Introvertive Planetary, Planetary Introvertive

another dimension another dimension another dimension *siren*

often times i wonder whether my ability to pick out social or behavioral patterns comes as either a blessing or a curse. i wouldnt go so far as to dub it psychic, but sometimes certain situations just pan out in a predictable manner. kind of like those old sitcoms from the early 90s (i cant believe im saying this). take for example the episode of family matters where everyone goes to disneyland. eddie and waldo decide to drive to florida from illinois. while everyone arrives soundly, thanks to waldos navagation skills they wind up in the state of ken-yada (canada, like pinata). everyone knows from the moment waldo sits in the passenger seat theyre bound to get lost in some funny way. in this situation he had the map upside down. ah waldo geraldo faldo, you never learned. i feel sorry for the actor that played him, as well as jaleel white. meh, maybe theyre still rich. anyways.

a few weeks ago i knew certain events would turn to catastrophe days before they happened. instead of doing something about it, i sat on the sidelines waiting for the cogs and gears to turn till something blew up. and i somewhat regret it. at the time i knew the consequences and thought that the end result might actually be more beneficial to all parties. thats still in question. i think everyone can stand back and see it as a lesson learned. hopefully : /

and now i find myself in a similar situation, with only two realistic outcomes, and thankfully, both good. just one gooder than the other. the experiences ive had recently feel too similar to events from not too long ago. the same signs, the same emotions, the same questions, and all of it points to something without real lines or definition, summed in one word, gray. shivers go down my spine when really specific details become recognizable. it just boggles my mind how events i saw over the span of weeks can happen in just a few days.

or maybe too much econ has jarred my thinking. i need to start that guitar. guitar heros not gonna cut it.

oh i have quite a bit of catching up to do. and im in debts...but not financial debts. eventually ill get around to uploading last quarters pictures. in the meantime, heres some stuff from the summer. also uploaded some dc pictures on the other blog.

i went to a japanese season festival thingy with a bunch of asian kids. none of whom were japanese, which made for somewhat of a slightly odd experience. i also ran into the most intimidating woman ive met in my life. fortunately she didn't remember me. i concluded after awhile that this festival is only suitable if youre one or more of the following:

1) less than the age of 14 but greater than 60. unless you have children under the age of 14.
2) need a place to take a date to in fresno.
3) some sick japanophile.
4) enjoy really big cakewalks. cakewalks that make the elementary school carnivals cry.


jerry decided to throw a bbq at his place as a spur of the moment kind of thing. its what all the cool kids out on temperance in clovis do. so we went to food 4 less to buy meat. i did not take pictures of meat.

i didnt know sith lords began their training at such a young age. i could not stop laughing when i saw this. angel soft and md are desperate enough to latch on to the starwars franchise to try to sell their toilet paper. what creative genius decided to reject the name "hell's embers" for a toilet paper title.

road tripped with this guy and a few others to nerdfest in san diego. manuel wong's one of the most interesting characters er people ive met. more so for his pikachu collection. that pikachu on the left had a... massive back tumor. as for the rifle...i dont even understand. ash ketchup advocates weakening your pokemon by using other pokemon in a 1v1 battle royale, not by shooting it with a pellet gun.

i dont understand driving in socal. not because of the intricate freeway system, but because of signs like these. i spent roughly 11 minutes deciding whether i should pay toll OR...get this...pay toll!

nerdfest, from the inside and out. i didnt get as good a picture of the line for waiting as i wanted to. but if it weren't for poncho, we would have waited in line for 2-3 hours probably.

an ultra-rare moment: stormtroopers unmasked! apparently the imperial forces are also defenders of the doo-rag.


optimus prime and batman, my two childhood heroes. batman was really cool because he was built of legos.


my stuff took up about 1/1000 of the trunkspace.

beachside off the san diego campus.

sadly the monday after i had to go back to take a midterm. i stumbled upon this guy after getting out of the exam, which i thought was weird for multiple reasons because i never see bunnies on campus.


shop, shop de-dop shop de-dop-de-dop-dedop. i spent a lot of summer working here.
matt transforms into the punisher. pvc, lightpens, goggles and youre good to go.


a filipino ddr reunion. 6 of us went to a sushi restaurant dressed like this going for the dane look. crazy hernandez jean.

i thought this was totally disgusting. my aunt brought my mom back some sort of filipino santizing device used to restore the youth back to your skin. its like putting babies on your face...literally. also BEWARE OF FAKE. made with real placenta extract. i find it great how this product is both new and classic at the same time.

If anything, Aayush's ears are the opposite of Peter's. As I sat at the dining table performing the dreaded accounting of my recent grocery expenses, I shuddered at the sound of redneck tramps dancing on a bar. I didn't need to look at the screen-- with the volume this loud and the voices this unintelligble, I'd say I was better off inhaling the can of fabreez than watching that stupid coyote ugly reality show. Someone came a rap rap rappin' on the door. It had to be her. Lately, her visits became more frequent and I didn't mind that at all. There's no such thing as having a friend over too often (90% of the time.) Our senses of humor overlapped pretty well, so it was easy to joke with her. Even though she did the normal girl thing of sharing her problems with me, she possessed qualities I'd never found in any girl in my years at Davis. Not only did she take tremendous pride in her nerdiness, she could vouch for it with her brains and her unselfish desires to serve the world. That and her eyes did this whenever she smiled: ^__^.

At the time, I was the only one in our apartment with a computer connected to the internet so I happily brought it into the living room permanently for the other 3 guys to use. She always jumped on whenever she came over, doing things like adding to (tainting?) my bookmark list with a korean music video, to fiddling with my budget spreadsheet, to questioning my away messages. She seemed a little friendlier or flirtier than your average girl, and Sheila even agreed to this and warned me not to get my hopes so high. Finding out Sheila not only went to Clovis West as well, knew many-a-chum there, attended my elementary school in addition to living in my neighborhood all proved to be a welcoming surpirse. Not as welcoming a surprise as next Friday's rainy day.

I admired Aayush for thinking on an extraordinary level. Sometimes.

The three of us needed to get to GWU Studio for a taping of the CNN show "On the Story", an arrangement by the UCDC program as a sort of field trip. We told her to meet us downstairs in the lobby with the other UC students. I watched the rain fall through the window and noticed he didn't bring his umbrella. "Aren't you going to get an umbrella?" "Nah, its cool man." "You sure?" "I'm sure." I think he smiled after saying that. After her and the remaining students arrived, we finally left the building. She opened her ladybug print umbrella while I shared mine with my roommate and we walked for a block. The rain fell heavier than I anticipated, with wind blowing it at random angles. "Dude, Mike I'm too tall and I think your getting too wet" he pointed out. "Look, you two are close to the same height, why don't you two share so its easier." I looked at it strictly from a logical perspective and agreed based only on this. We continued to walk with the group and the wind seemed to get stronger, or I became weaker, considering I did a pretty crappy job holding the umbrella for the two of us while one of us always got wet. She offered to give my arm a rest and hold it for me, but I refused. Ever so casually, she wrapped her arm around mine and moved even closer to me, slightly leaning herself on my side. Eventually we broke off from the group's route temporarily, taking a faster path in hopes of beating Aayush to our destination. I don't think I'd ever felt this warm in my life, except for in a certain dream I had a few months prior. We crossed paths with Aayush and the rest of the group, but a part of me wanted to say screw the taping, lets explore DC in the rain. Like most of my ideas, I didn't bring it up. At the studio he started pointing out some random things, like how we supposedly had the same eyes, the same smile, and the same shoes (well this was undisputable). She remarked by pointing out my feet were fat and the shoes weren't supposed to look that wide. Afterward I retied the laces in hopes of making my onitsuka tigers look less chubby.

With only 6 or 7 weeks left in the program, I finally asked her out on a date. Neel planned an outing to the Iwo Jiwa statue that evening, in hopes of seeing the sunset with a great view. 5PM rolled around and he yelled for everyone to get ready. I pretended I was still napping. After calling out to me once more, he gave up and the apartment door shut. I jumped out of bed immediately, googlemapped "flowers" and saw Safeway was the closest place. My first destination was the new regal movie theater in Chinatown. In front of the entrance a lady started locking up her shop. Twas a flower shop. I stopped her and asked if I could buy a single red rose from her. The vendor looked slightly annoyed but probably made up for it by ripping me off. Five dollars for one red rose- not even a super fresh one either. I proceeded to buy two movie gift certificates. She told me at least 3 times she wanted to see Ice Age 2 or Over the Hedge, so I figured this would be appropriate. The plan was to leave a rose in front of her door, and tape an envelope including the tickets and a letter asking her to get back to me the next day. Yes, stupid, I should have just talked to her instead. The plan wasn't executed as smoothly as I wanted it to. As I began taping the envelope to her door I heard the knob starting to shake. I didn't know what the hell to do, and like an idiot I just dropped it all on the floor and sprinted down the hall for the elevator. I was pretty sure she heard my mad sprinting, and in fact, instead of waiting for an elevator to come I just bolted for the stairwell to get to my room. When I got back to my room, I started laughing at how dopey I must have looked doing all of that. What a loser I am, but that just truly shows my lack of experience in these things.

For the rest of the quarter, I felt like we were in this bizarre gray zone. Although she admitted to me she wasn't interested in a relationship because she was going to Africa for a year, we seemed to weave beween the states of just friends and acting more than just as friends. Honestly, it really confused me. She'd casually make these gestures of physical contact or I'd notice her give me this really cute stare, while other times she'd call me to use googlemaps to direct when she was lost, and on one really brief occasion I went inside H&M with her as a sidetrip. My roommates liked to joke about this by making whipping noises or pulling on an imaginary leash. Aayush even said, "Mike this isn't fair, your doing all of these things and she isn't giving anything in return." I wasn't looking for sex in return, but he did remind me of my definition of a girlfriend: your best friend plus bonus, with the definition of bonus varying from guy to guy. Afterall a guy can be a guys best friend, but if that were the case, that guy could not provide bonus to me, hence he could not be my girlfriend. Good chain of logic, huh. I really hated being forced to choose between hanging out with her, and the guys. The way I saw it, since she wasn't my girlfriend, it would be okay not to be there for her 100% of the time. I knew we couldn't delve into a relationship, but at the same time I enjoyed every occasion the two of us hung out, convincing myself to simply live the moment, rather than think of the future. Kind of like that Avenue Q song, "Dont stress, relax, let life roll off your back, except for death and paying taxes, everything in life is only for nowwwwww."

The night after returning from New York, she called asking when I'd finish my research paper. We both aimed for Sunday (my actual due date the Thursday following) and then she casually followed it up with a question. "So how do you plan on celebrating?" "Celebrating...paper being done?" "Yes." "Uh....I don't know about you but I'm going to dance." "Hmph. Dancing's boring. We should do something to celebrate," she said, with a softer tone in her voice. "I have nothing in mind right now." I said dumbfoundedly. "Well, how about you let me know later on when you think of something." "Okay, I'll come up with something for sure." Did she want to go on a romantic date, or did she just want another siteseeing companion? This was one of those times I was seriously confused.

One evening she pulled off convincing me with an innocent face she originally joined an asian sorority and dropped it to join another asian sorority. "Come on, eh kay dee PHI, spread em high" or she said something like that. At the same time, I gave her information on how I felt about those sororities and how I thought they were tiered, based on looks (which I still think is true). Later on she admitted about joking, but the fact I couldn't distinguish this face from that prior scared me. This, in addition to another lie, really shook my image of her. Girls can be manipulative. After knowing her for nearly two months, I thought it was impossible for her to be the type, but I ruled that out now. Crazy thoughts surfaced in my head, thinking of Cathy from East of Eden and one particularly attractive Asian girl at my high school who admitted to crying to one of the counselors in order to get an A in a class. My perspective of her shifted slightly, and became more careful and cautious of her interaction with me. Whenever she frowned, enlarged her eyes and slanted her eyebrows upward I told her instructively not to give me that look in fear of simply being seduced. I became a paranoid maniac. And a jerk.

It was our last full day in Washington. Aayush, Neel and I spent our late afternoon kayaking on the Potomac. Neel crashed into a lady's kayak, pissing her off and and inducing a rescue boat to pull her away. I heard a huge splash, saw Neel laughing, turned to my side and found Aayush, a Davis Dragon Boat Team Member, had capsized for the second time. My phone vibrated and ever so carefully, ensuring I wouldnt rock my own kayak and share his fate, picked up the phone. During our merry conversation Neel sarcastically thanked me for helping them out and yelled a few times, "Mike stop talking to her and do something!" I didn't hang out with her earlier in the day and Neel seemed to be doing a good job helping him out so I continued to converse with her. I asked if she planned on attending the UCDC final dinner in a bit. "No...I'm tired of UCDC people, they're unreliable...including you." My heart sank and a wave of guilt ran through me. We were supposed to go to Arlington and I was supposed to call her after procrastinating and finishing my paper Thursday. Instead I joined the guys for the Spy Musuem, using the excuse, "Well she's not my girlfriend so I can get away with this." I didn't even plan out a means of celebration. Nor did I bring up the movie tickets again. I apologized to her and she replied, "Yeah, you don't exactly have a good track record." Time felt as if it had slowed down dramatically and I sat there lifeless, only the thumping inside my chest reminded me I was alive. She was right, I didn't follow through with everything. I apologized and asked if we could at least hangout later in the evening, but she adamantly replied everytime with "maybe." "Well when I return to the center can we at least talk?" "Alright."

Aside from my roommates, she was my closest friend and I refused to leave Washington knowing things ended on a sour note. After a knock on her door with no response, 5 phone calls, 3 voice messages, and passing on a final night of barhopping with the guys, frustration overcame me and I decided to give up and sleep on the couch and spend my evening with Conan O'Brien. Finally, a response. She explained she fell asleep and left her phone on silent, but gave me the okay to come and visit because it'd be the last time I'd get to see her. We talked shortly about potential summer visits and bananas. She appeared to be getting more tired, so I decided to ask her one thing before parting. I had to figure out where I stood in this gray zone because I pessmistically assumed every girl I'd meet would only perceive me as this nice guy who'd make for a good buddy. A rag of sorts, as some friends label. I looked directly into her eyes and asked, "In the span of these past 9 weeks, tell me, was there ever a time you liked me more than as a friend?" I would be content with any answer even if it remained unexplained. With slightly glossy eyes she replied, "Yes" and for the second time, she brought up the fact she'd be gone for Africa and didn't believe in 2 month relationships. I hugged her, not like the embrace I wrote about a few months ago, but it wasn't remotely anything like the half-assed goodbye hugs with other girls from the center, and finally bid farewell.

I don't know what she really thinks of me. In the end, I was a flake for a friend and perhaps I'll be like the other 210 UC students to her. In two weeks I'll find out. Thank you though for instilling some hope. Now I know nice guys don't always finish last, and it's reassuring to know not all girls are attracted to sleezes. It's also truly reassuring to know there are girls out there with real worldly aspirations, rather than hoping to marry and live off of some guys money. If I'd met you before this quarter, I never would have imagined someone as well accomplished and attractive as you could see anything at all in a guy like me.

Regardless, my time in Washington, DC was truly a blast, and gave me some of the most enjoyable as well as beneficial experiences in my life. Good times. I'll gradually update the other blog with more pictures.

shameless utada plugin

literally. word for word.

okay fucker. someones penetrated my library and stuck little leaflets in all of my econ textbooks with the following message:

We, the undersigned, make this accusation: that you, the teachers of neoclassical economics and the students that you graduate, have perpetuated a gigantic fraud upon the world. You claim to work in a pure science of formula and law, but yours is a social science, with all the fragility and uncertainty that this entails. We accuse you of pretending to be what you are not. You hide in your offices, protected by your jargon, while in the real world forests vanish, species perish, human lives are ruined and lost. We accuse you of gross negligence in the management of our planetary household. You have known since its inception that your measure of economic progress, the Gross Domestic Product, is fundamentally flawed and incomplete, and yet you have allowed it to become a global standard, reported day by day in every form of media. We accuse you of recklessly supporting the illusion of progress at the expense of human and environmental health. You have done great harm, but your time is coming to its close. The revolution of economics has begun, as hopeful and determined as any in our history. We will have our clash of paradigms, we will have our moment of truth, and out of each will come a new economics – open, holistic, human scale. On campus after campus, we will chase you old goats out of power. Then, in the months and years that follow, we will begin the work of reprogramming the doomsday machine. Sign the manifesto at http://www.Barefooteconomics.Org

the most unusual thing ive learned in my polisci class, "the scientific study of war", is the strength of one theory explaining the origins of war: to misrepresent information and a failure to properly convey it. and what we have here is the establishment of some sort of passive war between the misinformed and the good. your argument becomes entirely diminished by your assumption that i entirely accept and practice neoclassical economic theory.

and its this type of wannabe underground-yeah-fight-for-humanity-anti-anything-remotely-conservative mentality that instigates conflict while contributing to ignorance. reading this manifesto is like reading a 14 year old marin high school kid's attempt at changing the world, because hes at a point in his life where hes been socially rejected so to make himself feel good, hes stuck leaflets into textbooks like hes some 80s anti-government punk, thinking that "spreading the word via low-tier communications" is fulfilling his purpose in life because it serves humanity.

oh im totally down for the first amendment. but when your own ignorance, failure to open mindedly study a foreign subject, and utter lack of confidence to directly communicate with another human that leads to these things becomes imposed on me, i have every reason to believe that you will contribute far less to humanity in your entire lifetime than i will in the 10 years after i graduate.

its ironic, economics is labeled the dismal science partly because of its pessimistic portrayal of the world. economists as a majority favor the use of specific forms of investment. in fact they side with those investing in renewable resources rather than increasing efforts to "find more oil". economists recognize the importance of investing in education in order to shrink wage disparities between the rich and poor. economists are the ones who provide politicians with information indicating employer wage discrimination by sex, race, or disability. so in all 3 of these situations we observe a means contributing to humanity. yet im being accused of recklessly supporting the illusion of progress at the expense of human and environmental health.

economists, like most natural and physical scientists, just tell it like it is. we find certain things in life that seem to have a relationship with certain problems, and use the exact same statistical methods as any natural and physical scientist to say "hey, this seems to be the cause of this." economists do not promote the investment of stocks in certain companies, nor do they promote a tax free environment. your ignorance has led to your automatic association of economists with businessmen with republicans with right wing american capitalism.

its funny, take a look at the latest cover of the magazine the economist, labeled "the world in 2006." if your historically informed enough, you may notice the odd choice by the editors to show seperate pictures of bush and blair thrusting one arm at a 45 degree angle, straight out in front of them, much similar to hitler. and if you want to do the world some good, do yourself a favor and read some of the articles inside. you may be surprised by how some of its writers slam europeans and americans alike.

in war, and life in general, there are various levels of depth of thinking. while this first level entails complaining about the worlds problems, and the next level involves determining its causes, those who utilize the system to come up with a solution lie on the superior plane of thinking. so lets think outside the box here. youve slipped pieces of non 100% recycled paper into maybe hundreds of economics textbooks. out of the hundreds of students who purchase these textbooks, how many do you think have scratched their heads and said, "hey you know what, my major is futile, this guy is right, im going to sign the manifesto, drop my major, and go help campaign for larouche and nader?" some good youve sure done.

quite frankly i hate people who complain a lot, without thinking of a solution. great, youre complaining. good job, weve acknowledged a problem here. now what? i dont know, lets just complain more and maybe out of constant laborious complaining the solution will just come out of nowhere. o whats that? you cant think of a solution? academic education? nahh, we dont need that to figure things out. its better and easier and requires less work if i just slip a piece of paper bitching and whining about how unfair life is to me.

grumpy old man

man i feel old.

my sister linked me to our cousins daughters myspace. creepy. i have vivid memories of a summer at their house when she was only 6 and i was 12. man i played a lot of super nintendo then, beating great games such as aladdin, the addams family, and mortal kombat. couldnt beat the fatally flawed smash tv though. that summer i also learned computer programming was a difficult feat for trying to teach oneself. especially considering my level of math exposure at that age covered things like 5 + x = 8. solve for x. anyways, i feel old realizing shes 15 now. reading this only amplifies the effect: (click for zoom)

geez, when she was 6, green day's "welcome to paradise" was MTVs latest buzzcut, and gwen stefani belonged to a real band. collective soul's december was one of my favorite alternative rock songs too. and i think the age defying teri hatcher was still on the adventures of superman.

so she seems like a typical teenager. at least she joined the good community service club and not the naziesque one.

it just feels bizarre remembering conversations with her about uniforms at ft. washington elementary, her own sonora experience, being a swimmer, and now shes "all grown up" and has a myspace. when i was 15 the internet consisted of downloading demos of computer games and retrieving email for my parents. indeed the times have changed. now my dad can check his own email. oooooooohh.

i actually blocked my younger relatives on AIM, quite frankly because i thought a lot of links in my profile would somehow get me into trouble should the elder relatives find out. but now i dont give a rats ass. so frances, if youre reading this, sorry i blocked you on AIM. also, dont be offended if i called your profile something of a "typical teenager". nothin wrong with it, unlike you, i wasnt cool in high school. im actually proud of you for not being a prep. and even if you are, im sure youll be one of those studious preps that turns into a social nerd later on in high school. our familys got brains.

and yes im a potty mouth when not at family birthday parties. but dont tell anyone about this, because i want your parents to like me later on down the road so they can babysit my kids for free.

Open Book

Either Peter’s ears are superhuman, or I’m going deaf. As I sat at the dining table eating dinner while reading, I figured he had to be watching Comedy Central, as the only audible thing I could make out was the laughter of the audience every few seconds. The screen was beyond my view but when I looked up at the wall and saw blue, I knew it had to be the Daily Show. Or maybe the Colbert Report. Someone came a rap rap rappin’ on the door. It had to be her again. Lately, her visits became more frequent and I didn’t mind that at all. There’s no such thing as having a friend over too often (90% of the time.) Our senses of humor overlapped pretty well, so it was easy to joke with her. Even though she did the normal girl thing of sharing her problems with me, what I liked about her was the fact they weren’t superficial or lame. Not that her life was in danger everyday, but she didn’t talk about lame trivial things like seeing a bird fly across the sky and wishing she had some of her own. That and she never talked about makeup.

I especially welcomed her company that evening because practicing accounting problems just isn’t cool. As we exchanged smiles and laughs an alarm started going off in the back of my head. During conversation she would grab hold of my shoulder or arm, not randomly, but I guess the gestures seemed appropriate for what she was saying.

When we hung out before she didn’t normally do this. And a few days ago while sitting on the bus she played the elbow/shoulder game. Each seat on unitrans is wide enough for anyone under 7 feet tall, and less than 300 pounds, to sit comfortably, and within the border of one individual seat. Given sometimes the bus will be so crowded that people can’t help but make contact, when we sat together on the bus, this was not the case. She bore no resemblance to Shaq. Her warm arm and shoulder leaned into mine, despite the bus population of 14. I pondered the moment; since we’re just friends it probably didn't mean anything anyway.

But this new eagle claw grip-- this actually caught me off guard. Not that I mind such violation I guess, but it just made me think differently. It’s kind of like when the next panel in the comic strip shows weird waves emanating from our red and blue hero, you know spidey-sense is going off. Hernia sense was going off.

I’ve mastered the art of speaking to women. All I had to do was stick to a simple formula: 80% attentive listening (65 with her), 9% persuasive agreement (yeahhh…mmhmm…I see), and 10% substantive response (25 with her). The remaining 1% becomes accounted for by the fact that I am a man speaking with someone of the opposite sex. This portion varies from guy to guy and for some guys, talking about sexual things consists of 50% of their conversation with women. I don’t know if that’s normal (unless of course you’re trying to woo a prostitute into your car.) So I found myself in attentive listening mode when suddenly she stopped looking at me and turned her head slightly away. “Hmmmm, we should have dinner sometime,” she said, with a softer tone in her voice. Somehow she casually slipped it into conversation. I stopped to ponder the moment.

This was a line I’d recognized all too often, “Hey we should [insert neutral, casual activity here] sometime.” For the past four years, I’ve naively turned down opportunity, one after another. I can’t quite describe why I do it. Part of it might be fear, as my dating experience is rather limited. What I do know for sure is that I have some weird instinct that holds me back thinking I’m putting something at risk. But not this time. A smart man learns from his mistakes, a stupid man repeats them.

There was even a slight pause after her request, forcing me to respond. I decided to try my hand at being super confident, along with weighing the ever so slight possibility that this could develop into something beautiful. I took a risk this time, hoping the reward would pay well. “Let’s do it—tomorrow at 7PM, I’ll meet you there for shizzle.” A huge grin covered her face, and she collected her backpack and bid farewell to Peter and me. I could never tell if she was genuinely amused by my use of Snoop-talk or if she was just being polite. Either way, I congratulated myself on overcoming my terrible disease of date risk-averseness.

I entered the doors of the French restaurant and immediately recognized her. My eyes never left hers as I trail blazed a path to her table. Women can be magical creatures. With just a few modifications, a decent looking girl can morph herself like a power ranger into babe status. Her length hair now in a bun, silver pierced ears, along with that revealing black sequin dress made her a force to be reckoned with. I had no clue she possessed those kinds of curves. Nor had the testosterone flown this much before by being around her. I sat down and kept reminding myself that at this point we’re only friends and if things happen to drift in one direction, let them go as they may. This proved to be more difficult than I imagined.

The pre-order conversation seemed relatively normal and everything seemed plutonic and good from there. But after the waiter took our orders some part of me wanted the conversation to stir in a different direction. I began to wonder what the difference between this and a real date was. She began to look nervous, which in turn made me nervous. That old feeling of fear from prior woman experiences struck and my confidence in my conversation began to wane. I need to escape this situation, even for just a little bit, I thought. Finally, she rescued the detiorating situation and grinned at me when our eyes made contact.

“Don’t you hate that?” she asked. I knew where this was going.

I gave the test response, “Hate what?”

She continued. “Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it’s necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable? That’s when you know you’ve found somebody really special—“

I interrupted her, “--when you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably share a silence.” Her laughter helped ease the tension building in me.

The fact she could quote Pulp Fiction in this situation blew my mind. The truth though was I couldn’t comfortably share that silence.

I made up a lame excuse about forgetting to lock the apartment. “Okay, do what you need, I’m not going anywhere,” she responded, although her eyes told me otherwise. I headed for the exit and when I pushed open the doors, a wave of cold fresh air relaxed me a little bit. The time 7:16 lit up on the dash as I started the engine. During the drive home I thought, yes, all I need is some relaxation….a quick shower should do it...afterall, I'm sweating profusely and it's gotta be bothering her. A quick shower turned into a 10 minute affair. My time management skills eroded, and it showed when I wasted even more of it pouring myself a coffee mug of 7up Plus. I entered the car a relaxed man, until I saw the time 7:34. Oh shit. I could've just changed clothes and slapped on another layer of cologne, but my fatal error was irreversible. This entire ordeal’s going to last close to half an hour and she’s not going to tolerate it.

Armed with my Gran Turismo skills, I sped back to the restaurant as fast as possible without sacrificing safety. The engine wasn’t the only thing going off, as I started thinking about the consequences of my actions. Even my sister popped up in the form of my conscience, advising me in her trademark style of bluntness. “You dumbass, you did it again. You’re placed in this ideal situation and you do what you always do: botch it. Did it occur to you at all that maybe when she thought you wanted a break, it would only last for 5 minutes max? It’s just like every other time, ruining something potential like this. Good job, if she only liked you as a friend she’s probably pissed off at you like what. And if there was something else going on here…you’re a real dumbshit.” She was right, and this only further induced my fears. I didn’t even bother thinking of an alibi, all I wanted to do was minimize the damage, apologize to her and hope she’d be less pissed over the course of dinner. 90% of me predicted I ruined a great friendship, 10% told me I threw away a possible relationship again.

Finally I made it to the restaurant, and as I walked through the parking lot I looped a practice apology in my head. At the same time, I kept trying to imagine how her face would react to my return. Unfortunately, I couldn’t imagine it. Instead, I pictured disappointment, her head down on the table next to two uneaten plates of food, like a kid serving lunch detention. Some tiny part of me was hoping she wanted something more than friendship. The rhythm of my heart drowned out the noise of the people as I ran through the restaurant. "You're a real dumbshit" echoed through my head, growing louder with each heartbeat. Two plates sat on the table, but she was nowhere to be found. Time felt as if it had slowed down dramatically and I stood there lifeless, only the thumping inside my chest reminded me I was alive. The people eating at the tables around me halted their conversations when they noticed me standing around getting teary eyed. My sister was right; I threw it all away with my stupidity.

Frustration overcame me and I decided to give up and return home. As I picked up my coat, I noticed she was sitting in an empty booth near the entrance. She slouched alone, with her head slightly tilted but eyes pointed downward, hiding her emotions from my perspective. Her long eyelashes and reddened cheeks only enhanced her innocent look. A wave of guilt ran through me, and I thought, she doesn't deserve this. An image flashed through my mind, trying to predict her appearance up close but I could only envision a tearful face. I approached the booth and stood next to her, and her eyes ascended to mine, indeed showing tears flowing down her rosy cheeks. I remained speechless until she slowly rose and stood next to me. Before I fully realized it, we found ourselves in each others arms and I wanted to whisper "I'm so sorry" into her ear. I’d never hugged a girl so tightly, with her head so close to mine and my hand so relaxed on her shoulder. Rather then flee from my newfound emotions, instinct drew me to just live the moment, not ponder it. Her body was so warm and I could even feel her trembling.

Without saying any words, we knew exactly how we felt about each other.

My eyes are watery, and I think I’ve just been sobbing. My right hand is gripped so tightly on my knee, it feels like a shoulder. My chest feels warm but that’s because my arm’s been under it for the past 8 hours. It still feels like night time, but after I throw my blanket off I see a crack of sunlight through the blinds. While my heart recovers from its rapid beat I look around at the clock and stare at the time 6:47 AM. What. The. Fuck. I can’t believe I had another dream.

www.baited.com/you
ERROR 404.

I’ll admit, I cant remember my dreams with this amount of detail, so some things were thrown in to make it seem more realistic, and some things thrown out because they would make no sense in its context . BUT, the sequence of events and every single emotion conveyed was real, or felt like it, at least. None of those were embellished. It’s weird, you watch these lameass Korean melodrama movies and when you find yourself playing that role in your dreams, you think, GRATZ, im a lameass. Three things bothered me that morning after I woke up. 1) I see the same damn person in these kinds of dreams over and over (even writing about it previously), and its been happening for awhile now. 2)I’ve never felt some of those emotions ever in my life, so how’d they make their way into my brain. 3)Accounting is boring and I had a midterm later that day. Ggpo.

First off, I think this is a good time to insert this rant. For the millionth time, I’m not attracted to a particular person with a last name synonymous with an onomatopoeia. It irks me that to this day, person(s)/people still assume I have a thing for her. I don’t. She’s pretty much like my sister. I’ll give you credit for having some logical deductive reasoning skills but sorry, youre wrong. You're the weakest link, goodbye. Go write for Boston Legal. Which leads to the question, was she the one in my dream? No.

Second, I thought about it long and hard while number crunching that day and figured I have my Chinese teacher to blame. So I’m taking a class on 20^th century Chinese fiction and the professor’s specialty is Chinese feminist literature. And every other evening I find myself reading “feminist literature”, dealing with everything from a lonely man who denies himself prostitutes amidst his desperation, to female masturbation, to abortion, to female domination. Just recently I read about a 34 year old businessman trying to persuade a 22 year old teacher on a tram to become his concubine. Throw in the abundance of cheesy purple prose and the fact that I have to read this stuff every other day and I think this is the result.

Will I continue this charade of writing harlequin paperbacks, and have my Chinese professor to thank when I get rich or die tryin?

Keep dreamin.

mcriddle me this

im missing something. i think i found it, but i dont remember how to use it.

what am i?


....oooohhhhh something enigmatic

heres another one (got this one from batman the animted series: Edward Nygma's debut episode:

what has thousands of eyes, none of which can see, has two parts, works nonstop all day in the dark, but needs rest every night?






the brain.

im not too hot about my accounting class this quarter, but i keep reassuring myself that ill need it some day in the future. but the professor kinda humors me. not in the haha funny but more like the this-guy-reminds-me-of-someone-haha. i got an idea...

i have a thick texan accent. im a middle aged man with a big mouth, and when it enunciates specific words moves to the bottom corner of my jaw, like a goat chewing on tobacco. when i talk i love to use inconsistent hand gestures that dont match up with what im saying. i hestitate in the middle of a monologue and pause a lot to try to figure out what to say next.

who am i?

i'm doctor john hancock, an economist with twice the brain of the guy i resemble, and i dress like the host on family feud. not al (michael caarn, or was that michael dorn?), and not the 700club looking guy, but the guy before him. i started laughing to myself before lecture began while he was adjusting the overhead. the class takes place in chem194, and if someone really wanted to, he could convert the screen to a really ugly red and yellow board with little boards that spin after hitting an auctioneers bell. and someone could change the massive periodic tables on the sides to huge banners with giant last names on them.

man there were some REALLY stupid families on that show. "we surveyed a thousand people and determined the top 7 ice cream sundae toppings." the host walks up towards the Hernandez family, a clan of 6 filipinos from vallejo wearing cosby sweaters and shoulder pad dresses. "so....emancipaciano" (the host kisses her hand and she flutters her eyelashes because a 60 year old man, let alone any man, has made the rare instance of flesh contact.) "so far we've got m&ms and chocolate sprinkles. tell me, what do YOU think is a popular sundae topping." she begins jumping up and down mindlessly and replies, "lets make it a go with.....hmm....." the host warns her 5 seconds remain. "lets make it a go with....SHU GAR KON! yayyyyyy!" the family supports her answer with mindless enthusiasm and three of the brothers somehow headbutt each other simultaneously. the audience hushes at her response and the host gives the confused raised eyebrow laced with confidence and exclaims "put it up there! SUGAR CONES as a sundae topping!"

a buzzzer goes off and an x appears on the tv screen. after the show the hernandez family walks away with empty pockets but the three brothers have a backup (because filipinos always have a backup.) they invite the host to their illegal cockfight the following weekend and rig his bets by feeding his roosters san miguel beer before each match. the hernandez family instantly claims to become millionaires after winning $459.62.