With my new speakers (an upgrade to my laptop speakers on a budget!), I am now tuning in to Shoutcast (Digitally Imported's Deep House station, to be exact). Oh how nice it is to have bass. (A neighbor's unsecured wireless internet is definitely contributing to my happiness here too.)

Scored a sweet deal on 'em. After tax and rebates, $15. Thank you, bensbargains.net (again).

Any high-end brand speakers with high-end prices will easily blow these away, but ... for $15, I am super happy. [does the Caroline dance]

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[back from doing the Caroline dance]

I'm having an early Christmas. A friend just dropped some gift cards on me (thank you thank you thank you!!!). Oh man, I am totally blown away. All of them were pretty straight forward, you know, "card has no value until activated by checker" and whatnot, except for the American Express gift card. I pulled that sucker out and there was this whole sheet full o' fine print. It's all good. Will read fine print for money.

Dude, I did it! I finished a 28-mile bike ride participating in the Tour De Doughnut!

I only ate 4 doughnuts. I think that's probably the upper limit at which they still taste good.

Ow, my arse.

I have been reminded that it is unwise to pick your nose after chopping up a bunch of hot chili peppers.

Feelin' the burn ...

I feel so popular. I have 101 friends on my Friendster now. I will admit, one of them I do not know but added when she added me because I was just starting out on Friendster and wallowing in the throes of Friendsterlessness, and one of them is a dog. But I'm friends with the dog. Fo' sho'.

It's pretty interesting to see who knows who, I have to admit. Sometimes I'll just sift around and click away and be amazed at how small the world is. And revel in my false sense of popularity. Hey, leave me alone, I was never one of the popular kids! At least I can be semi-cyber-popular! Well, one thing I will give Friendster credit for, and that is reconnecting me with friends I've lost touch with (and regrettably, there are many, due to my laziness). Friendster has been neat in that if I find someone, I guess I can let them know that although I haven't been good at keeping in touch, I have never forgotten them.

Of course it gets tricky when so many people my age are getting hitched and I can't add them cuz I don't know their new last name.

I know you want to join and add me. JOIN AND ADD ME JOIN AND ADD ME JOIN AND ADD ME JOIN AND ADD ME JOIN AND ADD ME JOIN AND ADD ME JOIN AND ADD ME

Chatting with Sam, a long time friend, for the first time in a very long time:

corona13 (11/1/2005 4:00:41 PM): did i um, tell you about the rap song i wrote?
lecrivains (11/1/2005 4:00:53 PM): no!
corona13 (11/1/2005 4:00:59 PM): it's nothing epic, but it's hilarious, in my opinion

...

lecrivains (11/1/2005 4:05:25 PM): i like it.
lecrivains (11/1/2005 4:05:36 PM): the song is cool..
corona13 (11/1/2005 4:05:40 PM): HAHAHAHAHHA yay thanks!
lecrivains (11/1/2005 4:05:48 PM): the caroline has rhythm. cool!

...

lecrivains (11/1/2005 4:20:46 PM): i added your song to my iPod.
corona13 (11/1/2005 4:21:35 PM): HAHAHAHHA YES!!!!!
corona13 (11/1/2005 4:21:42 PM): that is freakin' awesome

---------------

That made me feel good. I mean, Fri and I got added to someone's iPod! Wow.

Congratulations to Sam and his wife on expecting a baby girl in February. He's gonna be the best daddy ever!

This morning was bizarre. In between snoozing on my alarm clock (as usual) and trying to ignore people calling the house NONSTOP for an hour straight (very unusual) I had this weird dream that some contruction workers had broken into the house and were building this really ugly statue on the roof. I was aghast because if the landlords were to find out about this, I would for sure be in deep doodoo. I was telling the workers to stop and that they were building on the wrong house and to take that thing off the roof but they insisted that we had ordered it. Weeeird.

A disjointed post for a disjointed start to a day.

I was too tired to go to the Hallowe'en parade, so I just went to a little costume gathering tonight.

It was nice.

I gave a girl a lap dance as an upcoming birthday gift for her - as per her request.

Someone threw up at the end of the night but it wasn't me. Whoa.

I'm now peeling everything off and showering and washing all this gunk out of my hair and getting all the makeup off my face so I can just collapse. Into. Bed.

Yay for an extra hour of sleep.

It has been a trying couple of days. I have reason to believe I left my brain at home before I went to Austin ...

missed IH-35 on the way up to Austin to Wei's place. How the hell did I do that?!

got a parking ticket downtown for being 8 minutes late to my parking meter. My walk-in appeals hearing did not help.

locked myself out of car. Did not know where keys were, if they were in the car, or what.

friend Sharon was telling me she was going to buy a bus ticket to come back to Houston this weekend. I went with her to purchase her round-trip bus ticket. Only 30 seconds after she purchased it did it occur to me that she could easily just ride home with me.

on my way back to Houston, when getting on SH-71, had a TOTAL brainfart and went WEST instead of EAST!!! Wasted 2 hours going the wrong way in bad traffic before realizing what I had done. What. The. Hell.

left my hoodie at Sharon's house after dropping her off and going in briefly to say hi to her parents.

The silver lining:

missed IH-35 on my way up, but turns out I did not stray too far and easily rectified the situation.

found free parking on University Avenue today.

Oscar came home from work just to help me out. Movers passing by spent time trying to help me out. Really felt the love. And while Oscar was helping me out, he got a call saying their offer on their new home was accepted!!

1 minute after checking with the apt leasing office lost 'n found, a couple of ladies found my keys laying around in the grass and turned them in!

the bus ticket purchase is good anytime in the next year.

because we went the wrong way, we got cool pics of bad traffic and weird things in the back of trucks. And had plenty of time to chat.

I'll be able to retrieve my hoodie tomorrow when I go check out my Sharon's dad's sunglasses shop for the first time. And hopefully pick up some cool shades for my tiny noggin.

just felt really loved because so many people took time out to chill with me. I even got "serenaded" by the wonderfully talented and candid Howard (Chi-Wei's bro) - I love it when people play stuff for me (Windows Media Video, 2min 44sec, 5.3Mb).

overall just loved the radiating energy of being around younger people on campus, bonding with kids who are now all grown up, and catching up with Wei.

This site really disturbs me. I mean, a dating site dedicated to infidelity. Wow. Hard to believe such a thing exists. Money is a strong enough motivation to build a business out of anything, I guess.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned in that I figure if you aren't ready for commitment and wanna play around, do it, but if you are ready to settle down, do it, and stand by your decision.