat position. Although, this one time I did try moving the seat all the way up just to see what it feels like. It was rather uncomfortable. Despite the appearance of my cars, I obey all the speed limits and traffic rules, that I know of. With that said, I'll be going to court sometime in May, as well as to an 8 hour traffic school session. Funny thing is, if I had only let Chris drive my ass around once again, all of this could have been avoided. Moral of the story: always let Chris drive. Good times.

A few days after the previous incident, another stroke of misfortune hit me. My car, the very same one that I got the ticket in, would no longer start. Turns out the starter died, and with the car in my driveway blocking the other car, a new adventure begins. Jordan, who prefers to be called Jodan, came over under the false pretense that we were going to the gym. Little did he know, instead of working out at the gym, he was about to get a workout on my driveway. I recruited Jodan, Wing (the GF), and Richard (my brother) to help me push my car. We attempted to swap the working car that was in the garage with the broken car that was stuck in the driveway. My driveway is fairly steep, maybe a 60 degree gradient. We had no problem getting the car out of the way. Now with a clear path between us and the parking spot, we attempted to push the car up the driveway. We planned to gather momentum on the flat surface street before going all the way up the driveway. I clearly recall the GF remarking,

"This isn't so bad, we can make it."

as we were gathering speed for the uphill climb. With that, I shouted

"GO! PUSH PUSH PUSH!"

as we went full speed ahead up the driveway. We pushed my 3,009 pound Acura 3.0 CL all the way up a whole 4 feet before we lost speed, and started to slide back down the slope. I abandoned my post and leaped for the handbrake, pulling it just before the car slid onto the street.

It goes without saying that I ended up calling a mechanic to come replace the starter. The price, after labor, ended up $270. Unlucky number two hundred sleventy. OK that one's a little far out there, but I had to try. Here are a few pictures of the cause of my troubles:

Lastly, onto my most recent, and most horrific malady. I've been debating whether or not to blog about this, but since I am here to entertain you, even at my own expense, I will. Dear reader, I recently developed a large and painful bump on my butt. Yes, my butt. This bump could be anything, ranging from an infected pimple to an insect bite. All I know is that it hurt like hell whenever I did anything, such as sitting. The feeling is much like a tooth ache, where your brain is constantly registering pain. The only difference is that the pain is coming from your rear end. It's times like these that I wonder, "Why, God?" Life becomes miserable in general; food doesn't taste quite as good, games don't seem quite as fun. Most of this is due to the fact that almost everything we do requires us to sit. Not something I want to be doing now. After excessive application of Neosporin, my butt is much better now. Hopefully nobody looks at me funny after this story, or suspects the worst whenever I shift in my chair.

But even after my series of unfortunate events, I must say that I am still quite happy. Plenty of good things have happened along the way, I just didn't write about them, because we all know that misery makes better blogging material. I read somewhere that everyone has an "equilibrium happiness point," meaning that even after something good happens or something bad happens, people will generally return to their natural state of happiness. I'm a happy person; I believe in happy endings. Good friends, good music, good food, and good work outs make everything better.

This weekend I'll be going to the Long Beach Grand Prix, so stay tuned for pictures, lots of it.

Technorati Tags: misfortune, Acura CL

Karma's a Bitch -- or NOT!

As some of you know, I live right across the street from Ralph's, which I frequently frequent. Yes that does make grammatical sense. So as I'm entering the parking lot, I see a shopping cart zoom by directly in front of me. Apparently someone just heaved their cart off in the general direction of a wall, hoping the cart would stop at the wall. Well it didn't. Instead, the cart bounced off the wall and started heading straight for a parked car, namely a white Toyota Corolla.

So being the good citizen that I am, I chase after the cart and stop it mere INCHES before it hits the car. OK it wasn't that close; it was more like a foot, but that's only due to my superior reflexes, forged and honed from the countless hours of daily gaming. For any normal person, it would have been inches. Anyway, I manage to stop the cart in time, and without thinking much of it, I continue on to buy groceries.

After I have all my groceries, I decide to use the self-checkout machine because I figure it'd be faster than waiting in line at a normal register. I scan and pay for all of my groceries with my credit card. Just as I'm about to leave, low and behold, I notice some money in the change slot. Apparently the person that used the machine before me forgot to take their change after paying, which results in me receiving $8.00 for my Samaritan deed.

Hopefully this story will inspire someone out there, somewhere, to do a good deed, if not out of the kindness of their heart, at least out of the hope of receiving free groceries.

Adventures of an Engineer - 3/12/07

This is going to be a segment that I will be writing that describes my experiences as an engineer at UCLA.

I'm trekking my way to class, minding my own business, when a girl next to me makes a sudden movement. I look at her but I don't notice anything out of the particular. She continues to walk ahead. All of a sudden, I see her veer out of the way. It appears that she is trying to walk in a pattern. Perhaps she is trying to avoid stepping on the cracks to avoid bad luck? Or is she walking only on the cracks, to trace a complete path between classes? Then it hits me. The constant crunching that accompanies her strange behavior gives it away. She is actually trying to step on every single leaf that crosses her path. I'm talking about bee-lining from leaf to leaf, not just the ones that are within easy reach. If you are a leaf currently residing on UCLA between Dodd and Royce, take caution as to where you fall. Hang on to your branch for dear life!

But there's more. Not about the Leaf Stomper, just my adventures in general.

So I reach my class after my close encounter. It's a boring typical engineering class about feedback and controls with the 99:1 ratio of guys to girls. Bleh. Today, the professor is demonstrating how to use MATLAB to simulate the effects of different controllers on a given system. Right. After he demonstrates a particularly boring point, a guy sitting 2 seats to my right starts to cheer and clap. Let me describe to you what this guy looks like. Actually, on second thought, I won't. The entire class is quiet as he cheers and claps, causing an awkward silence that apparently does not deter him from making further comments later on. The black guy sitting to my left takes a glance at him, and mutters "What the fuck?" under his breath. My roommate is sitting 1 seat to my right, making him the unlucky guy that had to be in direct contact with the Super Nerd. He whispers to me "Backdraft," which after a moment's thought I concluded must refer to the movie, which in turn refers to rooms bursting into flames, which in turn refers to the flaming behavior of the Super Nerd. After another hour and several other strange comments / outbursts, the class ends.

That's all for now, stay tuned for more adventures of an engineer.