Me & the posse went to Mr. Gatti's as a sort of commemoration of Pizza Party USA. I guess a small gathering like this'll have to do until we get a real holiday, heheh. Fun times definitely. But yea, other than that, I've just been sleeping aaaall day long, not even kidding - slept till noon, woke up for lunch, went back to sleep, woke up for dinner, then back to sleep- all in anticipation of the very late night I'm gonna have. I dunno, I guess in my mind, sleeping is kinda like charging a battery- as long as it gets charged enough for a given 24 hour period or so, I'm good to go... doesn't matter if my recommended 8 hours comes all at once at night, or split up over several periods throughout the day, or not at all one day and then 16 hours all at once, heheh. But yea, I read an article about sleep research being done, and I learned that I frequently experience what the fancypantsy like to call "microsleep." It's those brief 10 second to several minute gaps of time where your eyes are open but your mind just stops taking in input; it's frequently accompanied by weird eye movements (which I know I get, and have been laughed at aplenty for).

*Man, last week was hell week, seriously. I was at the library every day of the week until at least 3 or so. Something sick and twisted in the minds of professors makes them like giving all tests on the same week, blehhh. But yea, I realized that I pull out a lot of hair when I'm studying. When I'm reading, I run my fingers through my hair (especially on those particularly boring passages), and as I start to lose it, I clench my hair in my fist, preventing me from falling asleep but also helping me to stay focused. I dunno, it's weird, I guess I get a slight [envigorating] effect from having my scalp stretched taut or something- maybe that subconscious fear of an imminent scalping helps keep me alert, haha. But yea, I looked around the table after a hard read, and there was sooooo much hair all over the place, hahaha... Man, that'll be the cause of my premature balding, not genetics, hahaha... haha... hah... ~=( <--balding

Man, I really hate those hand blower things they have in the bathrooms. I mean, I know they're supposed to be more environmentally friendly than paper towels and all, but uggghhhh... I just don't have the patience to sit there air-drying. I just do some of the ol' flicking of the wrists in the air and a quick rub/grab on the shirttail- nothing too thorough. But yea, I always feel sorry for guys who do take the time to blow their hands dry, cuz to exit the bathroom, they have to soak their hands on the door handle that I just drenched in my impatience, hahaha.

I volunteered at the Science Olympiad today. (My sole good deed of the year, so far, it would seem, haha.) But yea, the competition looked pretty fun. Makes me wonder why they didn't have it back home. It's supposed to be like a statewide thing or something. I get a bit of that vicarious excitement for the kids for all the cool stuff they get to do, (e.g. bottle rockets)- maaaaan, lucky punks. =P

I went and saw "The Phantom of the Opera" tonight at the Bass Concert Hall. I got hooked up with the tickets as part of the honors program. Normally, orchestra tickets woulda been like $65, but I got in for $20. I guess that's one of the very few perks of being in honors: every once in awhile, they'll hook you up with a sweet deal like this, heheh.

But anyways yea, omg, the guy singing the part of the phantom was awesome. The music was just absolutely beautiful... despite the fact that I couldn't make out what they were singing half the time, haha. And also, I didn't really understand what was going on with the plot either- meh, understanding the lyrics probably would have helped. (Plus, unlike with Les Mis., I've never read (...err, "read") the book of this production.) But yea, I'm sure once I look up the lyrics, everything'll click, and I'll be like ohhhh, yea, that really WAS a good story. Oh yea, the special effects were really good too- caught me off guard like 3 times.

*Looked up the lyrics/transcript of the entire musical. Story makes a lot more sense now. The phantom is more than just some creepy stalker guy, hahaha. I downloaded all the good songs off Kazaa and have been listening to 'em over and over... good stuff.
"Say you'll share with me
one love, one lifetime
Lead me, save me
from my solitude
Say you want me with you
here beside you
Anywhere you go
let me go too..."
~the Phantom - "Point of No Return" (the part that's to the melody of "All I Ask of You")

ARRRGGGG, dangit, my cell phone busted today. I don't even know what happened. I just pulled it out of my pocket a sec ago and the display's got this smear looking thing on it, indicative of a broken LCD. Blehhh, yea, probably shoulda taken it out of my pocket when i took a nap. =/ But yea, if it's just the display, hopefully I can still get calls, but I'll hafta ask who's calling every time. And good thing I know all the key combinations for all the important commands like alarm, switch to discreet, switch to normal- so for all practical purposes, I guess it's still a relatively functional phone. =/

Uggghhh, it's been a harsh week... It's been marked with a stark inability to finish anything I start. I just haven't been able to finish ANY of my hw assignments this week. And maybe it's just too little effort too late, but it's absolutely depressing... absolutely.

A large part of it might be my reintroduction to the world of Diablo; more specifically, Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction. Tony gave me his CD key, which was greatly appreciated, but uggghhh, it's all been downhill from there. A lot of my free time seems to disappear into that game. Hours upon hours. I'll start playing after dinner, and the next thing I know, it's 5 in the morning. It's an addiction in the truest sense of the word- I need my D2 fix. I just can't stop. "I don't neeeeeed your help. I can quit... any time." Hahaha, I think I need some computer game rehab. Seriously.

It snowed on the Friday night. Quite surprising; yea, on average, it seems to snow about once a year here- last year they cancelled school for a day and a half. Anyways, so it was like 2am, and I was showering to sleep, and I get called out of the shower by my friends to go out and play in the snow. It was fun though. People were sliding down that hill in front of Andrews in laundry baskets, but I didn't have a basket so I slid down on my stomach- I felt like a penguin, hahah. Me, Terry, Chris, and some of his friends made a snowman and put it on the Andrews 4th floor balcony by moving it one body segment at a time. It was heavy as hell, haha.

So yesterday was Valentine's Day. Huh, whatever- just another day of the single life. D2'ed the whole day. Eventually ended up going down to Noodle-ism for dinnerwith Yilin to visit Kent at work. Great food, great environment. On the way back, we decided to do that thing where you're driving in a car and knock down a line of cones. But in our slight hesitation, we went too slow, and instead of going flying, the cones just kinda got stuck under the car. Then this parking attendant guy pops up out of nowhere and stops us and gives us a guilt trip. =/ After that, I played poker with Terry, Tony, Allen, and Paul for a couple hours. They play for pushups, which I think is just plain silly, but it's amusing to see people straining on their last couple couple pushups, hahaha. Yup, so that's been my week/weekend.

Interesting weekend. I busted the footrest off of my table; well, not off but dangling even moreso than before. Umm, watched the rest of Fruitsbasket and the Read or Die OVA's (errr, OAV's? I can never keep straight which it is. I think both might be acceptable actually.) Good animes.

The other night, walking back from Wendy's at like 2am, I looked up at the moon and it had a hazy circle around it. Normally, I'd just be like, hey, that's pretty cool, and think nothing of it. But turns out, this week's Naruto (#69) says that that sort of rainbowy halo is the mark of the snake, and a sign of bad things to come. *Turns out I had a really terrible week after that, so I guess it was correct, more or less. =/

Also, doing something quite out of character for myself, I decided to read the chapter for my accounting quiz. I found one of the passages particularly amusing (Kimmel, Essentials of Accounting. 2003):

In fact, Tootsie Pops are at the center of one of science's most challenging questions: How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? The answer varies: Licking machines created at Purdue University and the University of Michigan report an average of 364 and 411 licks respectively. In studies using human lickers, the answer ranges from 144 to 252. We recommend that you take a few minutes today away from your studies to determine your own results.

Hah, man, it's funny, cuz I really was planning to do that experiment. I stocked up on Tootsie Pops last year, but never got around to designing a controlled experiment. But yea, those numbers seem off, if I remember correctly. I did like 100 strokes of the lollipop along my tongue and barely even made a dent. Maybe it depends on how you define a "lick." Like maybe you have to take a mini-timeout in between licks so you don't saturate the surface of your tongue. In my preliminary study, I think that might have been the case, and there was a sort of plateauing effect. Hmmm, most interesting. Perhaps I'll take another shot at this experiment after I finish my thermodynamics and fluid dynamics coursework this semester- might give me a bit more insight to analyze the results.

So I'm getting kicked out of the honors dorm next year.... @#$%! I got my housing contract today, and enclosed was a letter saying I'm not being offered a room in the Honors Residence Hall next year. They said they were weeding people out based on a criteria involving cumulative GPA (check) and continuance in an honors program (check), which is utter BS. Not to blow my own horn or anything, but I am so more qualified than some others. The only reason they have for kicking me out is that I'm gonna be a 3rd year student. Blahhhh... I shudder at the thought of living with the "normies," hahaha. Yeecchh, *shudder* *cringe* *faint* hahaha. Anyways, I wrote an e-mail to get put on the waiting list, but the odds are slim at best. =/

So today was my real birthday. Man, it's been such a long and stressful day. =/ I was supposed to wake up early to finish my hw, but funny how quickly another 5 minutes turns into another 3 hours when hitting the snooze button, hahaha. When I finally crawled out of bed, I had to pound a mountain dew before frantically cranking out some BS that could pass for fluid mechanics hw. Barely finished in time... errr, "finished" in it's very loosest definition, haha. Powerwalked to class. About 30 minutes into class, I had to pee sooooooo badly. (I suddenly recalled the diuretic properties of caffeinated beverages.) I'm already pretty lost in that class, and I can't afford to miss any notes or lecture- so I decided to stay. It's ok, I can hold it, I thought. An hour into class, I was starting to squirm in my chair and crossing my legs. I musta pulled my cell phone out of my pocket every 2 minutes to check the time, haha. It doesn't help at all that the class is all about fluid mechanics, hahaha. I count down the minutes till the professor finally lets out class, and I do a pained hobbling limp up to the 2nd floor bathroom of WRW. Ahhh, relief...

Later, I had to cram even more hw that was due at 5pm, and then I had ballroom dance class till 9ish. This is the first chance I've had all day to relax. And then to top it off, I think I caught a cold from my roommate. =/ Ugghhh... what a long day.

But yea, anyways, reflecting on the birthday, man, it's funny where all the years go, huh? The big 2-0. I dunno though, in retrospect, the teenage years were highly overrated. I musta missed some kinda important lesson on how to have fun or something. Gone are the days... but you know what? I don't think I really miss 'em. Here's to a new beginning, a new me... 20.

So I celebrated my birthday tonight, since I'll be too busy tomorrow night, on my real b-day. So me, my brother, and Michael went to Saba downtown and filled up on the half-price appetizers again. We did the same thing last year too. Fun times, good eats. Props to everyone that remembered my b-day, even if they were one day off, hahaha. =)

Cali: happy birthday to dan the best GB buddy ever! =D
Louise: happy birthday, daniel :-D2.3.04 whoooa its all in order