i'm special

i just finished reading the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, written from an autistic boy's perspective, and i kept noticing little things that i think the author messed up. like the boy hates brown and yellow, but he'll eat chocolate bars (he refuses to eat anything else brown or yellow). also, there was once when the boy only says the last name of an author of a book, whereas i'm of the firm opinion that in real life, he would've said both the first and last name. i felt pretty smug about noticing these things while i was reading the book, but now i think it only proves i'm more autistic than mark haddon (the author).

i tend to do this thing where if i read first-person books, my internal dialogue starts to mimic the style of the writing...like right after i read catcher in the rye, i started thinking with lots of italics for added emphasis. anyways, i started thinking like the autistic boy talks, and then i thought, maybe i'm autistic (just a little bit), but then i realized i'm not smart enough to be autistic, which probably just leaves me with retarded, and then i was sad because i'm retarded :-(.

in other news i had a very eventful christmas in the land of the non-christians. at least there's no pretense about the meaning of christmas here. on christmas day, i passed by a convention where hordes of people were shopping. on christmas eve, shops were open all night (not that i'm complaining).

anyways, i spent christmas eve in an arcade with crispy and alicia. we played a bongo game where there are 3 bongos so we cheated and each took a bongo and only hit it when our beat came up. we still managed to lose a lot. oh, and earlier that day i baked christmas cookies with alicia! we had good intentions of going from scratch, but that would've cost us like a million dollars to buy all the ingredients, so in the interests of fiscal responsibility, we used the mix instead. christmas is so much more like new years here: an excuse for a party and a smooch. people were milling around en masse in silly hats and bells.

on christmas day, alicia and i did the traditional thing: hit up an englishman. we trekked all the way out to tai po for a home cooked christmas lunch that lasted from 2 pm till 9 pm. alex made goose and salmon, and there were minced pies, custard, christmas pudding, eggtarts, chocolate cake, and brandy butter for dessert. of course, i had some of everything, and digested while losing at mahjong deep into the night.

on boxing day, shevaun led a small group of intrepid explorers to summit sharpes peak. i'm the dumbass who wore my tevas and almost died on the way down. sharpes peak is gorgeous though, and the hike is 4 hours, ending on a white sand beach with super clear water. we actually had to do a lot of scrambling and the thing wasn't all paved like a lot of hk hikes. yay! and for dinner i had bimbimbap!!! super awesome day.

today, i'm back at work with sore quads and the inability to raise my left arm above shoulder level, thankful for my sedentary job.

when i up, down, touch the ground, puts me in the mood...

some broker got the office turkey and ham for xmas lunch! i'm all aflutter with anticipation. last night we had a departmental xmas party (distinct from the company-wide one), involving a wine and cheese event, a dinner, a club. i only stayed for the cheese and the dinner, natch.

most notably, there was some special ham that took a really long time to cure and was made from special pigs raised on a diet of acorns.

i wore an afro and 70s glasses. people said i looked like lauren hill...but then again, they also said this guy looked like kate bush when he totally didn't.

apparently i'm too brazen around the bigwigs. this morning i accidentally accused an md of stealing tissues (he took two and put them in his pocket...does anyone else think that's weird behavior? i mean, the office is full of tissues...it's not like he realy needs to save them for later). they accused me of still being drunk.

pushy and grabby and the rest of those damned dwarves

i just got declared a minority in the US because i'm not white, in fact all non-whites in america are ethnic minorities...regardless of what the actual population numbers are. apparently, because white people were there first. this pisses me off a bit. white people do not own america. they were not there first. stop trying to take away my identity, fuckers. and all this from a brit.

and then someone came and took away my favorite toy.

i'm gonna sit in my corner and suck my thumb until i get a pony or some attention, whichever comes first.

free food tally at work

yesterday:

• starbucks
• pizza
• baklava
• haagen daz
• christmas cookies
• starbucks

today:

• starbucks
• dimsum
• krispy kreme
• pacific coffee
• beer and chips

:-DDDDDDD (<--double chins)

evil is in the eye of the beholder

i watched real genius with val kilmer this morning, and i love that movie. it reminds me of mit, and that bowl of popcorn in the house? a totally awesome hack (except for the fact that they destroyed the house, which i guess disqualifies it).

anyways, it got me thinking. the evil professor is creating a laser that can kill people from space. it's got amazing range, amazing precision, but it can only be turned on for 15 seconds at a time. in effect, it's a sharpshooter laser for the government. is that really so bad? if we had a laser like that, wouldn't the need for a lot of wars become obsolete? we don't need to drop bombs on whole countries if we could just zap their leaders.

or would it make the US too powerful? would we start acting like the mafia? yo, you give me the trade conditions i want or else i'm gonna zap your baby and your little dog too. or is a congressional veto enough of a safeguard? maybe if the laser's startup procedure is really complex, then stupid presidents couldn't use it as their personal toy. better yet, if the laser left a really obvious calling card whenever it was used (like a big hole in the ceiling and a dude fried to a crisp)...would accountability ensure responsibility? is it a sad sign of the times that i'm siding with the bad guy? mwahahaha...

what to do?

christina slapped me hard-on-the-face yesterday. she meant it as a joke, but i think she did it harder than she planned...it was completely unprovoked...she did it in the spirit of a pantsing (swoop in, swoop out). i'm pretty protective of my head...i was so shocked that i didn't really know how to react. i mean, we were just walking and talking about random stuff.

the dynamic between us is getting weirder and weirder. this happens to me a lot, where people become super comfortable around me and start to cross little lines. i think i come off as a kid so then people feel free to treat me like one, which usually involves using me as a whipping boy for their jokes. eventually they respect me more as a person or get to know more dimensions of me or something, but it stops.

this is the first time anyone's slapped me like that though. the thing is...she's smaller than me and older than me (by a lot), so i feel like i'm the lumbering giant swatting at a fly...what she's doing is annoying, but if i retaliate, i might really hurt her, so how do i get the message across? i've told her to stop multiple times. is this what it's like to have a younger sib? maybe i should just put her in a duffle bag and toss her down the stairs.

the weirder thing? she told me i'm her ultimate idol, which i can believe because if i tell her something on the field, she takes it super seriously, so it's not like she doesn't respect me. relationships are complicated.

inputs and output-put-puts

starbucks you motherfucking corporate liar. my decaf soy no-whip iced gingerbread latte not only had whip, it had caf! don't try to tell me otherwise, i can smell it in my pee. i understand your employees are harassed by your free coffee hour; i understand there were lines going from here to somewhere farther than china, but i've seen ben and jerry free cone days and i know it can be done. your employee called out my drink order perfectly and handed me a cup with a dollop of whipped cream. she even called out my order twice because i blinked at her the first time. then i laughed and took it because it's free and they're doing their best and i'm the yuppy scum who asked for a million modifications to a free drink. but caffeine?! now i'm wired like a chihuahua on crack, which means i'll probably drink a lot, and if i make an ass of myself at the company christmas party, it will be on your head! moreover, if i find out you screwed up the last of my modifications, i'll...i'll...well, i'll be uncomfortable, and nothing bad will happen to you. and yes, this is me whinging about a free drink. i'm just trying to fit into my corporate role better. sue me. no wait, can i sue you?

MISSING!

what happened to the smite blog?! nancy? atong? nancy?! who is responsible for this? is there a new incarnation for this year's smite? that would make me feel better. the rug has been snatched from under me. boohoo.

my foot still hurts, and i don't know what's wrong with it. it feels like the bone, but nothing is swollen. i've been playing frisbee in sneakers and running heel-toe (instead of on my toes), which means i have to focus on turnover (instead of power) if i want any kind of speed. hopefully i'll have much faster turnover when my foot does finally heal. i'll probably have to spend a week or two correcting my gait too. i always end up with residual limps.

when ppl invite you to christmas dinner, do they mean the 24th or the 25th? if it's the 25th, then i'm gonna scam my way into a christmas eve dinner too.

word of the day: akimbo.

one step closer to home

i bought plates and cups this weekend! except for four matching mugs, nothing, um, matches, which is fine with me, because i love the boxcar children, and color trumps dignity anyday (which is actually my excuse for tripping and falling at work so often: at least i'm tan).

i'm most excited about this small espresso mug and its matching saucer. the thing is so petite yet so cheerful. the christmas tree on its belly is blue and green and yellow. it's darned lucky it's cute because i never drink espresso, and it would've never gotten a home otherwise. as is, i'm planning on using it to treat myself to chocolate soymilk every once in a while, which i will drink with legs crossed and pinky curled (if only i had a distraught friend whose knee i could pat compassionately).

next step on my journey towards domestication? silverware! or i could keep stealing chopstix from 711...actually, i'm really hoping to find a cereal bowl to bring home. i've come across quite a few, but none of them seem right enough (i need a bo-wl. i'm holding out for a bowl till the end of the night, it's gotta be deep and it's gotta be round, and it's gotta be larger than life, i need a BO-OWL!) ahem.

photodump: perth

pui'ism of the day: i need an eyelid tuck (why?)...because i have too much eyelid.

i'm slowly going crazy.

i have no idea who that girl is. sneaky mcsneak snuck into my photo. she looks like she's looking at another camera, but there was no other camera, just mine. weirdo.

i don't know him either.

paul et shwu in matching orange jumpsuits (ps, someone give me paul's email so i can fwd pics).

they're preparing me for the italian rollercoaster. it was scary as fuck because my limbs were all slippy from sunscreen, so they couldn't get a good grip and had to do some grabby-grabby with my arms. they swung me back and forth three times before flipping me over the top such that i ended face-down near the grass. when they demonstrated on one of their own girls, i was seriously worried about dislocating both my shoulders (again).

me atop the italian rollercoaster.

team karoake night.

a real live tasmanian devil!

i named him cathychu.

he liked it.

the wombat and paul. the hole in the middle of its tummy is its sack (and all marsupial babies are called joeys).

speaking of sacks, the giftshop sold coin purses made from kangaroo scrotums for $25 AUD (for $20 you can get the sack of a lesser endowed kangaroo).

a room with a view.

and somewhere along the way, the palm trees outside our rooms caught on fire. one room of people (mostly born and raised in the US) grabbed our laptops and evacuated the premises, whereas the other room of people (more asian in nature) stood on the balcony and gawked. sadly, none of my pictures turned out. it was kinda funny watching the aussies assembly line water from the pool to the trees though.