migblog

there's something to be said for a christmas that was supposed to be traditional but is terribly not.

take, for example, the weather. it's been really dry recently, thanks of course to the gusts of the santa anas, which leaves the ambient air with zero humidity, which translates to the beginning of chapped lips, ashy elbows, and nosebleed season. (it's not particularly fun if you're dehydrated, and then the air around you doesn't have any moisture, so it's like haha, every time you breathe in, it almost hurts.)

spending christmas kind of
my grandma's in the hospital still, one week after she received surgery for her lung cancer. the way she describes it, they had to pop her back, cut her ribs, plaster her back together... it's all very sad, because she tears up when she talks about it, and then she's in pain for a while. in fact, the first time i saw her in the hospital, her eyes were closed, and she was having a dizzy spell. she couldn't even open her eyes. she knew we were there, but she didn't even get to see us -- and we didn't even get to talk with her.

for the most part, visiting my grandma is a nice thing. it's that whole being-with-family thing. but there's the grotesqueness of it all, that everyone in her wing won't be spending christmas at home, because they're tied down to breathing machines and intravenous drips, and that stale air of hospital hallways that smells so sterile yet recycled.

or-co, olympia duka-tits, and nate's tv show
reconnecting with friends is always one of my favorite things to do. nate probably knows me better than most people, just by the sheer amount of time he's known me, and i don't ever think i ever give him enough credit for that.

he "kidnapped" me on thursday to the land of camelot, where there was much in the way of sync games (think ddr and guitarfreaks); then we went to the pier; then we had our semi-annual catch-up-fest at chevy's. through the course of the evening, we despised the term "the o.c." so we came up with an alternative: we are now a part of a two-man coalition to change "the o.c." to "or-co" because, as you may know, fellow southern californians, "or-co" is a little like norco without the "n"asty.

nate is naming his kids after movie stars with modifications to account for genitalia (e.g. olympia duka-tits, david bore-anus, steve blow-jobs). and, we decided, that our tv shows would make the best fucking tv shows in the entire world, given that they starred us, were directed by us, and narrated by alec baldwin. (there's even crossover potential.)

missing
no dad, no babe, no grandma, no christmas tree, no lights.

no cable, no tv in my room, no decent reading material in the house.

no fire at the hearth, no sleep, no precious alone time.

no shopping until the day before, no berkeley friends, no english at home.

it's a weird christmas the twentieth time around.

damn, that's awesome
i got a lot of cool things for christmas. pictures to come at the photosite.

my computer's com port died, so can't do anything in the way of networking. the need to reformat arises. but i'm getting a new computer next month!

i miss my baby.

so much free time i'd never really experienced. that, or i've just taken it for granted every christmas break, so it feels like i've been doing nothing for a while.

go bears, beat the red raiders!

holiday bowl: san diego, qualcomm stadium, espn. i'm getting paid to go, and i'm staying at the holiday inn by the bay for five nights. there's going to be a lot of scandal, memories, and good times about to happen, i can tell. and that's always a good thing.

merry christmas to all.

posted by Open Source Food @ 11:14 PM 0 comments

the day was great, and the night was young, but the ride back was horribly long.

i said my goodbyes as i made my rounds through berkeley, from the night before with the third years, the oakland crew soon after, and the rounds that afternoon. i hung out with shat -- some of the best conversation i've ever had at cal -- and then we went to jdlp's little get-together. i only ended up staying for a few, but i had a lot of fun, up until i got home and had to pack like everything.

i stayed up, basically, got an hour's sleep, and headed to the land of smog, fake tits, and the only county i know that is preceded with an article.

we loaded up, and about three hours later of driving in a ridiclously foggy central valley, we decided to make a pit stop in paso robles. mind you, when i saw what was in the parking lot, i almost died. four times.

in four different cars were four different dogs all doing sorts of different things. it was glory.

then we put on some good "sing-along" kinds of cd's, ranging from bad pop to hip-hop to metal and even some techno (it's the easiest stuff to sing along to because, for the most part, there's just about fourl ines to learn).

as soon as we hit the grapevine, the fog disappeared, and instead we encountered gusty winds, and a mild traffic jam.

we then combated through los angeles, and we got home safe and sound in "the" o.c. and went out to get food as soon as we set our stuff down.

and after a nice, long nap, i'm home, situated and kind of relaxed.

i'm glad to be back.

for those of you in the area, give me a call; for those of you who aren't, do it anyway; for those of you who don't know me, HA!; and for those of you who do, i appreciate you.

woot.

posted by Open Source Food @ 6:22 PM 0 comments

i thought this would be the easy part of being on top, but, no, it's one of the toughest things i've ever had to face during my time here at cal, and that includes rejection, failure, and of course procrastination.

it sounds simple enough, right? pick a person, any person; but it's so much harder because of certain dynamics and different modes of thinking and just how silly it all seems after it turns out.

i have to keep reminding myself that it is important, because i find myself saying rather adamantly that in the end, it's not that important.

in other news, updates upon updates! (go visit; i haven't had a chance to update these things in a while.)

everyone seems to be going nuts over finals. i ought to be, but then again, i've kind of just let it run its course when i'm most likely going to be on academic probation next semester. (not that i'm proud of it, i've just given up.) and i'm not sad, nor am i sorry -- i have no reason to be -- it's just that i realized it a little too late that i'm not really liking this whole thing.

man, i'm excited to go home. and when i'm in my own bed, enjoying wireless internet access from my room, and watching dvds for hours on end, i'll be happy. not content, but happy.

san diego baby!

posted by Open Source Food @ 1:25 PM 0 comments

i heart good times.

i heart staying up until five in the morning, after two games of cranium, a lot of drinks, countless rounds of california speed, a notorious round of spoons, three boxes of cheesy sticks, countless pictures, people getting chiefed while they were awake, and a really funny instance when we were fielding a bitch of a building manager because we were being too rowdy.

this, my friends, was the fall casual.

since kat and i weren't going to formal (one due to lack of interest, the other due to lack of money and a significant other), we decided that the best plan of action was to have fun by ourselves. i'm glad it worked out really well.

it still hasn't hit me yet with the whole ex-comm thing, but i felt for chris and zack last night when they started talking about some things. i'd never been in a position where there were "sides" that i was already on -- trying to be neutral, but the very fact that now i have this label on me makes it really difficult. it's going to be interesting when things come around during the spring, and even more intensely so when the fall hits.

sigh. i heart you guys.

posted by Open Source Food @ 3:06 PM 0 comments

i'm a little alcoholic, so please bear with me.

i was expecting tonight to be a lot of craziness, and it proved to be so. we've already set our first deadline, and it's pretty insane to be already thinking about next year when we still have the bowl game to worry about.

i'm somewhat glad that i didn't run against anyone, since i didn't want to feel bittersweet, or even worse, miserable, for winning. i know someone out there is ripping their hearts out for feeling so torn, but i know it'll get better, eventually.

to anyone who doesn't know what i'm talking about, the band just had its annual end-of-the-year banquet and officiating ceremonies, and i'm proud to announce that i am a student officer for the cal band next year as its public relations director.

it's a little crazy to think about, but man, is it surreal right now to be even talking about all this crazy stuff.

i'm looking forward to working with nEXt-comm, as well as ex-comm. we're all in for a wild ride, and as zach put it tonight, "this is going to be the personality explosion ex-comm."

i have to admit, he hit it right on the head.

posted by Open Source Food @ 1:18 AM 0 comments

i haven't done this in such a long time, but man, being online and awake at three in the morning is awesome!

i've exhausted all previous links, all the regular haunts, and even started up a few of my own. but i think what's even cooler is that i'm doing this all on a wireless connection, and the guy who i'm stealing internet from probably doesn't even know it.

the last time i was up this late and online was probably sometime around eight months ago or so.

i'm still kind of mad at the whole rose bowl thing, but whatever; i mean, we're going to kick ass anyway so we might as well just have fun. one sad thing though is that the student store decided to print up a whole slew of rose bowl shirts before bcs decisions were out, so now they're stuck with an overstock of these rose bowl shirts that no one's going to want. but check this out: the price before the announcement was $25; when we found out we weren't going, the price dropped to $5.

now mind you they're rolling out brand spankin' new holiday bowl shirts (which aren't as cool, i have to admit) as the rose bowl shirts, but they're still $20 a pop, and that's going to hurt. but people seem to be just scooping them off the shelves and taking them from the racks. they've had to restock twice for the holiday bowl shirts already.

the weather's not being as cooperative, though -- within three days, berkeley decided to get really cold, really fast, and it isn't as cold as, say, minnesota, but still. for the weather to be going from the mid-sixties to the mid-forties in a day is a little ridiculous, don't you think? and then there's the rain, but then again, what were you expecting? at least it's not snow. and at least i can still walk around indoors without having to be all bundled up.

now i get to sleep!

posted by Open Source Food @ 2:59 AM 0 comments

by the way, to correct all those people out there:

bcs - c does NOT equal bcs. in fact, if you remember any algebra, bcs -c = bcs -c. in order for bcs to become bs, the formula becomes:

bcs / c = bs. (the c's have to cancel.)

unless, of course, it's a rebus, in which case don't pay any fucking attention to what i just wrote.

posted by Open Source Food @ 6:52 PM 0 comments

this has been said millions of times over the past twenty-four hours (and that's a lot considering it's only been a day), but to echo the resounding masses in disgust, fuck the bcs.

in the span of four years the state of texas has managed to singlehandedly ruin the entire country, and in effect, california. of its most egregious mistakes, the three nastiest things to come from texas are bush 2000, bush 2004, and a crappy rose bowl game, pitting texas against michigan, in which case i say, go blue, fuck up the texans.

there's a lot of articles you can read out there about how we got cheated and how texas was classless panhandling for votes, but that's okay, i think. we're still the number two university in the entire world, the number one public university in north america, and we're still better than texas because, hell, we're california.

you can imagine the collective sigh and the subsequent groaning growing into a loud roar in the city of berkeley after the decisions were announced on abc. trust me, you did not want to be wearing orange in a sea of blue and gold yesterday. and i think that says something about us as cal fans and as cal students, that yeah, this is bullshit, but hey, we're going to make the most out of this bullshit as we can.

so in true berkeley fashion, people have already organized a protest this wednesday on sproul against the bowl championship series, whining berkeley-style and i think we're going to get some points from it around the nation. (who knows, it might even get covered by national tv.) and if texas says we're just whining, we'll just let them repeal one more law against sodomy, have them start another nation-building war, and of course, let them appeal for more votes to beat writers in texas who vote in the ap poll as part of this hugely conspiratorial big xii-conference coaches' poll, giving the conference a huge payout.

and as a sign of solidarity, the student body has agreed to wear blue on thursday, something cal-related, to show our football team that we love them, they're awesome, and that they got fucking shafted.

so if you're reading this and didn't know about those two things, go do it for your golden bears. they deserve it at the very least.

roll on, you bears. fuck the bcs. and may texas be engulfed in nuclear waste after everyone has been fucked in the ass with a giant wooden dildo that splinters and gives everyone herpes. except for my relatives who live there, but i think they're planning on moving to california anyway.

fuck the bcs, fuck texas, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. go bears.

posted by Open Source Food @ 12:15 PM 0 comments

i sometimes find myself in a drunken stupor without much rationale nor discretion, and now is one of those times.

i just wanted to say, to all my fellow tourguides, that you are some of the most amazing people i've ever met. some of you i know better than others -- it's just the run of the game, i guess -- and some of you i haven't even met. but to those of you whom i have, i highly admire you and do wish that all of you are having wonderful times and an especially great holiday season.

to those of you who are leaving, you will most definitely be sorely missed. jason, for example, has been a rock. he was one of the first tourguides i ever met (in fact, he was on the panel that hired me, along with the bigwigs ladawn and pamelaia) , and he'll always be on my list of good people. it always brings a smile to my face whenever i see him around campus, and i think he always will, whether or not we're working together or not.

it was also nice to see jonathan at a staff meeting for a change. he was one of the first tours i ever shadowed, and he was always nice from the start. jonathan is now happily engaged, and his partner is also just as cool as he is. i think i'm going to miss jonathan a lot, especially since he's a crazy guy, and i tend to asociate myself more with the crazies.

and then there's david. david was one of the more recent guides i've met, and he in total is one of the most interesting people i've ever met. despite having been at cal for approximately eight years now, he's one of the guys who has seen three different directors for visitor services, three chancellors, and of course, one heck of a career at the visitor center. he's always nice to talk to, and he always provides some otherwise awesome insight into something that you might think is mundane or otherworldly.

i'm so pissed.

but to all of those tourguides i just mentioned, you will be sorely missed, and i'm sure i will see you soon, whether at work, in your graduation, or whenever you come visit. i promise, let's have lunch sometime, and i'll make it a memorable time.

you are some of the most inspiring people i've met, and thank you for sharing yourselves with me and being a part of my cal experience. you've brought me closer to the university i already love with all my heart, and with that, i thank you. but i especially appreciate your willingness to open up and meet me, an over-eager, zealous new hire that wishes he knew as much as you do because you epitomize everything i've been striving for in this university.

you all are amazing, i can't say that enough.

go bears.

posted by Open Source Food @ 9:50 PM 0 comments

some of the more recent developments this past recently:

- a well-timed, ill-conceived trivial pursuit analogy concerning the workings of the public relations committee and the band. i was spouting off, debating myself (they're called debates but they're in fact just question-and-answer sessions), when all of a sudden the best thing i could muster was trivial pursuit.

- my grandmother, post-surgery. she was in the operating room for close to nine hours on monday for her cancer, and i didn't hear back from my parents until tuesday about her condition. she was stable, out of the icu, and on a morphone drip. it's been very tense recently, and you should have seen me on tuesday when i was going insane.

- zach's awesome grammatical skills: "nice awesome dressed-up stuff." and it was supposed to bea complement to how sharply pat was dressed. but i guess that's what happens when you're minnesotan. (and he also confuses "plaque" with "enamel" concerning teeth.)

- family guy, arrested development, alias, chapelle's show, mr. show, csi: crime scene investigation, and da ali g show. those tv shows on dvd format save my life, since my cable went kaput and i don't have an antenna. the shows are awesome. now only if my cable would get back on the line...

- ling's awesome grammatical skills: "it's so cold, my face is cold."

- the randomness of tuesdays that are fantastic. chappy's random get-togethers and wreaking havoc on southside is always particularly fun. i finally got to see where daisuke lives, played with some people's heads by going on other people's screennames, and hung out with kat alpha like no one's business. (that wine was yummy.) there was daisuke's story about meeting someone named taisuke, hearing about how shat and jordan were watching porn together, and seeing mike man alan after his haircut.

- friends are cool.

and finally,

- the away message of the moment, for several people: "if you wanna cyber, leave me an im. :D"

posted by Open Source Food @ 4:45 PM 0 comments