Wednesday, December 20, 2006

My new least favorite pop

Had a Diet Sprite with my lunch today. I thought I had it before, and I figure all lemon lime type refreshments would taste the same, diet or not. UGH! That was bad.

Monday, December 18, 2006

R.I.P. XBOX 360

I was going to play one of my buddies from Hobby Kings in a quick game of NBA 2k7 and *poof* the screen freezes. I wait a little while and when it doesn't restart itself I have to do a hard reboot, which I HATE doing! Then the little ring of lights turn on, but instead of green, they're RED! In my experience, the color red always brings panic and this situation is no different. I then proceed to turn off and on the console a couple more times, with no success. I quickly go online to see what I can do, and sure enough it was a hardware failure. I go try one more time and it works...I try to play a game in the Association and it freezes again followed by unsuccessful reboots. So it looks like this faulty hardware is out the door. Probably will go to Best Buy on Wednesday. Thanks for the lemon, Microsoft!

The case of the Mondays

Why is that Mondays suck so much? It's really a new beginning to have a good week, but somehow the idea of returning to work or school after the weekend, which this weekend was a pretty good one.

Saturday night was my annual Jao Cousin Christmas party. This year it was at Eng & Jerry's house. I just found out that Jerry is the brother of someone I used to go to high school with. What a small world, right? Anyways, the party was fun as always and this time Jaz was with us. It is our yearly tradition the newly added significant others always have to do something that is kind of embarassing in front of the family, and this year was no different. As part of the Grab bag/White Elephant gift exchange, we had to perform a number dares based on the number of stars accompanied the number that you chose, Jaz got two, and she had to do one for mom as well. So she had to do an interpretive dance to sounds of Jingle Bells performed by the kids as well as a ballet number while singing Silent Night. She did great, and I even received a thumbs up from Dave during one of the performances. The night ended with my very drunk brother being hauled out of the house. Other than that, the night was fun as usual.

Sunday afternoon Jaz and I went to my old high school, Maine East, to watch the winter concert. We had to enter through the fieldhouse entrance since the parking lot that was next to the auditorium was packed. Since we had to go through the school I gave her a quick tour of the spots in Maine East. My old cheerleading and choir lockers as well as the hall that there was a girl fight and one of the girl's tatas popped out and the table I used to sit at in the cafeteria. Quite a few memories rushed back walking those halls again. We ran into Mr. & Mrs. Mangold at the front of the auditorium so I stopped and said hello to them. It was great seeing them, they always had such good things to say and had an AWESOME home. It was like they were on TV, always had treats and cookies and everything was always kept so nice. I miss those days. Jaz and I then proceeded to watch the concert. It wasn't as long as I remember them to be when I was in it 10 years ago. The band and orchestra were always the ones that overshadowed us in the choir, but not so much nowadays. The orchestra's horn section was a little off on timing, but the strings were beautiful as usual. You can tell when they enjoyed playing a piece because it just sounded so much better. The choir had the same problem that we had when I was there, not a lot of good singing guys. There were some, but not a lot. The soloists were quite good though...I'll definitely have to catch Bye Bye Birdie in the spring. I had a quick chance to talk to my old choir teacher Mr. Barnett. He's always been a good spirited person. I know he had to talk with all other students' parents and boosters, so we said our hellos, caught up quickly, and said good-bye. It was a fun showing Jaz my history...a part she had never seen before.

Is it late...or early?

5:10AM...
Some people are waking up, others are falling asleep. I'm neither right now. I slept for about 2 hours and for some reason I woke up like I had 8 hours sleep. Very weird. Must've been the brownie obsession from Fridays earlier.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Is this thing on?

Where the crap have I been. It's amazing how quickly a couple of weeks can go by during the holiday season. I guess when there is nothing exciting going on it's pretty easy to just lose track. So what has happened in the past couple of weeks. Well, we finished our Christmas shopping this past weekend. I feels good to finally have the chance to actually enjoy the Christmas season. Yet another person from my team is leaving the company. It's going to be sad to see her go. We've been through a lot together and with her gone means a lot more work for me...oh joy! We are going to San Francisco next week for Christmas so I know Jaz is excited about being home again. Other than that, it's just like the saying, same $h*t different day!

Sunday, November 26, 2006

11,291 steps later

So I bought a pedometer yesterday to start monitoring my steps. Today with the two basketball games and a lot of mall walking, I walked 11,291 steps. I'm shooting for 10,000 a day...that may be pretty hard if I don't have basketball games. Oh and by the way, lost the first game, won the second.

After our two games we went out to eat and then shopped/walked around Target and Old Orchard. It was such a nice day today and we had to enjoy the mild weather at night. Bought a couple more gifts and now we are almost completely done with our Christmas shopping. We should be done by this week. We also had chocolate at Ethel's in the mall...GOOD!!! Just as Joe said, we haven't mall-ratted it for a while...it was kind of cool/nostaligic just hanging around doing nothing. Just like the good ol' days.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Thanks!

So I'm a day late on my Thanksgiving list of things I am thankful for this year. I'll start with the usual things I am happy about every year. I am thankful the family I have been blessed with and the patience and love they have taught me. Thank God for the warm beds we sleep in and the food that obviously fills me up everyday. I am happy that I do still have a steady job however many times we change the actual name of the company. I am glad for my health although I should definitely take care of it more often. And of course, my friends who have always been there through every step of the way. And now to the newest addition to the list...I am extremely grateful for finding the one person who will put up with my dumb jokes but take care of me when I need them. For finally marrying the one I was meant to be with. I am thankful for my wife.

I'm sure I have a lot more to be thankful for but I can't think of it all right now...besides, I make sure I show how thankful I am more than saying it.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Looking for homes and strikes

After work Jaz and I went to go look for houses again with a different real estate agent. One of her co-worker's daughters. She was nice but we were looking in pretty shady areas around Des Plaines. We did see one place that we liked in Niles that was nice. On the 5th floor a good amount of room and a crapload of parking for guests. It made the "to be considered" list.

After 2 hours of looking at condos we met up with Joe at the bowling alley. And he proceeded to watch me lose to my wife at bowling, TWICE! In the second game she had two strikes late in the game, pretty much putting the icing on her victory cake. How embarassing. Just so you know hun...next time we play NBA 2k7, there will be no mercy 3 pointers by Tyrus Thomas for you to catch up.

We then decided to go to Krispy Kremes for a night cap. Joe got pulled over because he supposedly cut off a cop...who the hell would cut off a cop? Joe always told me he always acts like a jerk to cops...and I can say that he did, in fact, act like a jerk. When we were waiting in his truck another cop on my side kept looking in the window for anything suspicious. Not a thing. The whole time Joe was all like "Bored ass cops...F*ckin bored ass cops". The cop came back and tapped on the window and told him, "so you know, I didn't pull you over because I was bored". I was like "whoa"...it's like the cop in that TV show Heroes! Kinda looked like him too. He ended up letting Joe off with a warning. Yeah...because he was WRONG! Nice. Anyways we still got Krispy Kremes...probably didn't need it, but we got it.

Off to sleep now, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! My thanksgiving list will be posted tomorrow. I would like to start it off with a thank you to the Simmons company for making such a wonderful bed. Good night Zion...

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

To the Bulls: I'm still waiting

I'm waiting for you guys to finally break out and starting running teams off the court. Is it simply a question of chemistry? You all need to learn to play the first 3 quarters of a game...and not just the last 2 minutes of the game. And how are you going to let JR Smith drop 30+ points on you? You're a team of defense, that is what you are good at. And while I'm ranting, please find someone else to do the color with Tom Dore. Stacey King and his sausage fingers got to go! He doesn't have a sportscaster voice and doesn't really add anything to the game. Hire Erick or something...actually no, that would hurt everyone's ears. Back to the Bulls, you've had about 3 games you should've won. So I guess it must be that west coast circus trip. I guess I'll have to wait longer. You have Philadelphia and New York twice in the next week...seriously, that should be 3 wins. Don't let us down...

"Kramer" goes crazy

I think Michael Richards has just lost it. I just watched the video of him go on a racist tirade at some hecklers in his audience. It was definitely one of the most awkward and uncomfortable moments caught in comedy. Although I don't know the entire story of what happened, that event pretty much ended his career. There's going to be a lot of press about this and everyone will remember how he acted in front of an audience. I can see it now, people boycotting his work whether it be films or Seinfeld DVD sales...this won't be good. I hope you enjoyed your career, Kramer.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Guess who's back...

So I'm going to be using blogger.com to try and keep up with my blogs now. I will see if I can import all the rest of my blogs somehow into it. But in the meantime, a whole new blog for you all!

So it is now 1:09AM and I can't sleep. It's either because of the coke I drank at dinner or the 3 hour "nap" I had after getting back from shopping. Either way I am here now.

The weekend was quite eventful. I ended up being sick somehow on Thursday and Friday. I went home early from work, and then BAM! Knocked out! Had a 100.1 fever and was completely immobilized. Of course, there was a lot of movement to the bathroom, but that might be a little too much for you to handle. We stayed in Friday night for my recovery. I think we attempted to watch a movie or something, but I was just simply too miserable to do anything. Jaz took care of me like she always does and by Saturday I was fine.

Saturday morning I went to the card show at Rosemont. Big as usual...and not as many basketball cards as I would like. They never have enough basketball for me. I've been saving for a while and was going to buy either a Lebron SPA RC Auto, or a Ben Gordon Exquisite patch RC auto /99...no dice on either one. So I just ended up buying boxes, and getting caked as usual. Ah well. I met up with Erik from HobbyKings and his girlfriend and walked around the whole time. They were a nice couple. I'm glad Jaz didn't come because she would've been absolutely bored out of her mind. Top pull of the day? SPGU dual auto of Bernard King and Quentin Richardson *gag*

After the show I picked up Jaz and started off our Christmas shopping. After 2 malls we are about 60% done. It's nice to have that feeling! Still need to get a couple family gifts, namely the ones for my nieces and nephews. That's always a blast! What do kids like nowadays? I don't think Big League Chew and Pop Rocks are considered cool gifts anymore.

After shopping we went to Lania's place for a dual birthday/housewarming party. The place looked great, and I commented on how I loved the new bathrooms there [not the functionality of them, but the new design]. They prepared a crap load of finger food, which in all honesty I am not used to. Don't get me wrong, it was all delicious...just not used to it :)

We talked with Diana and Noel for about an hour and we bounced over to Erick ans Abby's house. They had people to watch the Paquaio vs Morales fight. Man, Paquaio is such a bad ass. Broken English and all, the boy can fight! It was probably the most entertaining three rounds of boxing I've ever seen. It was like how boxing is in a movie. We finished the night with some Guitar Hero II and some Friends Scene It [which I was killed on].

This morning we woke up and started off our day with 6 viewings. We met Julie [real estate agent] for the first time...she was very nice and helpful. We looked at some places in Skokie, Glenview, and one in Morton Grove [which we actually saw already]. We really liked one in Glenview, so that is a front-runner for now.

After about 3 hours of driving around and looking for places we were finally done. We ate at Jimmy Johns and walked it off in Best Buy. Surprisingly no purchases. I'd love to get Guitar Hero, but it doesn't come on XBOX yet. I'll wait for that one I guess. Got home fell asleep and then woke up to go to the Vigans' 30th wedding anniversary. I can't believe it was 5 years ago since their 25th. There's something comfortable about being with such good friends. It's just all so easy to laugh and have a good time. I could see it with Uncle Tony and Auntie Myrna and their friends, and then us with ours. How lucky we are...

1:35am - wow, longest blog ever. I'll try to sleep.