blog.marcwiesner.com

Went to this place Tao Tao’s in Sunnyvale with my mother, Mike, and Frank. The waiter was nice about finding something vegan I could eat. Turned out like ma po dofu (麻婆豆腐) with peas.

Funniest thing was the table next to us. These four people from Cisco (we gather) who were making a ruckus. I think one of them got there early and threw a few back at the bar while waiting for the rest of his people. I couldn’t believe how boisterous they were, especially this one I’ll call Dave. Running joke there. It was a nice quiet restaurant, people using their indoor voices, except for this bunch. At one point, Dave actually puts the person he had been talking to through his cell phone on speaker phone. So now there’s a table of at least half-drunk people shouting into this phone and the guy on the other end yelling back. Amazing.

I was so amazed I felt it necessary to take a photo with Dave, telling him he looked like my highschool English teacher. Yeah, this wasn’t true, but it was pretty good for something I thought up on the spot.

That’s me in the dark shirt and Dave with his head turned letting out a guffaw.

He really got a kick out of it. Even said “oh, this is going on the Internet.” Dave, you didn’t know how right you were.

My thanks for his table-mate for taking the picture and apologies for the low quality, it was taken with my cell-phone in doors in the evening. Beg pardon.

Hope you aren’t too hungover tomorrow, Dave.

We’re movin’ on up. My blog’s now sitting happily at blog.marcwiesner.com. No more of that /blog shit. Go ahead and try it. Try to beat the system. You’ll just get sent back to the front.
Mwahaha!

Being the old man of the group about half the time, I’ve seen more than a couple friends get their first car (almost a rite of passage here in the USA) and proceed to fret over getting the scheduled maintenance all done on time. 5,000 miles, 7,500 miles, 10,000 miles…you get the idea. I guess I’m a sceptic; I just don’t see that sort of thing as being necessary as long as you do some reasonable and timely maintenance.

Here’s my example. Mike had bought this Miata that started misfiring. I figure, electrical. What’s the quick fix? Change the spark plugs. Pulled the first one out; rusty. I shit you not the plug was rusty as fuck. Second one, more so. Third one…wire was burnt apart. hehe…there’s your misfire.

How rusty were the plugs?

This rusty

Oh yeah..and that peice of sparkplug wire is there also.  *shudders*

A very spirited game between our men’s basketball team and the team from San Diego. Saw some great plucks and sweet shots from our side, but sadly not enough to carry us through for a win.

Got a couple good shots at least.

[cpg_imagethumb:14,d-d-defense copy.jpg] [cpg_imagethumb:14,hithard.jpg]

So Mike, Frank, and myself were having a bit of trouble remembering how we agreed the rent was going to break down. After a bit of back-and-forth over email and a fair amount of compromise on Frank’s part (something I don’t think either of us were expecting), we were still at loggerheads.

Instead of continuing to argue over it, we decide to settle it with a good ol’ fashion arm-wrestle. Term for the contest were quickly agreed upon, the only question was which arm to use. The old and sacred tradition of the coin flip was a quick decision. What rested on the coin? A large amount of Mike’s chance for victory. With my sinister left arm and mike using the traditional right hand as his primary the scales could be well tiled by whether we used our rights or lefts in the bout.

Frank would flip. Heads, right arms; tails, left arms. The toss. The loss. Tails.

Mike and I took our seats and jousted. My left arm carried me through and the rent dispute was settled. For good measure, and to decide who would take the trash to the curb, Mike and I gave a go at our right arms. I pulled a muscle in my back but my vegan prowess shone through.

Mike later lamented that the mental and psychological disappointment he felt when he saw the tails side of that coin was fitting foreshadowing for the actual loss he knew he was about to suffer.

And that’s how the boys settle things in Manchester

Horses are hung like Chuck Norris.

Thanks for AJ for sending me this link.

Freaking hilarious

You must have noticed that every place that sells calendars has sales on those calendars before the end of January. Every year. Print, sell, sale. Shouldn’t this be an indication that they’re printing too many calendars? Who decided how many to print and why don’t they learn that they don’t need more?

Where do old calendars go when they die?
The don’t go to shelves or get read by the eye.
They go to a rack and there they lie,
Put them on sale when New Years goes by.
-inspired by Nirvana’s “Lake of Fire”

A can’t believe they’re actually making another Beverly Hills Cop movie. Doesn’t that seem wrong and so very sad? I’m sorry, but how shitty must Murphy’s reputation (or agent, at least) be that he can’t get anything decent or original? Wouldn’t it be better start doing stand-up again than to go back to the a movie series that played itself out by the first sequel? When is the line drawn? When do you say “that’s enough?”

And how what a sad state for Hollywood that they can’t come out with anything good and original? Doesn’t it seem like just about every movie that comes out is either a sequel, an adulteration of some historical event or other piece (*cough*Troy), or a remake of a Foreign (usually Japanese) movie?

But why do we pay to see this shit? Are our expectations so fucking low that we we’ll watch any piece of drivel that comes out in Theaters?

Hollywood, you wonder why people are renting or downloading movies? I’ll tell you why. THEY’RE NOT WORTH PAYING FOR.

hehe…Frank just read me the grand list of upcoming sequels (two with our wonderful Gov. Schwarzenegger, glad he’s got his priorities straight) and I got a little riled up for a minute

When we chat and we’re talking out of our asses we use IMHO (in my humble opinion) but when we have to be academic and must avoid the first person particle “I” we get to use phrases like “it should be noted” to mean “I’m saying this.” Why don’t we class up IMing a bit? ISBN that new phrases are fun to use and expanding vocabularies never hurt anyone

This evening, around maybe midnight, I started to feel like I needed some fresh air so I decided to go for a midnight bike ride around the neighborhood. Equipped with helmet and MP3 player, I ended up biking from Manchester and Monroe down the Stevens Creek and Saratoga. Round trip it was about an hour of cycling. A pretty good bit of late-night exercise I think.

It was great because there were almost no cars to worry about. Also, it let me get an idea of just how far away the big Asian market at the end of Saratoga is. And of course there’s that peacefulness of the night; that dark, empty, huge peace. Too bad I was in a city, it’s hard to feel too worthless with so many lights around.