rest in peace

the first person i met at starbucks, arthur, passed away on friday.

generally a likeable guy, sometimes brass, but a nice guy overall.

i'll remember him gyrating his hips while playing poker with us, which resulted in him farting up a storm. i'll remember him trying to hook up jenny and aaron. i'll remember him taking that picture of me, which basically initiated me into this group of people. i'll remember him drinking his herbal meds and eating disgusting black licorice candy. i'll remember him stroking his white beard while chatting with us. i'll remember him getting wonton soup without the wonton for free at phoenix. i'll remember him chatting with deidra about spirituality and buddhism. i'll remember him calling when he didn't have a hand. i'll remember him sitting at kinkos everyday on his laptop. i'll remember him with his yellow shady hoodie that he wore because he got it on sale. i'll remember him with his terrorist headgear. i'll remember him telling us stories about hawaii. i'll remember him driving his red POS rental that was cluttered with a lot of junk.

and finally, i'll remember him just as he would've like to be remembered, a friendly, generous, loving human being.

i'll miss you, art. rest in peace wherever you are.

ps: he would have been glad that the bruins are in the final four.

fucking people

one thing i hate about starbucks, and there aren't many, is that once in a blue moon, i'll see my old landlords walking by because he and his wife goes to the chinese food place around the corner.

i can't stand them and they fucking annoy the hell out of me. i should really say i hate HER cuz she's such a bitch.

i should just keep my head down and mind my own business. i really should.

drugs anyone?

i feel in need of some medication.

ringleader of the tormentors

is anyone else as excited as i am about the new morrissey album that's coming out next month? he really has great names for his albums, doesn't he?

after coming back from hk, i'm been so unmotivated with any school related work. i can't even read. i feel so compel to quit and say fuck with school. at this point, i just want to get by and finish the damn thing up. i don't know why? maybe i'm just a bit depressed with my father's illness.

i think i'm more annoyed with the fact that i don't know how to feel. yes, yes... i'm sad, depressed, etc. but i'm so distant from everything. i want to be there to help out, but i don't want to be there, either. i'm happy in my little world here in the states. being back there just reminds me of things i hate. i feel so out of sorts there. yes, i'm cantonese (bno to be exact, you naysayers) and yes, i'm from hk. but it's not my place.

i think it's time to go see a therapist again. conflicting feelings, not knowing how to feel is a problem. laughing masks my pain, but then i don't know how else to deal with my pain. i feel guilty for being happy, for laughing, for feeling generally okay. i'm stressed about school, work, family, hk family.

the future is certainly an annoying thing. for someone who's dying, i can't believe he can still piss me off with the comments he makes. yes, i know he cares and he worries, but at this point, i have to deal with my own life, my own decisions, my own mistakes. worry about yourself, be concerned about your health. stop worrying about me.

it's tough not being able to be open with your parents. it's not as easy as i make it out to be. people don't understand, and i don't have the patience or strength to tell them so. "oh, why don't you tell them?" i much rather get shot in the foot, i much prefer the left one, then to deal with my parents shit.

maybe i'm naive. maybe i'm lucky. i've never experience death in my life. or something near the brink of death. i'm unaccustomed to dealing with it. surprisingly, none of my friends have experience it either. is divorce worse than death? maybe, maybe not. i don't know. oh, one has, i just remember. father passed away when she was a young girl. i wonder how she deals with it, even now.

generally, i'm not a depressed person. i love listening to morrissey though. i like to think that the worst pain i've ever felt was losing a girlfriend or something similar. i kinda like that pain cuz it makes you alive as a person. or the anguish of not having anyone to love or not having someone who loves you back. i really loved those moments, but granted, now that i have both, i'm happy.

but i feel that i'm not allowed to be happy. i should be sad, worried, depressed, concerned. my brain is all scrambled up. my feelings are all twisted. i'm scared. maybe that's it. i'm scared. for the first time in my life, i'm really scared. not scared like i was with watching the ring. but like scared. what the fuck happens when all this is over.

there's a difference between knowing that my parents are in hk and if need be, i can go visit them when i want. just jump on a plane, 15-18 hours later (depending on which airline i fly) and there they are, in the flesh. what fucking plane goes to heaven? or wherever you go when you leave this place.

i'm just babbling. i'm just not feeling right. anyone reading this shouldn't be too worried. i'm just hating this semester in school. just hating it.

freaky

you know what's freaky?

okay, other than survivor shot?

inanimate objects personified in cartoon or claymation form. i just saw an advert show household appliances with arms and legs modeling down a catwalk. the dryer, then preceded to open its door to show the "goods." why?

that's just not right. just like that stupid cartoon they have at movie theatres. the one with the walking coke, popcorn, candy box, etc. i don't know why, but it sure freaks me out.

*squirt*... you're dead

i was reading an latimes article on this new game called streetwars: killers and basically the premise of the game is that you're a hitman and your objective is to hunt down your target and squirt them with water. once you do that, you get your target's objective, so on and so forth until you are your own target. at this point, you win a pot of about $500.

so the game started in la today with about 200 players. you can not hunt people down at their work or at a bar, which makes good sense. it kinda reminds me of playing survivor shot back in high school. basically, we divide into two teams of about five or six players. we run around a poorly lit school campus (mostly we played up in monterey hills and sometimes at the high school) and hunt down people from the other team. we wear these head gears with a small motor and infrared sensor attached. when someone (and this could be anyone... ever heard of friendly fire?) hits your sensor with their gun, the small motor activates and pushes a small little button into the side of your head.

i have to say that getting shot without any warning is by far, the freakiest thing ever. all of a sudden, this little button starts jamming itself into your head. i remember jay used to sniper all day and it was fucking scary. it was probably at that point when i knew that i wouldn't make much of a soldier because i would probably piss in my pants pretty hard if i ever get into live combat.

which reminds me of the movie, saving private ryan. damn, it's been eight years since that movie came out? wow, i didn't even realize it's been so long. anyway, remember that stupid translator/soldier character guy? the actor who was in spanking the monkey? anyway, i remember watching the movie for the first time and hating, just hating, him for not doing anything when adam goldberg's character was being slowly stabbed to death by that big german soldier. god, i really couldn't stand it. i wanted to scream at him, "don't just fucking stand there you stupid assfuck. kill the kraut!" frustrating.

another movie that frustrated me in a similar manner: the chronicles of narnia. oh god, that little girl was fucking retarded and the younger son, whatever his stupid name is, runs off to the white witch like a little fucking benny arnold. *sigh* so annoying.

common sense people, common sense.

one question: is it really necessary to cosmetically change your twat?

a sampling if you will: Across the country, post-pubescent and peri-menopausal women alike are having their vaginas tightened, their mons pubis liposuctioned, their labial folds nipped and their clitoral hoods tucked. Most are seeking to restore what plastic surgeons are calling "a more youthful look" to this long-secreted corner of the female anatomy and often to improve their sex lives in the process. (In some cases, women with few pretensions to virginity are surprising their partners by having their hymens surgically restored.)

uh... okay. *scratching head*

btw, this is my 300th post on rectal. time to celebrate.

go, go, go bruins!

just wanted to give mighty props to my bruins basketball team for winning the pac-10 tourney and killing OSU, UA, and CAL (fucking cal).

if i was in the states, i would have watched the games, and they sounded like they were pretty exciting games, especially with the bruins putting a beat down on each of the teams.

i can't wait for the tournament come next week.

secure my ass

i realized today that i took a book of matches with me on the flight to hk earlier this week. it was hiding out in one of my zippered compartments in my carry-on backpack.

too bad i forgot my shoe bomb.

i bet it would probably have shut that noisy kid up that was sitting two seats to my right. seriously, if you have a kid... let's say 4 years old or so, and he's crying, kicking, and causing general debauchery, shouldn't you do something about it?

i decided that cathay pacific isn't very good, at least not the flight i took to hk. i remembered past flights as being decent. but i haven't flown with them in a long time. probably a decade, almost. i now prefer JAL, but unfortunately, they don't fly nonstop to hk.

i thought it was kinda weird that they would serve congee for breakfast. i opted for the other meal, scrambled eggs with sausage. it wasn't too bad, especially with some salt and pepper. for lunch, which came before the breakfast meal, i had the seafood stir-fry with steamed rice. talk about false advertising! it came with two little shrimps and some veggies.

the appetizer was pretty good though. smoked salmon with capers. the dessert wasn't too bad either, apple pastry with vanilla cream. but who am i kidding, i'm looking forward to some kt when i get back to la. (also some dnl as well.)

life

sometimes it is difficult for me to think about my father and his illness. i'm sitting in my parents' flat in hong kong, watching my father play with my less than one-year-old nephew. i teared up as my father talks about how in 10 years, baby gaby, will be able to do anything he wants.

when he said that, i think in all of our minds, ten years seem like a long time away. will dad still be around in 10 years? common sense says probably not.

yep, 10 years seem so far away right now. the idea that dad won't be able to watch gabe grow up is a bit heart-wrenching. i think that's just the saddest thing of all, my father not being able to see his grandchildren grow up.

old faces

yes, yes, i know, it's been a while since i've last blogged. school, work, and general debauchy at the bucks are taking time away from doing other things... such as hanging out with the mrs. (sorry, babe).

but something happened today... well, not just today, cuz i have to tell the molestation story, too one of these days. and no, not when i was younger, but a month ago. but that's another tale for another time.

so today, i was in class, chilling. we had to do an exercise on focus groups, which wasn't too bad because it gave us a chance to bitch about our program. (if you're reading this, and there's really no reason why you should. but if you are, don't... DO NOT!!! get involved in the PASA program at 'sc. let's just say the program needs some major restructuring.)

so the focus group exercise took about half of the class time. afterwards, our professor, who is also the program advisor, suggested we got to the PASA network election meeting. sounds good, since it'll cut into some of our class time. actually, one of my classmate figured out that by going to the meeting, we basically blew $100 worth of tuition. i guess for 2 slices of pizza and a cup of diet coke, it really wasn't worth it.

anyway, we get to the meeting and a number of the first year students were already there. i went a grab my food and as i was sitting back down, i noticed this girl who looked oddly similar to a girl i had a crush on in college. but you know, since all white people look the same to us asians, i really didn't pay that much attention.

the meeting continued and i was chatting with several of my classmates. i wasn't paying any attention to the first year students who were writing their names under the different positions that they were running for on the blackboard. so when the current vp started the election, i looked up at the blackboard and noticed a name i haven't seen in a long time.

hannah.

now, most of you who went to college with me probably know the hannah story pretty well. i rather not have to relive it digitally so let's just keep it at this, i had a crush on this girl.

getting back to the present. so i was thinking, fuck, how odd is it that this girl who looked a lot like the hannah i knew in college is sitting here and someone here has that same name. totally weird. okay, granted that hannah isn't an uncommon name, but still, i don't think i've met anyone named hannah in eight years.

what i did next, i wouldn't normally do. i really wouldn't. but i just HAD to know. i was sitting there and it was really bugging the shit out of me. so after the meeting was over, i walked up to her and said, "excused me, are you hannah? did you go to ucla?" she was packing up her stuff so she had her head down. when i said that, she looked up at me and after a couple of seconds, i see from her expression that she remembered who i was.

"oh, hey, how are you? oh my god, we used to hang out at lot at school."

we chatted for a couple of minutes and i got her business card and i told her i'll email her later and maybe we could have lunch or something. so that's it. what a fucking small world. oh, yeah, she's in my program, but a first year. poor thing.

oh and another thing... as she was handing me her business card (she had to reach back to her backpack to give it to me), she said, "i'm married." which is all good and well, but then i saw the name on the card and she married an asian guy. hahaha, oh life and it's cruel little jokes.