I snowboarded at Northstar yesterday. Day trip. Troubling things happened. Seems as if I can't go on any trips anymore in which troubling things don't happen. Our party of five got in at most 3.5 hrs of snowboarding... and Karl busted his knee. There's a lot riding on that knee... a lot of rollerhockey and ice hockey games. And I'd really hate to see Karl's dare-devil side subside because of this injury. I always liked that side of Karl. It seems to be what most ppl know him for. I indulge in imagining he's living his life like an RPG game character thrust into adventure... like Cloud or Tidus. He even looks like those characters to me.

The most troubling thing that happened to me yesterday is that I was forced to spend 100+ bux on the entire day. There goes my life for a month. I was hoping to use someone's season pass for half off the lift ticket price; I shoulda known the deal wouldn't work on a holiday. I don't regret renting the truck, despite the amount of time it cost us. That was a GREAT idea and a great deal. Driving that automatic giant was fun, tho my leg of the trip was on pretty straight and uneventful road.

It's pretty interesting riding in a car w/ 4 other introverts. I think we five are all introverts of similar kind by nature... the kind that are known to some as mellow and brooding, and by others as relatively talkative and friendly. I've recently (within the year) retreated into my introverted nature. Introversion is not a negative thing. I don't mind it.

FFX gets better and better the longer you play it. The start is kinda slow... but the story and characters grow on u. Now that I'm 16 hrs into the game, I can't really remember what I liked so much about FF7 that isn't also in FFX... and BETTER. And, my brain is getting lazier and lazier... so I think maybe I'd be frustrated w/ materia and all the options it offers if I had to deal w/ it in FFX.

I think I'll rescind my 8.5 out of 10... and just go ahead and give FFX 11 out of 10 now. I mean, the graphics alone deserve that.

I ate French food last nite, at a place in the City called La Folie. Inadvertently ordered two dishes containing Foie Gras... Foie Gras is glorifed liver. Normally, I abhor liver. But in Foie Gras form, it takes on whole different meaning to me.

I've been playing Final Fantasy X lately. If I wasn't so damn lazy, I'd make "Final Fantasy X" in the previous sentence a link to the game's site. Hell, I'd have included links in every one of these silly posts, just for your happy clicking amusement! :P Anyhow, FFX is a good waste of time. Not like watchng Blind Date and other such demeaning shows on TV... which is a BAD waste of time.

I didn't read any reviews before I started playing. The Final Fantasy games' reputation, my past experience, and my brother's enthusiastic recommendation preceded my decision to spend 50+ hours on the video game. What's my personal review of the game so far based on about 10 hrs of saved game time? I'd give it 8.5 out of 10 stars, 10 being the high standard that FF7 set back 1998. In terms of graphics, FFX is like no other game I have ever played. Awe-inspiring... intricately and impeccably detailed. The scenes, other playing modes, and object movement flow so smoothly. The game teems with designer/programmer brilliance... or maybe just in the layman's eyes? I don't play too many games.

In terms of playability, the game's been fun enough to keep me occupied 3 hrs a day on average. I still manage to get in my workouts after work and dinnner, albeit far less frequently.

BUT I'm a materia girl. In terms of how the characters' abilities develop, I think FF7's use of materia is most ingenious. Also, in FF7, everything - abilities, weapon skills, weapon effectiveness, summons, magic, magic skills, etc. - leveled up based on direct experience. That's intuitive, efficient, and life-like. Also, I think the storyline of FF7 can't be beat. All the characters had serious issues, but they were easy to empathize with at the same time. The characters as well as the game's theme has a more balanced mixture of cartoon-ness and depth than that of later FFs, in my opinion... based on my failing memory, but lasting impressions.

Uh oh. I've run out of time on this Friday evening. Maybe I'll revisit this topic again in the future...

After 3.5 months, Puddle of Mudd's song Blurry is still by far my fave song on the radio. Eh, why is it we can't sing these types of songs when we go sing karaoke at the few places there are to go kk-ing in these parts?

Whenever we go, every one of my non-fobby kk-ing friends always wants to sing stupid 80's songs all nite. 80's songs sorely suck. They're so bad. I mean, there may be some exceptions... like early U2 or some REM. I dunno... And I can even deal w/ Madonna's and Michael Jackson's 80's pop. But just about everything else that came out during that creatively insignificant and unproductive decade, characterized by such horrific things as leg-warmers, hairspray, and parachute pants ... Yecchhhh!! Yeah, maybe everyone likewise realizes 80's music sux, but they still like to belt out to those tunes during karaoke because: 1) the songs tie them to some parts of their lives which have grown reminisce-able, 2) those are the majority of the selection of "newer" songs within those crappy binders at the kk places.

(What's up w/ those binders anyway? When are the kk studio owners gonna replace 'em w/ electronic catalogs that allow one to search and select songs based on keywords, title, and/or author? Am I just such being nerdy and unreasonable to require such electronic gadgetry in order to have a most pleasant and fulfilling experience at these places??)

Anyhow... I really didn't start asserting my independence and living my own life until the 90's. Those 10 years. I could make a drama series that plays for 10 years out of that era of m'life. Pre-90's, my parents wouldn't let me listen to music that wasn't Christian or Classical. Until I got a car (early 90's), I didn't start listening to anything else.

I thought today was gonna b an ant-free day. But look, here they come marching on... They can't get enough of me, apparently. Can't even give me one day off!

On Friday nite, I slept so well... the best that I have in a long time. I haven't had quality sleep lately. Quantity, tho. But Friday nite, I had taken painkillers an hour or so prior to hittin the sheets. And when I woke up, I felt completely refreshed. The best I've felt during AM hrs in ages. Now I'm joking w/ myself about starting a painkiller habit.

I hardly took any meds while growing up. Thanks to my pharmacist mom. I had a bad incident when I was a toddler. They gave me Bayer, and I threw up blood. After that, they wouldn't give me any painkillers for anything. I don't remember ever needing them anyhow.

I don't have any African American friends. Not a one. I wish I did. At least one. I sincerely feel a void w/o them around me. From mid-HS and through the end of college, I saw them all the time. It was comforting enough to have them milling about within feet and/or inches. They made me feel closer to the real world. Back then, because their attitudes and behaviors seemed basic and natural compared to mine and people in my immediate circle of friends, they appeared transparent. And I found something heart-warming about that transparency.

After I graduated from Cal and started living further south, I hardly ever saw any. It's only when I have the chance to venture up into the ol' areas - Hayward, San Leandro, and north - that I see them at all these days. I went to a Warriors game a couple weeks ago. That was the last time I saw them in mass quantities.

The affinity for Afam males was probably seeded at the time my dad opened up his retail sports fan store in Alameda, while I was in HS. Working there, I was exposed to Afams all the time. Growing up among snobby white ppl in a private school left me with a bad taste in my mouth for that race, especially for white women. Asians... it was hard to respect their issues at that time, being a confused one of them.. I found Afams in general to be much less shrouded by fear and self-consciousness. They don't seem to let anything hold them back from doing and saying what they feel. Their ways are vocal and straightforward. They are exceptional athletes and musicians and have therefore taken over the entertainment media.

Physically, they are very fine specimens of the human kind.

But they are yet unreachable to me. When would i have the opportunity to more closely interact with themt? Why would any of them feel the compulsion to be MY friend?

Perhaps now, that is part of why I enjoy Fantasy NBA as much as I do... because I'm allowed to imagine that I OWN a whole team of them. Like collectible puppets, they are performing for me... Great to look at. Great to listen to. Great entertainment value... I realize that I've come to objectify them in a childlike way. Oh well. I'm highly amused, at least.

Drunk Asians don't look good. Horrific. Go to any Asian Party website and check out the pictures they have on display of Asian ppl dancing and posing after drinking. Even the cutest Asian chix look like shit... all red-blotchy and puffy w/ red eyes and the like. Granted, I know I look freakn ugly when I'm drunk. But at that point, I'm too drunk to care. Yes, this most self-conscious, neurotic chick loses all of her worries after drink #2...

Well, if you've got proof otherwise... u got pix of drunk Asians that look pretty decent, send em over for me to check out.

New band name. I'd call ourselves "Yes No Maybe."

I have an everpresent and overwhelming amount of love for my parents. The deepest love I believe I'm capable of feeling... twinged w/ sadness. It's most likely that my parents will be around for another 20+ years... but I feel as if their passing is just around the corner. When I lose them, I will feel a grave and terrible alone-ness. I do not imagine myself handling that kind of alone-ness well; I'm not that strong. I don't think I could deal with it unless I've started my own family by then. I feel so guilty for loving my parents so much and yet not making an effort to interact with them more and not allowing them to know more about my current life. I think about them all the time, but I see them only once every 2 or 3 weeks for just a couple hours. They live only 30 minutes away. I never call. And when my mom calls, I can't help being irritated at her for whatever she says or asks of me. Every week, no fail, my mom risks asking me to come to church. She cares so much about my soul that she regards the risk of angering me and/or alienating herself from me so worth it... if it means possibly saving my soul from hell.

I should call her today to see how she is doing. I need to do that more often.

I don't like leather seats in a car. I've gone w/ cloth and I haven't regretted choosing it for a second. Leather seats only LOOK good. They don't smell good, don't feel good, don't wear well... If I bought a expensive, brand-name, luxury car, I'd HAVE to go w/ leather seats or my car would look cheap. The thing I hate the most about leather seats is that they're never the temperature u need them to b... They're too hot when it's hot, too cold when it's cold.

I still enjoy the act of driving. Alone. It's when I'm driving alone that I get my best thinking and mental healing done. I can wake up cranky, leave the house cranky, but the drive to work can change all that. I think sitting in the driver's seat driving to my destination of choice the closest to full control I ever get... It's when I have the most power in my hands.

"Saam Huet." Heart blood. It's the title of a song that came out some time while I was still in college. Humongous EFFORT... is what I was told "saam huet" means in Cantonese. THIS is kind of effort I put out these days. It really feels so... Heart blood. THAT's the type of blood I feel I expend every time I try for things... things I can't have and can't quite attain. It sure does ache. I'm not half-hearted about most things; I have never really been that way. All my life... Passionate. It's just that NOW, my blood is more precious than it has ever been. I have so little left. And even if I had a lot to give, something tells me I'll always be wringing my heart...

Alright. Here I am. I've been sleeping 8 to 9 hours a nite... but still, I could sleep for hours longer. It's so painful to get up and out. I would like to just sleep for another 2 or three hours, and then get up and move to the couch and sit in front of the TV for the rest of the day... basically killing time until I can hop back into bed. Mental lights out. Yeah. I've lost my motivation to live again. I'm not depressed. At least I don't think I am... because I don't feel sad. Just UNMOTIVATED. And maybe despondent. I just don't feel as if I have much of anything to look forward to in the near future... Therefore, I don't feel like hurrying out of the one place I feel so perfectly warm, relaxed, and at ease. It's hard to look forward to a far-off future when my next five years will be spent living just like this... with no money to do or have the things that bring MEANING to my life. Money provides the freedom to do or have those kindsa things... and five years seems like much too long to have to wait sometimes. Why am I so impatient? Why am I so pessimistic? I need to rid myself of the philosophy that "if I can't get what I want out of my life, then it's not worth living."

I will snap out of this in a week or so. But for now, this is why it's hard for me to get myself out of my comfort zone... the bed, the house...

If I was an Autobot, I'd be:

Take the Transformers personality test at android5.com!

Life sux rite now. Today. This moment. Sometimes just how bothered I am about my poverty-stricken condition becomes frustratingly apparent, and the masochist in me compels me to berate myself about it for the nth time... I hate how the best I can do rite now, today, at this moment just is NOT cutting it. I know I won't be happy simply doing the best that I can for the rest of my life if I don't rise much further above this level. I need to do it soon... I feel as if I'm wasting my life.

If my pain-tolerance wasn't so low, and I realized I'd never rise above this level, I'd join the Army. I'd like to be a special agent, like the Delta Force guys in Black Hawk Down. Well, even then, I'd be pissed if I didn't have the physical or mental aptitude to be a good soldier.

Ethan Zohn, winner of Survivor 3 Africa's million dollars is an absolute HOTTIE. U read about him and think... what more could I possibly want?? Well, that's the thing... We only seem to see certain sides of ppl who are in shobiz... the side of them that the showbizpplmakers want us to see. Fully fabricated, partially, or not... how would we know? I wish I had ppl to glaze me over... to present me as a much better person than I really am, blemish-free in all my pictures, never wearing clothes which do not flatter my figure... to pick out my meals and my charities for me, write my lines so I never blurt out what's really on my mind -- the mundane stuff I imagine few ppl are really interested in...

I know what it is... I'm much too serious. And I'm not funny. Well, what I say doesn't make other ppl chuckle, snicker, roar, or think I'm clever.

But *I* think I'm funny. And I'm fine w/ other ppl not thinking I'm funny. I don't think most other people are funny when they try to be funny. Every joke, every sarcastic remark - well, almost every - has been played out. Overdone. No longer funny to me and worthy of a laugh. Most of the time, people make me laugh NOT at what they're saying but how they're acting, when they're not intentionally acting. I hate when ppl laugh at other ppl's jokes when they're not funny... It's like undue praise.

If the stupid radio worked in my office, I'd be able to expose myself to better music... Oh, also if I wasn't banned from using a PC here and all the wonderful Microsoft products and audio programs out there that are made to run on Windows but not Solaris... Oh well, I'm coping.

Among my rhockey (rollerhockey) group o friends, there's been a lot o luv in the air within the last couple of weeks, maybe two months or so. Like malaria. Or I dunno... But I'm actually going to mention names here. Wow... never really talked about other ppl but ME here. So this will b a nice change from the usual "I don't have money so my life sux" posts that you've been bombarded w/ since the inception of this thing...

Here goes. So take Jason and Karin for example... two resesrved people who I don't know yet too too well and hardly ever really see. But I suspect I know enough to know trust them (they're both genuinely good people)... and to feel like they have really found something special when they met each other. Characterwise, so similar. So compatible. I can't imagine what could ever break them apart now that they are together. How could they NOT be together from this day forward until the end? Why did I bring this up... Well, because this is a first for me... seeing two people my age getting together that really seem to belong to each other from the beginning. It feels good to see it... I mean, I don't have any doubts about them, whereas whenever I see other couples, I always feel some degree of doubt that the two will stay together... I dunno... maybe I'm just seeing whatever I wanna see.

Song of the moment: Hoobastank - Crawling in the Dark

I'm confused by women. I don't really know what I think about them... I'm a woman, but I don't really feel like an Earth woman. I feel like I am a third gender. I've said this before...

Anyhow, women give me strange feelings. With guys, everything's pretty cut and dry. I either like him or I don't. He's cool or he ain't. But with women, it's one day at a time. She's a skanky bitch one day, and I wanna see her fall flat on her face and embarrass herself. She's a sweetie angel the next, and I wanna b her best friend for life. Tomorrow I will be jealous of her new clothes and her money and her figure and the attention she gets but doesn't deserve. But today she's so cute I can't stop staring and caring, and I wanna hold her in my arms...

Maybe she feels the same way about me...