Who ordered the scrambled brains?

Poo. Poo poo poo poo poo. Poo poo. Poo. Poo poo poo poo poo! POOPOpopopopoopopoppopoopoooppopopop!!!!

5:30am: Woke up.
6:10am: Arrived at LAX.
6:25am: Discovered my 7:50am flight to SFO was delayed till 8:40am.
7:00am: Discovered my 7:50am flight to SFO was delayed till 9:00am.
8:20am: Had a #3 EVM from McD’s.
8:30am: Discovered my 7:50am flight to SFO was delayed till 9:30am.
8:31am: Murdered a baby.
9:55am: Plane encounters turbulence — the intensity of which matches the five-day-old violent twitching of my right lower eyelid — preventing proper drink service. Urge to bash head against wall heightened by lack of expected spicy tomato juice and by turbulence of both forms.
10:38am: Landed in SFO. Prepared to haul ass to 11:00am connecting flight to Chico.
10:45am: Got off plane after 100 three-toed sloths seated ahead of me plodded off. (Quickly pondered the health risks and fiscal pressure behind the Zoo’s decision to ship sloths in Economy Class: very dangerous and moderate-to-high.)
10:46am: Ran to flight information screen banks to get gate number. 87A. Ran back past where I came.
10:49am: Ran through gate 87A. Boarded tram to outlying terminal.
10:52am: Exited tram to outlying terminal.
10:53am: “Which gate for Flight 6237 to Chico?”

“Oh it just closed, I’m sorry. We have to close it once it’s in the ten-minute window.” [Closes eyes and flashes courtesy smile. Holds for two seconds and release.]

It’s what they call a misconnect. Cute. I wish I could misconnect someone’s body from their head. I think that would be cuter don’t you I’m glad you agree. At that point if I jumped and hollored enough I get the feeling they might have tried to flag down the plane, as one employee did actually try to reach them via telephone and then went down to the tarmac for me. However, his spirit was restrained by another employee that ordered him not to delay the flight if it already left. (Misconnectee?) Of course jumping and hollering in an airport also ran the risk of me being imprisoned without habeus corpus rights for the next five years.

So, what now? Nothing at all now. But at 4:00pm they’re going to stow me with the checked baggage on a decommisioned Russian military transport salvaged from an impovershed family of Afghan villagers for a used pair of Levi’s. But they did give me this $7.50 meal voucher. Maybe I’ll auto-transport (walk, as opposed to, say, fly) myself to the international terminal; I gotta find out if the rumors of a cheese fondue fountain and the Blue Man Group reenacting the Nativity in the mausoleum are true.

This morning, I started my day with a startling start. I sat up, and staggered a statistically significant seventeen steps to this scribing station. Seventeen steps to travel ten feet? Yes, for I was too preoccupied with matters of the mind to concern myself with those of the body.

Why doesn’t KFC deliver? Seriously. It’s time those from Chicken Capital, USA, wherever that fairy wonderland paradise may be, to get with the program. If every pizza joint in town is required to have delivery service, for fear of being driven out by an angry mob of farmers with pitchforks and torches, then why not every fried chicken joint? I’m not just taking a cue from the sacred haven of Shakey’s, whose dialetical menu inspires awe and makes the bones of men tremble. Pizza and Asian take-out alike serve families and groups. Why then, isn’t the archetype of fast-food chicken dinners required by those mob farmers to offer delivery? Rise up, I say, let your voices be heard! Chicken-eaters of the world unite!

Speaking of fine dining, I have just recently discovered a new piece of “edible art” created by the culinary masterminds of In-N-Out: French Fries, Animal Style. Yes it’s true. You can get your fries covered in cheese, chopped grilled onions, and special sauce. So good, but should be consumed no more than once per year.

I’m struggling to decide what digital camera I want. At first I wanted the Canon PowerShot A610. The A610 has 4x optical zoom, aperture and shutter speed control, uses SD cards, is powered by AA batteries, takes replacement wide and telefoto lenses, and is about $275 at Amazon. On the other hand, it’s bulky and weighs almost 9oz. I really wanted that 4x optical zoom and low-level control, but I decided the bulkiness was too much. So I turned my attention to the Canon PowerShot SD500 and SD550. They’re basically the same but the SD500 is $340 while the SD550 is $400 and has a larger screen and some other minor improvements. They were both 7MP cameras with only 3x optical zoom, but in fact offer slightly better image quality when factoring both focal lengths and image widths. Basic formula when comparing zoom and megapixels is QualityRatio = (FocalLength1 / FocalLength2) * (ImageWidth1 / ImageWidth2). The QR of a 7MP/3x to a 5MP/4x is 1.04, with anything over 1 meaning the first camera’s image quality is better. In other words, if I take a picture on a 7MP/3x fully-zoomed and crop it will look better than a 5MP/4x fully-zoomed uncropped. I think. Anyway, those were tempting, but then I noticed the Sony DSC-P200, which is slightly larger, with a volume of 8 cubic inches versus 7.85 cu. in. for the SD5×0’s. The P200 weighs in at 5oz, with the SD5×0’s at 6oz. The P200 is nice-looking though, and matches most of the SD500’s specs for $5 less. Both the SD5×0’s and the P200 uses proprietary Li-Ion batteries, which is a drag, but the P200 also uses Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick media, which can be more expensive than SD. Another consideration is color quality, with Canon considered the industry leader and expert. I’ve seen shots from both cameras online and the SD5×0’s seem much more vibrant. I guess I’ll have to check them out in store for tactile considerations, and to determine how much of a difference exists between the 2″ and 2.5″ screens of the SD5×0’s.

Random thought. What if, in 500 years, when man finally makes contact with another intelligent life form, they shun us and ignore us like it’s no big deal. I came to this thought when I pondered the old cultural notion of dogs habitually chasing firetrucks. Ponder that!

Forget the ball dropping on December 31. For me, this year’s real countdown happens tonight, and I’m utterly filled with trepidation. Tomorrow is my last day as a UCLA undergrad. After tomorrow, my long, long, long career here is over. UCLA and I have come to blows countless countless times over the years, and in the end, it all sort of worked out, more or less. And this process of working things out with UCLA has brought me closer to it, just like partners in a relationship being brought closer together by working through their conflicts. Now, strangely, the thought of no longer identifying myself as a beaten-down student scares me.

All the baggage, and cynicism, and bad memories will now be compartamentalized, separated from this upcoming phase of my life. They’ll be stored away for archival purposes or to be exhibited or studied from time to time. I fear I might forget them, get caught up in the good life and forget their lessons, forget to honor them. Then I would be a different person, in which case the person molded by failure that I am today, might start to slip away tomorrow. Less than an hour left; I don’t want this to be a countdown toward an execution.

Even if I never do lose sight of these experiences, I still feel like I’m leaving something behind. Being a student fosters a very introspective attitude, and it was this introspection that comforted me when I was down. As a working individual, I fear my attitude towards life might change in ways I won’t even perceive; I’ll have a different role in society, and in order to understand it, my perception and attitude towards life will have to change. Without money, I’ve always had to be resourceful in filling my time. There was always StarCraft, then WarCraft III of course, but I also spent a lot of time reflecting, planning, analyzing, reading the news and reading about technology and reading about art and reading and reading. And lately, writing as well. Soon I’ll have money, and I’ll see the world not as something in the background, but as a collection of resources exchangeable for money. I might become overwhelmed by consumerism. Might I never again stay up late tinkering with new technology, watching old episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, analyzing myself and planning substantial self-improvement, or just reading? Might I never know the despair of having to eat chicken sandwiches and tacos from Jack in the Box ever again? Might I become that nicely-dressed person in the nice car , that I struggled not to envy? Might I never again see the me expressed in late night essays, in procrastination, in despair, in skipping class, that school obligations showed me?

That’s not all I fear losing. Everyday I was a successful student, I honored the me that had failed. I turned my outlook around and I discovered my own principles and values, and I got much of the strength to do this from my failures. As a working individual, I will be starting fresh in a new arena with new rules. Will I be able to draw on my principles and values and thus continue to honor the me that suffered? If they are relateable, will they lead me to success or new failure?

What I’m trying to say, I think, is that I cherish what I went through. I was walking through campus after my last final this morning and a flood of memories, prominent and subtle, social and private, brash and poignant, rushed through my head. Everywhere I looked I saw a painful memory–in seven years, it’s possible to rack up quite a few. In some places, I saw happy or triumphant memories. Combined, these places are the signposts of a journey of complete metamorphosis. Perhaps I fear that these signposts are only visible to the eye of the student, and that I won’t be effected by them, or identify with the memories they evoke, when I’m no longer a student. Then I would have forgetten the pain.

I have to take this change in stride though, because I do wish to continue growing. I have to rest assured that my memory, faulty as it is, won’t fail me with these most jarring and influential experiences, and that my principles and values are stable enough for anything that is thrown at them. After all, they were forged in an emotional torrent, to provide me with direction and stability in that torrent. They should be able to withstand the occasional storm. And if these principles and values are stable, then at least the legacy of my failures is too.

Ten minutes left.

So I was thinking as I walked to the North Campus Student Center for my last breakfast burrito and tater tots as a full-time student, “Since long-term exposure to low-level radiation, such as that around cell phones, seems to heighten the risk of cancer, one prudent habit to adopt is increasing one’s consumption of anti-oxidants.” That’s blueberries, pomegranate, acai, broccoli and brussel sprouts if you were wondering. Of course this kitchen logic often brews old wive’s tales, so take with a grain of salt.

I’m sitting in Northern Lights coffeehouse and just bore (conjugation?) witness to an uplifting sight. A smartly-dressed yuppie, donning glasses similar in design and material to my own, offered a sincere smile to the short, old Asian lady that timidly operates the sushi-to-go counter. It reassured me because more often than not, yuppie types seem to ignore ethnic non-native speakers. I know this because I’ve witnessed many-a-yuppie-in-training at my old place of employment treat customers of this disposition with less respect than more integrated American customers. It’s nice to see people act compassionately and empathically.

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Saturday night was one of revelry and relaxation, assisted socially by good company and chemically by Moskovskaya Vodka from Trader Joe’s. Sure it was only $8 for the 750ml bottle. Go ahead and laugh at the fact that the label looks like a rip-off of the Stoli label. (See first picture below.) I did some research on it today and fact is, it’s well received, and owned by the same company that owns Stolichnaya. Ahh, good deals always make me feel good. Ironically, the night was simulataneously extremely sobering, almost more sobering than anything I’ve ever experienced, to see my dear aunt for the first time since her stroke. Seeing her at the party reminded me of the one thing for which I am most grateful this year. Anyway, it goes without saying that alcohol heightens my sense of brotherly love, and I am also grateful for all of the family and friends I have been so lucky to have. Thanks, Tara for the food, and generally to everyone who went, and to those who took care of me when my stomach went. Tamales in the HP for life! (Pictures after the jump.)

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I spent Thanksgiving morning relaxing the way only true intellectuals would: watching old episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It got me wondering if Data, Worf or Guinan ever sat down to a Thanksgiving meal. I determined not, but it made me appreciate Thanksgiving in a new light. Thanksgiving isn’t just a day you take off from work and eat with your family. All across the country do families gather and have turkey, largely without regard to ethnic background. It’s a national institution, a defining element of American culture. Ostensibly they gather to celebrate the arrival of the pilgrims (and smallpox), but no one really thinks about that (at least no educated person). Thanksgiving holiday means a four-day weekend. Four days to let loose and par-tay. So why do people invariably use that weekend to see family and eat only the traditional Thanksgiving meal, instead of hosting their own private 96-hour Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon?

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Now I know what Holly Golightly must have had on her mind when she coined the phrase “the mean reds” to refer to being down in the dumps. No, she wasn’t talking about the Soviets, but rather she must have just finished a glass of pomegranate juice–the devil’s juice if there ever were such a thing. Mike’s Morsel: Don’t drink pomegranate juice; it’s expensive and tastes like ground monkey testicles.

Just a quick post to update you on the doodads around this place. First off, a couple months ago I added a “shout box” or “comment box” or “chat box” or whatever the hell you want to call it, to the sidebar. You can use it to leave a quick message for me, or have a little chat conversation, or whatever. Leave me a message. It’s like the freakin’ MySpace comments, but better, ’cause it’s not on MySpace. It’s like leaving me a comment on a blog entry, but now you don’t need to wait for an interesting blog entry to leave a message. NO EXCUSES NOW. For you nerds, the chat box is AJAX-enabled so updates are instantaneous without postback. It’s adapted from this code.

Second, all the headings on the sidebar are gangster-ized. Shout Outs represents the chat box; Holla Back: most recent comments; Oh, Snap!: moblog preview; Word: various non-blog writings; Yo’s N Such: blogs I find special; Bling: site resources; Tagged: blog categories; and In The Day: blog archives. There, site navigation all clear. NO EXCUSES NOW.

What else? Added little fuzzy-time stamps to the quick view sections on the sidebar, such as the chat box, the most recent comment list, and the moblog preview. Added Dwight Schrute’s Schrute-Space blog. That guy’s got some interesting points.

Look forward to a site-redesign in the coming months, as well as some other pet projects I’ve been cooking up to help me learn RubyOnRails (it might as well be one word, these days).

OK it’s eighth week. Oh how I wish it was ninth week. In UCLA undergrad parlance, the week numbers refer to the 10 week academic quarter. Each week has certain characteristics associated with it. First through third weeks are associated with laziness. Fifth week is when most midterms are administered, so fifth and fourth weeks are associated with disillusionment, procrastination and stress. That also means sixth week is associated with despair and hopelessness, as grades are returned. Seventh, eighth and ninth weeks see a return to a bohemian laziness, made more potent due to the burnout factor and mounting anticipation of the post-quarter break from school. And with week 10 a sense of stress compounded by sleep-deprived insanity fills the psyche, due of course to final exams. It’s interesting to note the cyclic nature of emotions that the exams, and the grades, inspire.

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I finished my fourth of four midterms today. For the rest of the quarter, I’ve got to worry about four projects (one for each class), and two finals. One of them has two parts. Boo. But on the other hand, it’s a group project. Whoo. You can track my progress on this Ta-da List. Seven down, seven to go. THAT ALL YOU GOT UCLA?

Update: OK forgot that I had a final for my arts class. So 7 down, 8 to go.