signs of addiction

Ahhhhh! I have to board! My access to the internet will be cut off for the next 8 hours! What will I do? WHAT WILL I DO? I can feel the connection slowly being pulled out of my hands with every step I take to the gate.

Free wifi

I'm here sitting at a table in the Columbus International Airport, waiting for my flight to board. I love it when airports have free wifi. It makes the waiting so much less boring. I have to say that is a huge draw for owning a laptop. Watching movies on the plane (that you choose, so it's not a crappy selection), watching movies during layovers, and accessing the internet.

Everytime I come back to Ohio, it's......weird. This is where I grew up, my hometown, my origin. But it's not 'home' anymore. Sure, my parents live here (and Just), and I'll always have a room when I come, but it's no longer my base of operations. But when I'm in LA, I'll always say I'm from Ohio. It feels like this is a place where I visit rather than where I come back to. If I buy stuff, I have to have it shipped to LA. All my stuff is there, including my car. It's almost like living in a hotel that has a permanent room for you. Is this a part of growing up and moving on? Maybe.

prodigious amount of pics

I'm still in the process of uploading all the pics off my camera. Here are the galleries to my knowledge. I will add more as I become aware of them.

Sherry Wang-Axelrod's pics	count: 52
Joseph Huang's pics	count: 75
Jennifer Lee's pics	count: 69
Eric Mui's pics	count: 32
My pics	count: 146
	Total pics: 374

wedding slideshow/video

If I say wedding "video", people are like "huh?" If I say wedding "slideshow" they're like "oooooh."

If anybody wants to watch the video/slideshow that was played at the banquet, here it is. WARNING: this is a 70MB shockwave flash file. (i.e. it's BIG, and you need shockwave flash to watch it) It's recommended you right-click and save the file to your computer before playing it for smoother playback. Just double-click and it *should* play in your favorite browser.

Start from the beginning

I arrived in Columbus early last week and hung out with some friends. Then the chaos began.

Too many things happened in the past week. I'll just run the highlight reel.

• some relatives didn't arrive because they checked in 4 minutes late at the airport
  
• some relatives didn't arrive because the airline cancelled the flight
  
• waiting to do the slideshow is not a Good Idea^TM. But having cousins and a sister to help you is. Thanks to JH, EH, DC, and JW. You guys saved me.
  
• playing poker with fruit loops is.......different
  
• when playing Mafia with newbies, don't assume they know what to do
  
• watching movies with a projector on a wall is the way to go, but not as cool as our neighbor who projects it on the side of his neighbor's house
  
• tying balloons to a car and then leaving it outside in 90 degree weather means the balloons will pop
  
• if the Maid of Honor wears a different dress than the bridesmaids, everyone will think she is the bride and wonder whether to stand when she walks down the aisle
  
• nobody can pronounce my sister-in-law's name. It's either Marissa, Militia, or Maw-lee-saw.
  
• some people don't know you are supposed to wait to blow the bubbles when the bride and groom walk down the aisle
  
• shaking the hands of 180 people as they leave the ceremony gets tiring after the first......20.
  
• stuffing 30 or more people into a house makes it VERY hot, especially when they are dressed in wedding attire
  
• you don't eat at your own wedding banquet because you don't have an appetite (or you are frantically trying to finish the slideshow)
  
• your dad will advertise your single-ness at your brother's wedding
  
• if Bostonians come to Ohio for your brother's wedding, take them to Cedar Point, they will enjoy it
  
• you don't get any sleep the week around your brother's wedding
  
• lack of sleep and yelling at Cedar Point will make you lose your voice
  

Having a sister-in-law doesn't feel any different, really. Just one more person to make fun of around the house.

Congratulations to Mr. Stanley Wang and Mrs. Melissa Yang! (this whole not changing your name thing is starting to become a trend) May you have smart kids so I don't have to tutor them in math. And may they have as much fun playing together as we did, Stan. I'm sure they'll have plenty of embarassing stories to tell at their weddings, too.

Wedding pictures to come......

Weddings are exhausting

I'm tired.

Oh, you mean that guy

I used to be an idealist. I used to want to change the world. I used to want, no demand, perfection. Then I took Latin 2 as a sophomore in high-school and got lazy with all the memorizations of all the different forms of words and whatnot. I stopped caring so much and started procrastinating more. ("More?" you ask. "You can procrastinate more?" Apparently. 'finishing projects not the night before, but the day of, and then turning in half complete assignments' sounds like more to me.) I somehow(*) managed to graduate high school and get into college, where I became an idealist again. I wanted to make a difference. Improve the world. Better society. I made plans. They were forgotten. New, better plans were made. They were left in Kyle's pants pocket and went through the laundry. We attempted to piece together the plans. Then, slowly, the pressures of the world took root.

Graduation came and went. I didn't attend for fear of contracting "boring-graduation-ceremony-itis". No one said a thing. After all, I'm Asian. College is just the first foray into the academic career I'm expected to achieve. In my parents' minds, there would be many more graduations. I went to Taiwan to learn Chinese because "it's embarassing to not know your own mother language". Well, that and I wanted to travel to another country and I knew my parents would be glad to "send" me to Taiwan. When I say send, I really mean fund. I found out I got accepted for who-knows-what-reason(*) to USC and came back to study.

Now that I've finished my first year, and somehow(*) got a full-time job, I find myself not wanting to change the world, or even to improve it. All I want is security. Financial security so I can maintain my current standard of living. Job security so I can have the means to ensure my financial security. Health/well-being security so I can keep working, playing, travelling, and enjoying life. I no longer am the person I used to be. I am content to settle for being another consumer in a consumer driven society. Sure, I care about the environment, religious matters, and personal freedom. I take interests in current events, politics, and the stock market. I have an avid curiousity about all things technology-related. But what am I doing? I'm just living life and it's passing me by. Thoughts that crowd my mind are now, "What kind of experience can I get from this job?" "How should I invest my money?" "How fast should I finish my degree so I can do other things?" "Should I continue school? Get a PhD?" "What does God have planned for my life?" "I hope God wants me to be rich and comfortable." Notice how many "me/my/I"'s are there. What happened to that guy that wanted to be benevolent, altruistic, a do-gooder, a catalyst for change, a joy-spreader? He's hiding in the corner waiting for someone to talk to him and ask him where he's been all these years. The only other person in the room is me and I'm too busy surfing the net posting random thoughts on my blog to notice I'm not alone.

(*)Kyle's Jeff-is-blessed theory: Jeff is blessed by God and no matter how many tests he fails, he'll always get a passing grade. No matter how many schools reject him, he'll get accepted into one. No matter how many classes he misses, he'll end up with a higher GPA than the previous semester. No matter how bad he messes up his interviews, he'll get the job. And most important of all, no matter what he posts on his blog, people will read it.

pictures from Eddie's wedding are up.

the smell of fresh cut grass, and the poo you just stepped in

I mowed the lawn today. Yes, you read that correctly. Ohioans actually mow their own lawns. We are too far away from a certain other country to have much cheap labor. And we actually have huge lawns to mow. It's so weird how there are huge lots in Ohio that cost less than half of a much smaller lot/house in LA. Too bad land is not transportable. We should have teleporters so you can live in one place and work in another.

Weddings are a very strange phenomenon. It's like showing all your friends and family how big of a party you can throw. But shouldn't they be the ones throwing you a party? What if weddings were planned out by family and friends and the couple just came and were entertained? I think that would be more enjoyable. Unless you have friends with vastly different tastes than you. Or cheap friends. Or no friends. That would suck to get married and have no friends. Maybe you can marry someone with a lot of friends. Starting to get off track here....

Anyway, I'm gonna post pictures of Eddie's wedding.

The best was when Joe broke a wine glass when the procession was coming in. And immediately after, Sam yelled, "Joe, Joe! Fire! Fire!" as the candle on Joe's table grew into a 5" flame. Good thing Joe is a firefighter. He did a good job watching as the waiter came to put it out.

Joe also tried to get all the male cousins to pick up Eddie (the groom) and parade him around the table when they came around to toast the tables. We didn't really know what he was talking about, so Joe ended up picking Eddie up by himself. He had a 3-person cheering section made up of his kids. And all the cousins were just looking at him thinking, "What is going on?"

2 weddings down. 2 more (and 1 reception in Israel) left. And the one in Taiwan this December. Nobody else get married this year. I don't have any more vacation time to allot. Man, working is gonna take up all my free time. And when I say free time, I mean sleep time.

Should I make my speech funny? Or serious? A lot of the funny stuff about Stan you had to be there to understand. Or have the same sense of humor as our family.

Pictures from Judy's graduation are up. Also, 3 pictures from Steve/Joe's BBQ are up.

Back in Ohio

I am back in Ohio. I'll be here for 3 weeks attending to matters of great importance, namely seeing that my brother's marriage celebration goes off without a hitch. Ohio is a lot more humid than I remember. It must be all that dry SoCal air I'm getting used to. It's cloudy here. But the air is a lot cleaner.

Since attending E3 a few weeks back, I've wanted to write an article exploring video games and why people play them. Here is an article interviewing the founder of an online "game" called Second Life. Basically it's a virtual world where people can customize their characters, buy virtual land, and interact with each other. What makes it different is that you can build anything you want. I assume there are no/few built-in items, and most of the stuff (vehicles, buildings, weapons, clothes, etc.) is user-designed. People buy/sell these items in-game and then the game currency can be exchanged for real $US. There have been other games where people will buy/sell items or characters in real life on eBay, but this is different because these things are user-created. You can start your own store in a virtual world and earn a living. Making things that don't exist.

Ever heard of funhi.com? It's another social network thingamajig but you buy stuff for other people. Virtual stuff. People are paying money for this kind of thing.

Jeff's fables

Monday: Got an interview with JL's company. Cousin's kid got a cut on hand. Had to watch one of the stunt-doubles while Cousin and cousin's wife took cousin's kid to the emergency room. Called for backup to watch the stunt-double because I had to leave for interview. Shower;change;drive. Got to interview on time. Said stupid stuff in interview. JL calls me later and tells me they offered me a job despite my stupid comments and inexperience because JL used his influence. Thanks to JL for my future job and income.

Moral of the story: treat your pastors nice. You will need them someday. And treat God nice too. You need him everyday.

Tuesday: stayed up til 1:something AM fixing some girl's computer. Turned out her harddrive on her laptop, where she keeps all her pictures, papers, email, assignments-she-needs-to-turn-it-to-graduate (aka her entire life), had some bad sectors and the file system got corrupted. The computer wouldn't boot, we needed a Windows XP CD to use the recovery console, and no one in the vicinity had one. We musta spent 30 min trying to call someone who had one. Finally JT's landlord came home, who is a programmer at JPL, and we used his.

Moral of the story: backup your important data. Don't trust your hardware; expect it to fail. Drink milk. Use sunscreen. Exercise. Eat your leafy-green-veggies. Eat whole wheat bread. Treat your geek friends nice, you will need them someday.

As a sidenote, I'm surprised we were able to get the computer running again. If history is any indicator (when does history repeat?), the data would have been lost. I've only seldom been able to recover data when my hard drives crash. But that's usually because I do things stupidly and I don't backup my data. God was with us on that one. The fact that her graduation is on Saturday and all her assignments were on that disk didn't help either. "I'm gonna cry/What should I do?/What if it doesn't work?/Can you fix it?/Is it fixed?/Does that mean it's ok?/What does that mean?/How long will it take?/Make sure you have the 'codes' " were common phrases heard that night.

Wednesday: helped paint my cousin's newly acquired boat. Got toxic paint dust all over myself. I wonder if this will lead to cancer in the future. Probably.

Moral of the story: treat your radiation-therapist friends nice. I will need them someday.

If all goes well...

It looks like my job search is over.

Stupid auto-pay

I can't believe how stupid the auto-pay system is for my credit card. The reason I signed up for this so-called 'Auto-pay' is so that it will automatically pay my credit card bill and I won't forget and have to pay fees. I assumed it would just deduct the credit card bill amount from my bank account at a predetermined time every month. But, alas, no.

I found out today, after much "huh?"-ing and poking around, that the system pays ONE amount every month. So for example, I can set it to pay $100 every month. Or $200. But I can't set it to automatically pay my bill. I found out that when I started this thing, I owed something like $900. The next month, my bill was only $450. I thought the payment would change and only pay $450. It didn't. It payed another $900. And I didn't have that much in my bank account, so I overdrew, and got charged. Stupid. So now, even if I sign up for this system, I still have to change the amount every month to reflect my current balance. Wow, it really simplified my life.

My job search continues.

I present to you, for your enjoyment...

Pictures have been posted. Features include but are not limited to:

• E3 photos


• a Benny Mao^TM production


• miscellaneous other weird stuff

Weddings are creeping up like a fart someone let in the corner of the room and then slowly spreads to cover the entire area. I have to come up with a speech. And finish the video.

Summer is nice

I like summer.

Went to E3. It was crowded and they gave away lots of useless free stuff. Took pictures of the new Xbox 360. The whole show is like an amusement park. You wait in line for everything.

Saw Episode 3. It was good. I fell asleep during the first half though, cuz we saw it at 3am. I love being unemployed.

We started a new blog for random weirdness that goes on at the Exodus. Check it out.

Be careful what you wish for

me: "How come all you guys moved to LA?"
DVJ: "I dunno, it has to be God. I remember in college when I said 'I will never, never move to LA.'"
me: "Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?"
DVJ: "I know, God has a great sense of humor."
--pause--
DVJ: "I will never, never marry somebody hot."

Proof the commentators really have nothing to talk about during high speed chases

I was watching yet another high speed chase on the news today when the commentator said, "The suspect is coming up on an intersection where he will once again have to make a decision on whether to go east, west, or continue south." Thank you for that bit of information. I was getting confused there for a minute.

Huh?

BH: "You only look like you do."

Translation (courtesy of BM): "Only you look like you do." (Referring to Pax Americana and the unique position Asian Americans have in that they speak English, yet have an Asian face, which gives them an advantage in Asian missions.)

Allergies are bad for you

I'm too tired to write about anything funny. There were too many interesting things that happened during finals up til now.

• Someone was moaning and passed out in one of my finals, we had to call campus security
  
• Made it to Ohio safely, it was cold, I missed my friend's wedding ceremony because we were late (it was only 10 min long)
  
• Made it back to California safely, where the sun shines year round
  
• finished finals; am pondering on what to do with the rest of my life
  
• helped out Exodus at the OMF conference, where many funny conversations took place
  
  • JT: "Let's all share our insecurities about ourselves."
    
  • BM: "You can't swim with stingrays."
    NS: "You can in Stingray City."
    
  • BM reverse dunking into thin air when he thought the hoop was behind him.
    
  • Eating at a restaurant when NS decides to order and looks at a menu from a different restaurant than the one we were at
    
• Suffering through allergies all of today (not fun)
  

Did I mention that in Taiwan movie theaters, when you buy a ticket, you get assigned seating? We went to go see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy today and my visiting Taiwan guest asked me if there was assigned seating. In Taiwan, every ticket is printed with a seat number.

free country n. a country in which you can choose your seat in a movie theater rather than being assigned one.