Vegas, baby!!! VEGAS!!!

Right now I'm packing for my first Halloween in Vegas.  I know I have been neglecting this blog but I've been busy.  Lots of firsts in this month.

First car:  2010 Golf TDI.
First stick shift
First ink
First Sharks home opener game
First time I blogged in the month of October
First time I will be in Vegas for Halloween
First time I will be themed in costume (twice)
First time in Vegas with my cousins
First time I enjoyed watching a game of baseball (not a bandwagon fan.  Just a fan of the mental assassin)

October is turning out to be a good month.  Let's keep it that way.

Until next time,

The famous “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign was created in 1959

-Thunderlips

Take it to the max

Epic song.  Makes me feel like I should do something dramatic.  If I were to create a soundtrack to my life (new project?!), this song would be somewhere in the mix.  This guy's actual name?  Alexander Max Band.  Seriously.  The only thing that would make his name any cooler is if Max was short for Maximus or Maximillion.  His name is second only to my ex-landlord: Vince Stryker.  Effin' great album.  If you think you recognize his voice, it's probably because you do.  He's the former lead vocalist of The Calling.  If you forgot who they were, they sang Wherever you will go.  If you liked that song, here's another one.

In BUS210, I'm learning about organizational culture.  The topics that I have gone through include organizational behavior, organizational culture, creativity, and leadership to name a few.  After learning more about how an organization works, I look at my job from an entirely different perspective now.  It makes me want to shoot myself in the face everyday.  More than before.  I just don't want to be there anymore.  This week I probably worked a total of two to three hours in four days.

Our entire group consists of about 50 members, but only about 15 or so are actual full time employees.  Everyone else, including me, is a contractor.  Company policy decided about a year ago to prohibit any parties or extra curricular for non-employees.  Yesterday, the employees had a paid day off.  They all had lunch in San Francisco and then went to the Asian Art museum while the contractors were left behind in the office to slave away.  It's definitely created a rift between employees and contractors.  Our boss doesn't like it but he's tied down by the system.  Morale is at an all time low.  All the perks that we saw before (company lunches for end of release, retirement, etc.) are exclusive to employees only.  The contractors are just as important as the employees and more than half of them have worked as contractors for over five years.  Revolt!

So this is my car situation as of now.  Last weekend I went to test drive the 2dr Golf TDI (I stalled six times in a row, embarrassing I know...)  and had to walk away from the dealership empty handed.  Their opening offer was $33,000.  RIDICULOUS! I countered with $5.  Not really but I talked it down to $26,250 out the door with 0% APR after almost an hour and a half.  They wouldn't go lower so I walked.  After learning about how expensive it would be, I called up Bui to see what kind of deal he could get me.  After calling people he offered me same price.  I decided to give up on purchasing the Golf.

After that happened, I went back to my first choice.  The Audi A4.  And even better, the 2011 is out.  The difference between the two is $8,000.  I have been going back and forth between the two cars and whether or not to finance or just to lease.  I wanted to lease the A4 but after thinking about it a lot, I might just lease a cheaper car since I won't keep it anyways.  It'll keep my monthly payments super low and I could save up for a purchase at the end of the lease.  Hopefully I could find a car I can lease for around $200 a month.  At this point, I don't really care what that car is but it would be nice if I could get an estimate on how much a lease is on the Golf is since it's in my top two picks.  I know this car will go through a lot of abuse in the next two years.  I won't have time to properly maintain it.  Probably will look up a lease price at work tomorrow.  Any suggestions?

Until next time,

Short sentences that use all letters of the alphabet (called pangrams and great for beginning typists):

1. The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog (33 characters)
2. Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs (32 characters)
3. Quick, jab my fading pink zit, evil sex whore! (35 characters)

-Alex Thunderlips

Wiki adventures

For some reason, some acoustic songs just sound better than the "original" versions. By the way, totally diggin' the new Maroon 5 album.



Probably my favorite album right now.  Such a classic rock sound.  Too bad no one knows about these guys.  And probably never will.  If you like it here are my other favorites from their album:  Take me for a ride Showdown in central park  Wildlife (actual video) Who said rock and roll is dead? 

Every time I look up information about Bruce Lee, I get sucked into his life.  He is one of the most amazing people I've ever read about (see fact from previous post).  Other than Mao, the only other autobiography I'd consider reading is of Bruce Lee. 

This post got me sucked into a Wikipedia adventure.  I spent four hours at work today on one of the most ridiculous Wiki adventures ever.  I went from Bruce Lee, to Jeet Kune Do to Forrest Law to a list of Tekken character to a list of Street Fighter characters.  There was a whole lot in between but you get the point.  After serious Wiki and IMDB adventuring, I started thinking.  And I think I've come up with a new game.  It may not be the best but it certainly is an interesting idea.  A Wikipedia Adventure race!  Two words chosen at random and you have to find Wiki pages to link the two.  For instance, "telephone" and "black hole" might be the two words.  And the shortest amount of links to the word wins.  Sort of like a "6 degrees of separation" thing.  Just a though.  maybe Wiki can make it a feature to add two words and have some algorithm figure out what the path is.  Patent pending.  Don't steal my idea.

I took a driver's training class today for manual transmission.  Wasn't totally worth it but I did get some great tips and practice.  I think I might be ready for my own car.  I'll be checking it out on Saturday.

Until next time,

Bruce Lee could throw grains of rice up into the air and then catch them in mid-flight using chopsticks.

-Alex Thunderlips

Hole in my shoe

So last night I had a dream that was pretty strange.  It started out at my grandma's house.  I don't remember who was there or what was going on but it was probably a family dinner since that's what we usually do there.  After that, I decided to hit the clubs downtown.  Sometime during the middle of the night I lost my right shoe.  Not knowing what to do, I went back to my grandma's house. 

Across the street, I noticed four guys hanging out in front of a restaurant.  Paying no attention to them, I start walking towards the house.  Then, out of no where, one of the guys throws something towards me and misses me by a few inches.  I look down at what was thrown at me and it was my shoe!  How did it get there?!  I knew it was mine because of the hole in the front of the shoe (this shoe in my dream is actually from a pair I own).  I looked at it, looked back at them, and then picked it up and started walking up the stairs. 

The four guys chase me down and start yelling at me telling me that was their shoe and they wanted it back.  I looked down and pointed at my feet.  One with a shoe, and one without.  We argued about who's shoe it actually was and it started to get ridiculous.  I recognized two of the four guys and tried to reason with them.  One was Jeremy (of Amy and Jeremy) and the other was a neighbor of mine in San Jose.  He bears a striking resemblance to Hiep (as he does in real life).  The only difference is he has long hair and always wears sleeveless shirts with basketball shorts.  At this point, we're arguing in the front door of the house and I'm just tired of arguing.  Jeremy, who's being the most difficult, is clearly the leader of the group.  I push him and try to get him to back down.  He doesn't dare fight me.  I'm too awesome.  He finally gives up and he calls his group off and walks away. 

Inside the house, Amy, Rainbow, and Andy are sitting around the living room.  Amy (of Amy and Jeremy) is clearly upset and starts to yell at me.  She's absolutely hysterical.  I don't understand anything she's saying until these words came out of her mouth:  "You lied to me!  You and Andy aren't gay!" 

Let's take a moment to just process that and laugh. 

It was so ridiculous.  She was crying and freaking out about how the two of us are just heterosexual life mates.  She charges at me and tries to hit me but I use my height advantage to turn the tables.  I eventually get her backside and choke her out.  And that's the end of my dream.

Just to add some more flare, I thought I would add my written version of this.  After I reread my dream journal for this post I couldn't help but laugh at how dumb it was.  To give you some more information, when I wake up from a memorable dream, I write it down as fast as possible while it's still fresh.  I keep a pen and notebook inside my headboard for dreams like this.  Most of it is just useless words unless you have a demented mind like mine.   Here's what it read.  Word for word.

"Gma's house down town club lose shoe gma's shoe thrown confrontation no one wants to fight amy rainbow me and andy gay fight choke her out can't hit girl"

Until next time,

In a speed demonstration, Bruce Lee could snatch a dime off a person's open palm before they could close it, and leave a penny behind

-Alex Thunderlips

Without distraction

My online class started on Monday.  So now I am taking Bus 210 "Managing and Developing People" and RA106 "Regulatory Affairs".  The combination of the two is destroying me.  My mind is being blown by all the information thrown at me.  I have probably read more in the last month than I have in the last two years.  This is definitely one of the hardest things I have ever done.  There's so much work that I am taking Monday off from work to catch up.

To help me concentrate on school work, I have eliminated two of the most time-consuming activities: TV and Facebook.  Andy and Kevin came over today and helped me move the TV in my room to my sister's room.  I can't remember the last time my room didn't have a TV... I still remember when I had three TVs in my room.  I could watch TV, listen to sports on another, and play game on the third.  It got so bad to the point where my room looked like this...

This is how my room actually looked in high school.  And it was not intentionally set up this way.  It took weeks of abuse and neglect to get it this messy.  Those were simpler times... 

When I study, I usually have music in the background since I'm sedatephobic (fear of silence).  Since I can't concentrate when listening to music with words, I turn to Pandora for generated playlists.  My studying playlist is a combination of Yiruma, Escala, and Bond.  Almost everything they play is pretty good with that lineup.  That's where I found the song above.  Pretty nice music to listen to.  I've listened to Pandora so much that I've already hit the maximum hours allowed.  I've already played 40 hours of music this month on the site and if I want to continue using it, I'll have to pay.  Did you know there was a friggin' limit?!  I think I'll just wait until October...

Without Facebook, there isn't much left to do on the web.  I check the sports pages and the news every half hour or so, but there's nothing really left after that. 

On the plus side, now that the TV is in my sister's room, I have a new place to work out (if I ever have time).  Her room has windows and gets plenty of air so it'll be perfect. 

I'm also thinking about getting an iPad for my mom.  If she likes it, she can keep it.  But I have a feeling she would be too frustrated with learning how to use it and give up.  In that case, I'd take it.  So it's really a gift for me.  I've been debating about which iPad I want.  I definitely only plan on getting the 16GB (smallest one) but I'm not sure if I want to go with the 3G or just the Wi-Fi.  With the 3G, I have the option of using internet where ever there's a 3G hotspot but it costs a whopping $130 for that feature.  In addition to that, you also have to go through AT&T to get the data plan which is 250MB/month for $15 or 2GB/month for $25.  The good thing about the plan is that you don't have to pay for it unless you use it since it's month to month.  So I think I will buy the 3G iPad but hold off on getting the service until I need it.  It would be a great asset if I ever go on that road trip around the U.S. that I've been working on...

Until next time,

Some interesting facts I learned from my readings:

• 54% of Americans are using prescription medication; 35% use 1-3 and 19% use four or more
• Only 2 of 10 marketed drugs return revenues that match or exceed R&D costs
• Since new medicines were approved in 1995, the AIDS death rate has dropped more than 70%
• The death rate for cardiovascular disease fell 26.4% between 1999 and 2005. This includes a 29.7% decrease in stroke death rates an a 34.3% drop in death rates for coronary heart disease. Nearly half of the decline is attributable to medical treatments, including increased use of prescription medicines such as cholesterol drugs and blood thinners.
• In a study, a $1.00 increase in prescription drug spending saved $2.06 in hospital spending
• Generic medications account for 74% of prescriptions filled - up from 49% in 2000

There's a lot more interesting stats and things but I don't want to number you to death... Interesting though ain't it?

-Alex Thunderlips