the cake is a lie.

Super caked on, super shopped, or maybe both but still beautiful. Because I have time, this will be a long read. Make sure you have relieved your bladder and bowels before reading on. Grab your favorite drink and snack and enjoy.

So, as of yesterday, my laptop caught the 700m pandemic going around. The back light is loose or blew out leaving the monitor another desolate screen that once displayed beautiful vibrant images of the young lady pictured above. I've been reading up on forums and this is quite common amongst 700m owners. This happened to my brother almost exactly a week ago and somehow my laptop caught the disease. Since the screws on the bottom panel have been frayed and stripped to being almost unscrewable (<

This weekend I decided to be a hermit and stay in. Not much is going on anyways. That I know of. Plenty of activities that I can do indoors anyways.

This week, I received many packages from various online purchases made on the week of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Got my two portable hard drives from Dell a few days ago, my Tekken 6 Fightstick bundles, and my copy of Fearless: Platinum edition. I spent much of the morning backing up all my files from my laptop and then putting all my music on the new hard drive. Still en route are my other two external hard drives that I plan on returning, four books from Borders, and my clothes from Urban Outfitters. Since receiving the fight sticks, I've been catching up on my SF2HD. Purchase of the game via Xbox Live was made possible by my sister and her 10 friends, Andy, Doug, and Calvin. Thanks! Next game purchase will be Ikaruga, which I'm 400 points away from buying. After playing twice online, I have come to the conclusion that Xbox Live players are much more competitive and unforgiving than their Playstation network counterpart.

To test out the game after I first downloaded it, I played one game online and destroyed my competition. This was at 7:45 AM right before I started doing my business to get ready for work. I shut off the system and went to work. I came back to a message by the person I played saying "Run scrub run". I replied "It was 7:45 AM in San Francisco. I was testing the game before I left for work. Some of us are actually employed." No response back. Then a few days ago I had some time and decided to give it another go online. I played one on one with some random guy and lost 8-10 (ish) before quitting since dinner was ready. Minutes later, I received a voice message from him saying "You know why I played you like an ass hole? Because you were using Zangief. Playing one on one. How cheap can you get. Fuck you suck at this game." First off, SF2HD is a one on one game. How else can you play it? One vs. two? Ridiculous. Secondly, if the developers put certain moves in the game, they want you to use it. It's the same reasoning they add cheats in video games. Games go through rigorous testing to balance characters and certain characters naturally have different functions otherwise every character would be the same. I was practicing my Zangief's crouching jab+jab to 360 with LP (Andy you know what I'm talking about). Basically the combo at 1:48.

Needless to say, I caught him enough times (almost twice a round) to make him angry. Probably got two or three perfects too. So far, that's two for two. Two ass holes in two sessions of SF2HD. If I hadn't flashed my Xbox, I would have definitely reported this guy. I do not want to cause trouble for myself. Oh, the limitations resulting from illegal mods...

At work yesterday, our group held it's annual end-of-the-year party. I spent the first two hours of work zoning out and napping while waiting for the company lunch. The admin came around at 11 and asked me to go with her to pick up the food (our lunch was catered). I said yes hoping to get to know her better since she was the youngest person in our group. She's probably around 28. The next youngest person is probably in their early 40s. It's an old bunch. After we picked up around ten trays of food, I called the team from the car to come help bring the food in. I asked one of my coworkers to bring four or five other people to help unload the food. After handing out all the trays to them, I realized there was nothing left for me to carry. One of my coworkers, H a r s h i t (yes, his name is H a r s h i t and I realize it's one letter away from being Hardshit and I'm spacing out the name to avoid google searches), joked around saying that I called all of them to do all the lifting. During the lunch, our boss, Jimmy, made gave a speech and thanked the admin for organizing the event and ordering the food and then thanked me for "being the muscle." Harshit immediately pointed at me and smiled knowing that I didn't carry any of the trays. I interrupted Jimmy and told him that other people helped. Harshit busted me out saying, "Yea, Alex called all of us to carry all the food!" Jimmy then congratulated me on my upper management skills in pawning off all the work on other people. I guess I am management material after all. This became a running joke throughout the party which I thought was pretty hilarious.

Okay. Here comes the inevitable rant of the entry. After the lunch, the group has a traditional white elephant gift exchange. The rules are, the gift must be a minimum of $25 and cannot be a recycled gift from the years before. THAT'S IT! The rules of the game in this case, was a gift can be stolen up to three times before being locked up. The gift I bought was a large dream dictionary and Snuggie, which I personally think is a decent gift. I drew number 20 of 50 (there were 33 people). First pick by first person, 7" digital photo frame. Obviously from the boss, Jimmy, and guaranteed to be stolen. Here's why. All the other gifts were lame beyond compare. But before I get to the horrible list of gifts, let me first share with you the sequence of events involving myself since this is my blog. Now this is where the game takes a horrible turn. There was nothing I wanted to steal (you'll see why) when it was my turn, so I chose a gift from the pile. I picked one that was relatively large with a nice heft to it. Inside was an inflatable twin mattress (with pump). This was definitely one of the better gifts, but I thought no one would want to steal it. I was wrong. A few turns later H a r s h i t stole it from me and I decided to pick another from the pile. At this point, after watching several picks, I came to the conclusion that anything that was horribly wrapped came from a male gifter and was almost certainly something tech-y. I picked the third to the ugliest one because of the shape of the box. Inside was a very good gift compared to the rest. A clock radio with side speakers and a dock for Ipods.

Something like that but not as nice of a model. Definitely will get stolen. A few turns pass and Serena, another coworker, steals my gift. This was fairly upsetting because we were getting down to the wire on unopened gifts and I did not see anything worth stealing. I took another gamble and picked another poorly wrapped gift. This is what I got stuck with:

What...the...fuck... Seriously? A fucking DTV converter box? A gift that was probably free from a government rebate? At this point the entire room started laughing because they knew I picked gift that was almost certainly unwanted by everyone in the group. This group of people have no fucking respect for the people who actually play the game with decency. Now, for the list of the worst gifts:

A T-shirt. Obviously NOT worth $25
A small twist-chopper thing and a bowl
A pen set
USED billiard balls. Obviously repackaged poorly with loads of tape. The cue ball had scuff marks on it. Who would give this as a gift at white elephant? What percent of people actually own a personal table and can use this?!
Cheap wine that was clearly for the budget-conscious
A teddy bear with candy. There's always seems to be one jackass who does this (no offense to Dillon or David whoever brought that stuffed animal last time)
A fucking step ladder. A STEP LADDER!!! WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE DO THAT!? The best part about this gift was the wrapping. Black garbage back. With a step ladder in it. Of course it was the last gift picked
A tea kettle. A fucking tea kettle. And not just any tea kettle. A tea kettle that clearly was a few years old. The box was faded and scuffed up horribly and looked like someone bought it at Ross. Don't get me wrong. I love Ross. But this clearly was the worst gift and there is no way it could have been worth more than $10. The person who picked this had it stolen from Jimmy. Every year, Jimmy bails out the person with the crappiest gift when it's his turn to pick. That way the person with the crapiest gift (at the time) gets another choice. Jimmy was sixth to draw meaning that the people who picked the crappier gifts could not be bailed out. Like me.
And of course the DTV converter box

Why? Why do people do these things? No respect for the game or their coworkers. Some people at least have the decency to play the game with honor. Highlights of "good" gifts:

7" digital photo frame
8GB flash drive (two people gifted them. One Sandisk and one generic brand which any tech-y can tell you is not $25 but at least people want these)
Safeway giftcard
Clock with Ipod/dock
Set of four great looking tumblers
An emergency road-side kit. Probably one of the most useful gifts. Included jumper cables, gloves, flares, other tools, an orange cone, and other miscellaneous items.

Jesus fucking Christ. At least if I'm there next year I know I can get away with bringing crap gifts like a DTV converter box. My god... Work people are ridiculous. If I had written this yesterday, you can bet that I would have used more profanities but I have cooled down a bit since then. Worst white elephant in the history of white elephants. While the gifts obviously sucked, it was pretty funny to see people making fun of everyone else for their poor gifts. Overall, it was a fun experience even though I walked away with one of the worst gifts of all time. People were even joking that the reason why someone gifted it was because they lost their rebate form and such. I was a little sad that everyone didn't really like the gift that I brought either. My manager actually picked my gift and tried desperately to give it away. My gift ended up being stolen once and traded at the end of the game so at least a few people liked it. There was actually another gifter who bought a Snuggie and combined it with a pair of Slipper Genies

To clean your floors while you walk around the house. At the end of the game, I told Serena that my friend just got a pool table recently and that if she didn't want the billiard balls that she picked then I would be happy to take them. She said that she didn't want to just give it away and didn't want to trade me for my DTV converter which is completely understandable. But then another coworker said, "Just give it to Alex. You have no reason to keep it." She replied, "Oh, it's ok. I'll just throw it around or something." Bitch. Huge bitch. Let me tell you some of the things she's done. My coworker Gary set up a slide show presentation of his trip to Europe with his girlfriend. One of the pictures showed them in front of a very expensive store. I forget if it was Gucci, Prada, or something like that but when that picture came up Serena blurted out "Oh that store is expensive. You guys probably didn't buy anything from there cause you can't afford it huh?" Everything she says is me, me, me. "Oh look at what I've done. I'm better than you at everything. Everything I do is great and everything you do is wrong. I'm right. And everything that's yours is cheap stuff." Clearly not true. Before I moved my mattress back from San Jose, I was telling her that I had some back problems because of my mattress. Her immediate response was "Oh you probably have a cheap mattress. I have a very expensive mattress and it's very good." Bitch I've been using the same mattress since I grew out of a crib. What a fucking bitch. And another time she was walking around holding a CD and asked me "Can I use your T-shirt to wipe off the gunk on the CD?" Uhh... No. "Why are you being so stingy? Just let me wipe it with your shirt." Ok. One. My mama bought me this shirt and it was one of my favorite shirts and I'm not letting some bitch use it to wipe shit off a CD. Two. Just because it's a T-shirt doesn't mean it's cheap. It was an expensive T-shirt. Three. You have a fucking shirt. Use yours. "But my shirt is expensive and it's not made of cotton." Shut up. I dress the way I dress because it's comfortable and I don't have to try and impress you fuckbags at work who mean less than nothing to me. Want to fire me for the way I dress? Fine with me. What a fucking bitch. Learn some manners. How are you married? -End rant.

This week I moved my Xbox up to my room which finally allowed me to plug my USB somewhere and catch up on my shows. I am up to date with HIMYM, BBT, Community, 30 Rock, and finally got a chance to watch the episode of SNL where Taylor Swift was hosting. Next up is Modern Family, FlashForward, White Collar. I have all of Heroes for this season but will probably delete them before I watch it. I quit Heroes. Community is one of the funniest new shows on television. It will definitely be renewed for at least another season and hopefully longer. On the other end of the spectrum, Monk aired it's final episode of the series last night. I'm about six or seven episodes behind and have not yet downloaded any episodes. From what I've been hearing, the ending is going to be awesome. I will definitely miss this show. Upcoming shows to look forward to include 24 and Chuck.

Sharks played the Calgary Flames at the Tank tonight but couldn't come out with a win. The Flames' goalie was phenomenal and made save after save. McLaren had another fight but took a beating. I like the way this kid plays. Sticks up for his team mates and does not take crap from anyone. I think in the last three games, he was in a fight in each game. But rather than bore you with statistics that you don't care about, I would like to share an interesting tidbit I heard while watching the last game. There is a contest of sorts to come up with the best nickname for the first line of the Sharks. Currently, San Jose's top line is Patrick Marleau, or Patty, Joe Thornton, or Jumbo, and Danny Heatley, or Heater. The first name that the announcer's said was "Team Canada". A nickname they said was too generic and overused. Second nickname was "The Great White" (because they're Sharks duh). This was kind of interesting. But the third was definitely the best. Someone suggested their line be called "The Burger" line. A Jumbo, Heated Patty. Genius. Next game will be at home against the L.A. Kings. A game that I have tickets to. Should be a great game considering they are not only division rivals, but it's also a battle of California.

Big thanks to Gary who gave me his remaining Magic cards. Haven't had the chance to go through everything but it's a good amount of cards. From what I have gone through, I didn't see anything of value to my main deck. Still very nice of him to give me his cards. Wiltron get ready.

That's all for now.

Until next time,

Beware of the Red Cyclone.

-Alex Thunderlips

the cake is a lie.

December 13, 2009

Two for two.

December 10, 2009

Quick one.

December 7, 2009

Knock, knock. Who's there? Failure.

December 6, 2009

Modern Family

December 5, 2009

Broken raptop = less online time.

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