that’s whacked

Half a mind is a terrible thing to waste!

Wednesday, Jan 29. 2003  –  Category: Musings

didn’t get my appeal to take traffic school to get rid of the violation for my speeding ticket.

on a more serious note. what did i think of President Bush’s State of the Union speech… hrm. well, i really think he needs to see a psychiatrist or therapist to get over his addiction to waging war on Iraq.

“The course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others, Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American people.”

What the hell is that? I admit that waging a war on terror will defend the freedom and security of the American people. But I don’t see that attacking Iraq will defend my freedom and security. If anything, I think it will provoke more terrorists into waging a counter-war. Admit it Bush, this is about oil damnit.

I think it’s a huge mistake to go in without any allied support (and as much as I’m a Brit, having the British as your only ally, doesn’t count). We need consensus among our allies – at the very least we need France & Germany from Europe, Russia, and at least a few Middle Eastern states (either Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or Egypt).

Currently all we have is Britain…and not even the British people - all we have is Blair. This isn’t enough to declare a war….

You can’t hurt me!! I have an ASSUMABLE MORTGAGE!!

Tuesday, Jan 28. 2003  –  Category: Musings

finally got back from my Microsoft interview up in Seattle today. I interviewed with the Security Business group and the eDocuments group. I think they went reasonably well – and I had a good time. On Sunday I went boarding up at Snoqualmie (I stayed on Summit West all day), and got in 14 runs down intermediate runs and a few with a black diamond start. Lesson learned: never snowboard while drunk.

for ARTIFICIAL FLAVORING!!

Saturday, Jan 25. 2003  –  Category: Musings

went climbing at Big Rock (sorry, no photos) today with Kostas & Tung. we did the usual routes to warm up on (5.9, 5.8 down at the bottom), then Kostas led up ‘The Trough’ (5.6) to get accustomed to leading again. Once we go to the upper routes, I led ‘Mickey Mantle’ (5.9) and Kostas seconded it. Then we swung the anchor over to ‘Top Rope Problem’ (5.10a) and all three of us tackled it. I finally got my redpoint on it, and I did it cleanly instead of reaching for the ledge on the left – so I was pretty stoked. Lastly, we swung an anchor over to a bolted route (wasn’t on the topo, so I don’t know its name or rating) to the right of ‘Mickey Mantle’. The start was a bitch, but Kostas and I both on-sighted it after figuring out the start.

a MALIBU HOT TUB?

Thursday, Jan 23. 2003  –  Category: Musings

great great great quote from jesse today whilst IMing when we’re both at work:

(16:15:40) jesse: whoops
(16:15:43) jesse: lost my motivation
(16:15:50) jesse: going to go see if anyone wants to play ping pong

Here I am in 53 B.C. and all I want is a dill pickle!!

Tuesday, Jan 21. 2003  –  Category: Musings

oh…a small little tidbit i forgot to mention earlier. on thursday, I FINALLY GOT MY A4 CHIPPED!! it took 41,000 loooong stock miles, but my A4 is finally chipped. i pulled out of Hartmann Motorsports and got onto the 405 north. i hit WOT and my car just kept on pulling in 1st…then 2nd… then 3rd. i was up at 110 before i knew it. i slammed on the brakes, exited the freeway and immediately got back on so i could go WOT all over again. i repeated this 6 or 7 times until i hit traffic.

BTW, I have the APR v3 1.0 bar chip.

in a $200,000 MALIBU BEACH HOUSE!!

Tuesday, Jan 21. 2003  –  Category: Musings

wow. what an awesome weekend! i went up and spent thurs & fri with Wendy in LA. then we met up with Jaime & Zac and drove up to Lee Vining where we had a great, cheap little motel room within easy access of Mammoth, June, and Mono Lake.

we went to Mammoth to check it out on Saturday and it was just packed. absolutely too congested with huge lift lines. the runs were great, the snow was awesome - but there were just too many people. on Sunday we headed to June instead, so I finally got to use my season pass! June was awesome, we had such a great time. the snow was great, and the runs were huge and long… definitely a lot of fun. the best part was, no crowds at ALL. it was awesome. i finally got the hang of turning, so i was stoked.

on Monday we stopped by Mono Lake. the parking lot was covered in snow and ice, so of course Zac did a bunch of donuts. we walked down to check out the Tufas, and there were even better than in the fall. the surrounding landscape was so surreal…snow covered dry-brush everywhere, with these majestic snow-capped Tufas rising out of the mist. it was beautiful…

on a last Dakar note…Mitsu claimed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 10th in the top 10. Nissan pickups took 5th and 7th.
Volkswagen Tareks took 6th and 8th, and a BMW X5 grabbed 9th.

I’m receiving a coded message from EUBIE BLAKE!!

Monday, Jan 13. 2003  –  Category: Musings

mitsu now owns the top 5 overall positions in the Dakar Rally with their crazy-ass Pajero Evolutions. Nissan and Volkswagen are holding their own though, give them some credit. I can’t believe FIA banned doing donuts in WRC… all because of that awesome donut spin by Giles Panizzi in the 206wrc. What? You’ve not seen it? Go download the Speedvision WRC 2002 Review video now! IMHO, it’s not quite as good as the wrc-2001 (in terms of music). But the sequences are awesome. Panizzi’s donut is definitely one of the highlights.

YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL!

Sunday, Jan 12. 2003  –  Category: Musings

addendum…and i think this one is worthy of its own entry, even though it’s on the same date. let it be said that on this day, the 12th of January, in the year 2003 – at a mileage of 40,923 miles – I finally ordered a chip for my car. on thursday, i’ll be paying a visit to Hartmann Motorsport to pick up my APR chip programmed with the ’stock’ and ‘chipped’ programs. you have no idea how stoked i am…

Boys, you have ALL been selected to LEAVE th’ PLANET in 15 minutes!!

Sunday, Jan 12. 2003  –  Category: Musings

chester and i met up with jaime and zac up in LA and went to the auto show. the ‘cars of 007′ exhibit w/ aston martin was pretty cool. the audi booth was the usual… the new A8 in person is absolutely beautiful. it’s everything the 7-series could/should have been. honda’s new accord coupe is pretty nice…way better looking than the sedan. volvo’s new XC90 SUV was pretty sweet too. not as many concept cars this time around… just mostly production cars. oh, the new Honda Element is awesome. i really like it. suicide doors seem to be back in fashion (the Mazda RX-8 had them as well… i like the car much better in person than i did in the photos previously)

strange thing happened when we were driving back to my sister’s place for dinner - i had a couple of loose AA batteries in my pocket, along with some change, my cell phone, and a bunch of sand (from the beach on saturday). anyway, i was driving, and then all of a sudden it felt like my hip was on fire. i reached my hand into my pocket (on my jeans), and felt this really hot heat emanating from my pocket. i reached in (at this point it was painful), and burned my fingers on something. all of a sudden it hurt like bloody hell and i was scrambling around trying to yank all the shit out of my pocket. it looks like the batteries formed a complete circuit with something and started discharging or something. i dunno – but my finger is still burned from it.

priests are DATING CAREER DIPLOMATS!!

Saturday, Jan 11. 2003  –  Category: Musings

wendy came down today and we bummed around the city – went to the beach, balboa park, the cliffs, etc. it was really fun. we had a good time. we also saw ‘adaptation’ (the new movie w/ nicholas cage) which was strange, funny, and impossible to summarise.

on that note, i saw 25th hour last night and it was awesome. really good movie.