The dinner conversation today somehow drifted into some aspects I look for in a girl, or that I think complement me well. I’m not going to get into that, but it’s led my brain to ponder similar topics in my now almost “ritual” solo-time right before I go to sleep (which coincidentally is also my blog time). I’m not one to jump on many bandwagons, much less reading popular “Christian novels,” but I’ve at least had a summary of “Love Languages” despite not reading the book on the topic. So I was thinking about what my love languages were and on the receiving end, it’s probably words of affirmation, quality time, and touch. On the giving side, it’s pretty similar except for touch, which is interesting I think.

I’m not really one that shows affection by touch very often outside of a joking manner (Sam and Viraj, I’m looking at you ;-)), but I think a hug goes a long way for me. When I’m feeling a bit mellow/down, I find myself wanting a good hug. Interestingly, I think this works better coming from a girl (not necessarily one I have a crush on or anything, just a female friend, etc.), but I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s just that I’m generally more used to hugs from girls than guys having two sisters and no brothers, or maybe it’s just due to society and guys don’t really give hugs. It’s gotta be in the right context though… this is not a plea to hug me. =p

I’m pretty confident that affirmation is one that I both give and take, but I’m a bit more iffy on quality time. I put a lot of time into anything I care about, but if I don’t, it doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t care about it, so I’m not sure if this counts as much. I also don’t necessarily have to be given it to feel like I matter to a person, so yeah…

I don’t think this mental exercise has helped me in any way other than cure a few minutes of boredom, and I hope it did the same for you, haha…

“She’s got a smile that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where everything
Was as fresh as the bright blue sky
Now and then when I see her face
She takes me away to that special place
And if I’d stare too long
I’d probably break down and cry

Sweet child o’ mine
Sweet love of mine” - Guns N’ Roses

Lyrics have nothing to do with this post (and they generally don’t), they’re just usually a song I’m fond of listening to at the time. I feel like I need to be careful, particularly when the song mentions a girl or something like that (they often do :-)), but maybe I’m being too paranoid. ;-)

Sometimes I sit alone listening to really sappy 80s/90s love songs because I find it very humorous. It may be the same type of fascination with pink and other things I’m not supposed to like so much as a “grown up guy.” Or maybe I like to gently tug at my singleness and make fun of myself in a mild manner. Whatever the reason is, I enjoy it immensely.

Have I mentioned that I really dislike the decline of the blog and how the rise of Twitter, Facebook etc. seem like there’s just a lot of shallow noise now? There’s a lot of “social” but I really miss the deeper thoughts and investment that blog posts had. I feel like I’m purely just blurting out thoughts out there without anything to read and bounce off of.

Speaking of Twitter, after a few weeks of using it, I still can’t say it’s really gotten me. I primarily just use it as a means to update my Facebook status. Even then, I just do that occasionally because I’m bored rather than getting any real entertainment value from it. I guess now is a decent time to plug TwitterVoice (I hear the name was given tongue-in-cheek), which came out of our Bazaarvoice Labs group.

I got a business card from a realtor with a note on the back that basically said “I have a possible buyer for your house if you’re interested.” I called them back but got the realtor’s boss. I told them it’d have to be a pretty sweet offer because I just bought the house, so we’ll see. I doubt anything will come of it. I don’t even really know how things like this happen though. Did they see a really old listing of the house or something?

“There were nights when the wind was so cold
That my body froze in bed
If I just listened to it
Right outside the window

There were days when the sun was so cruel
That all the tears turned to dust
And I just knew my eyes were
Drying up forever” - Celine Dion

I’ve been going through older xkcd comics lately and happened upon this gem:

I’ve now resolved to use it whenever I can remember:

I’ve also been going through photos and have come to a new realization about how much a quality L lens compares favorably against a non-L lens. This one’s a Canon 100 f/2.8 Macro, pretty much straight from camera:

And this one is the Canon 85 f/1.2L, again without any post-processing (other than converting to JPEG from RAW):

Notice the much better contrast and colors? That’ll be the last time I use my 100mm over the 85mm for its reach… time to get a 70-200 f/2.8L IS! Haha… =p

Every Monday, when I get to work, I get asked how my weekend was and what I did. I pretty much always forget, so here it is in an attempt not to forget.

On Saturday, I watched a few episodes of Fringe and did some general cleaning around the house where I discovered the source of the fruit flies. Someone had left some left-overs sitting in my kitchen hidden within some bags. Now that the source has been removed, I hope the flies soon follow. I then hung out with a bunch of the guys. When Viraj showed up, he put his keys on a table where I promptly picked them up and threw them behind the cushions on my couch. This eventually led to him going to Jim’s with us at 5AM in the morning because he couldn’t find his keys and we said “we’d help him when we got back.” Ended up sleeping at about 6AM. Good times.

Nancy woke me up on Sunday with a call and then said she’d call me back in “30 minutes” after sleeping some more. I went back to sleep as well and woke up 3.5 hours later with no said call. That’s totally her fault. Went to Town Lake (I don’t like calling it “Lady Bird Lake”) and did some kayaking with Sam and Nancy, which was quite funny because Sam was scared of falling into the lake and dying. I would poke him with my oar and he threatened to “punch me in the face.”

I then did some editing of some past BV events: our All Hands and 4 year anniversary party:

…and that’s pretty much it!

I’ve had recent conversations recently about not “getting” Twitter. To a certain extent, I understand how it can be useful and the examples of it being so are neat, I suppose. Maybe it just seems like more effort than its worth for me. Or maybe it’s just that I feel connected enough to my close friends as is? I don’t know.

I think the thing that bugs me most about Twitter and “micro-blogging” like Facebook statuses is that personal blogs in general have died down quite a bit. I liked the time/effort people used to put into blog posts and being able to read someone’s thoughts more than 140 characters at a time. I like the historical “diary” nature of blogs. On Facebook it seems like everything is a constant stream that you lose track of after a while (I know that’s not entirely accurate, but it seems that way) and having all that interaction “trapped” sounds less than desirable to me. I enjoy being able to dig through years of blog posts and see what I was writing about years and years ago without it being locked in a “proprietary” system.

Digressing, one of my favorite things to do in my new house is sit on my couch and surf while I play music with my Mac Mini on my speaker system. I somehow generally don’t get very lonely doing that and it keeps me pretty content. I’m sure I’ll get tired of this music eventually though…

“It can cut you like a knife, if the gift becomes the fire
On a wire between will and what will be

She’s a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before” - Michael Sembello

So I’ve had one of those Citi credit cards that give you cash back ever since 2005. Apparently, I’ve never actually claimed the cash back that I’ve earned throughout these four-ish years. I logged in to my account recently and noticed that I had accumulated over $600 that was just waiting for me to press a button to claim.

Haha… so I went ahead and did that. That, combined with the extra $500 from the new First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit is going to go a long way in me actually getting a washer/dryer… now I just need to wade through a ton of reviews to actually find one…

“It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had” - Toto

I got a new Mac mini and installed Plex on it which has been pretty nifty. I don’t like its music playback as much as Front Row (which is a bit sad because Front Row is a bit lacking there too), but it’s overall more capable than it despite being a bit less stable for the time being. Seems like there’s a lot of development for it, so it’ll likely improve rapidly.

I also FINALLY upgraded my Wordpress install after doing a recent brand new install at work. Seems like they’ve been busy as well… =)

I think I’ve moved the last of my stuff from the apartment, so I’m “officially” moved out. I still can’t find a few things though… like the charging station for my hand-held vacuum (which would come in handy). Andrew was kind enough to clean off all the shelves I had there and set it all by the door. I’ll have to write another Andrew Approved post to thank him. =)

“Something evil’s watching over you
Comin’ from the sky above
And there’s nothing you can do

Prepare to strike
There’ll be no place to run
When your caught within the grip
Of the evil Unicron

Transformers
More than meets the eye
Transformers
Robots in Disguise” - Lion

I know not everyone will be with me on this, but here’re my thoughts on what’s on TV right now that I’ve either watched or am watching.

No longer watching or on the verge of no longer watching

• 24 - I haven’t watched the past few seasons and though this one isn’t particularly horrible, it’s just the same old. I feel like they’re just churning on the same formula over and over and it’s just lost its excitement factor. Throw in stupid computer-related “twists,” and silly plot elements and I’m done.


• Heroes - I am this close to ditching Heroes. It has such potential, I don’t understand how a group of writers could mess it up so much. It’s like they’ve been given Freddie Mercury in front of a colosseum of Queen fans and instead of letting him rock out, they make him play chess against Hannah Montana and let the Jonas Brothers deliver the encore. We want to see super-heroes use their powers. Who doesn’t want to see super-Peter totally kick butt and duke it out with Syler? It was great in the first season when they hinted at it over and over, but they never really came through. I want Peter versus Syler Dragon Ball Z! Instead I get a horrible horrible Hayden that can’t execute her poorly written lines at all. I really wish they had just let the chearleader die. Forget the world. I probably have one or two more shows left in me, then I’m done.

Still watching

• House - I wouldn’t be upset about missing an episode, but it’s consistently entertaining. It’s nice to enjoy a show that you don’t really feel you have to be caught up on.


• Lost - I’ve always been skeptical that Lost will be worth it in the end, but it still is entertaining and I have a bit of hope that they’ll pull through in the end. My fear is that they’ve thrown in so much mystery, they won’t be able to explain it all (or they just won’t at all).

Wouldn’t miss

• Dexter - watched first season or so after Mark and Andrew started watching it and raved about it. I whole-heartedly agree. Dexter is rock solid and awesome.


• Battlestar Galactica - BSG isn’t typically very fast paced, but I still find it highly enjoyable. The past few episodes have been hot.

Obligated

• CSI: Miami - when I lived at the apartment, Andrew was rarely there Friday nights, and everyone else was too lazy to arrange for something to happen. On these nights, I chilled alone surfing the net and watching hours and hours of CSI: Miami. A&E plays this show for probably 30% or more of a day. It’s not even really very good, but it certainly is pretty, so I feel obligated to watch it when it’s on and I have nothing to do.

“I wear my sunglasses at night
So I can so I can
Watch you live and breathe your storylines

(And) I wear my sunglasses at night
So I can so I can
Keep track of the visions in my eyes” - Corey Hart

Tomorrow, I have my final walk-through of my soon-to-be-house before closing. I’ll bring my camera and film some. Will post on YouTube!

Earlier today, I went to Denny’s with Carolee, Eric, Heather, and Tiff and we had our free Grand Slam breakfast. Woo! I then worked worked worked and prevented disaster here and there. I still can’t find my gate card, so Andrew has to let me in to the apartment. I will be leaving him soon. Poor Andrew.

In other news, Sam has a girly “satchel” that he keeps the following in:

• keys


• phone


• fashionable pocket mirror


• vial of blood he jacked from work


• “the pill”


• a rubber bouncy ball


• a scrunchie


• herpes cream

In response to this discovery, he claims he was just being nice and carrying the herpes cream for Ochs and the bouncy ball “just fell in there” somehow. Uh huh…

I’m going to pick back up something I used to do and end my posts with parts of songs now. To the following, I dedicate to Mark who watched much more of this Avril concert with me than we should’ve. I confess I am drawn to horrible TV.

“I can see the way
I see the way
You look at me
And even when you look away
I know you think of me
I know you talk about me all the time
Again and again (and again, and again, and again…)
(So)So come over here
Tell me what I wanna hear
Better yet, make the girlfriend disappear
I don’t wanna hear you say her name
Ever again (And again and again and again…)

Cause
She’s like so whatever
And you can do so much better
I think we should get together now
And that’s what everyone’s talking about!” -Avril Lavigne

Man, that song is so horrible but so awesome in a terrible terrible way too… it’s hard for me to express the mixture of horror and awesome that is the line “she’s like so whatever.”

Well my sleep schedule’s really messed up. Anyways, I’m surfing around randomly and looking at my flickr stats and noticed this:

Yahoo! Image Search results for “face punch”