*So my brother got me a new phone kinda as an early b-day present while I was off in Taiwan, since my last phone broke. It's the Samsung SGH-U700 Ultra Edition II. I don't think they sell it in the States. It can type in (simplified) Chinese, but apparently Chinese SMS's won't go over the network here.

Anyways, so it's a slider phone with some degree of touch sensing on front slidy part. I dunno, I think I still prefer the feel of a good old fashioned keypress though. It's silver colored, and when the screen is off (screensaver), the whole front surface appears like a mirror, which is kinda cool; hard to read in bright sunlight though. The software for this phone is MUCH better than on the last Samsung I had, but parts of it are still kinda clunky and dumb (like the text messaging, and the vibrate-itself-to-death "feature"). It's got a 3 megapixel camera on it that works pretty well. MicroSD slot. And of course it's pretty thin (which seems to be me & my brother's primary criterion for picking phones).

But yea, it's a nice phone and and appreciated gift and all, but it was like $300+, and I don't feel like I'm the kinda person who gets the full satisfaction out of a high-end phone like this. And I dunno, for like $100 more, I coulda gotten (and hacked) an iPhone, but then again I guess it's no fun to have a smartphone if it's all nerfed cuz you're too cheap to pay for a data plan, hah. I dunno, anyways, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right?

Moving. So this weekend, my family and I moved into a new apartment across town (from the Southwest corner of town to the Northwest). Since my lease ends at the end of January, we decided to move into a bigger place together, a 3/2. (For those of you who I didn't tell, my parents sold our house back in Texas and have been crashing in the living room of my 1/1 apartment for the past several months.) They said that they'd foot the bills if I lived with them after the lease ended. And as much as I like my freedom and privacy, it's hard to turn down the opportunity to save $1000+ a month. =/ So I'll suck it up and move back in with my parents for awhile.

But whereas up until now, it'd been "them living with me," now it'll be "me living with them," just like a kid again. I dunno, there's just such a social stigma against the typical American 20-something (who's already in the workforce) going back to live with their parents. And I'm not sure what exactly it is in the American ethos that makes us wanna strike out on our own and be independent, but it's definitely the social expectation that we working-types NOT still live with our parents, right?

I dunno, I just don't wanna get in this rut where I'll always be living with my parents until either I get married or I die. =/ And yea, maybe it's pretty un-Asian of me to say such things, but at some point, I really just wanna be my own person, ya know? Not trapped behind these invisible walls. I just can't let them settle to the conclusion that this is an acceptable long-term status quo. I mean, I have co-workers in their late 20's that still live with their parents, and to put this as nicely as I can: I DON'T want my life to turn out like theirs! 'Nuff said. But for now, I guess I suck it up, and think of the $1K I save every month as a future downpayment on a house. That's some small consolation, I suppose.

At any rate, for now, I guess my situation HAS improved a bit from the 1/1, which was admittedly a bit 3rd worldly. Hopefully things'll be a bit less tense now that we all have our own rooms and more space. And this new place is really close to my office (~half a mile); it'd probably be like a 5 or 10 minute walk (which would totally be walkable if I were back in Taiwan, but is totally unacceptable now that I'm back in America, HAH!). I've got a view of the northernmost stretch of the Strip from my bedroom, but the drive to the Strip is actually about 5 or 10 minutes longer now. And I'm now only like a 2 minute drive to the gym (so hopefully I'll go work out more), but am now about twice as far from my muay thai school. Anyways, we'll see how things go I guess.

ME (7:24:43 PM): hmmm, well, actually...
ME (7:25:09 PM): given the choice to be: a cyborg, a ninja, a vampire, a superhero/villain... i suppose it would actually be a pretty tough call
***
ME (7:26:59 PM): but i guess there's no reason why those categories need to be mutually exclusive... the cyborg, ninja, vampire, and supervillain

*Have I mentioned before how these days, I would probably be a supervillain instead of a superhero? Not that I'd go around causing mayhem and destruction, but I'd just probably be too inclined to use my powers for personal gain. (And I mean, that's not to say I wouldn't be averse to doing a good turn every now and again, if it wasn't any skin off my back. But I probably wouldn't make any kinda habit of it.) Maybe I have fallen to the darkside after all these years, or maybe it's just a general cynicism about the "goodness" of humanity. I've come to the conclusion that mankind is inherently evil... or at the least, not good. (Too much greed and corruption in this world.) Humankind will be saved or destroyed by its own hands, with or without the meddling of outside "powers".

And anyways, I don't think real-life is as black & white as the old skool comicbook worlds would sometimes have you believe. Why's it always gotta be heroes & villains? Why can't I just be a super-something and leave it at that? "With great power comes great responsibility"? pssshhhh, please... save it for the boyscouts.

Government 101 - Caucusing. So I went and did my civic duty today and participated today in the Nevada Democratic Caucus; it was my first time caucusing. It was alright I guess, coulda been worse, I suppose, but I still think I like the primary process a lot better.

So this is how it went down: They first break the state down into a bunch of precincts, and a week or 2 in advance, they mail you a pamphlet telling you where to go on the official caucus day (mine was at a nearby school). On that day, you show up (mine was at 11am), and have to walk through the crowd of hardcore supporters with signs trying to sway the people who're on the fence.

They started things off with a bit of check-in/registration; that went from 11-12. Then around noon, a guy at the front got on stage and said he was the interim chairman (and his wife was interim secretary), read off a bunch of rules and procedures, read a few letters from bigwig senators and whatnot, and the 1st order of business was to elect an official chairman and a real secretary. He nominated himself and his wife; no one else was nominated, so they were official by default.

Then he asked, "Other than the frontrunners (Clinton & Obama), do any of the other candidates have any supporters in the room?" (There were maybe about 80 voters in the room total.) "Edwards?" About 5 ppl raised their hands. "Anyone else?" There was a bit of a pause, and then another guy in the room raised his hand and said "Kucinich." There was a good bit of laughter in the room. (I was actually kinda glad, because I didn't wanna be the one to raise my hand and get laughed at. -_-)

So then they said that based on the number of delegates our district got to send (8ish), a candidate would need about 10 supporters to get a delegate. And since there weren't enough supporters of Edwards or Kucinich, neither would get any delegates. So they told us that we would have to align ourselves with one of the two major candidates if we wanted our voices to be heard. (I thought that was a little BS, but what could I do?)

So then they said "Ok, all the Clinton supporters come to this side of the room, and all the Obama supporters go sit on that side of the room." The hardcore supporters had already pretty much been sitting that way anyways, so only about 1/4 of us had to get up and shuffle seats- I went to the Obama side. (It ended up being pretty even 50/50 for the two candidates, but I noticed that all but one black person were for Obama, and I think all but one Asian were as well.)

(So since we only had two candidates with any real representation, we didn't have to do multiple rounds of voting and trying to persuade people to change sides.) We just marked our ballot things, turned 'em in, and they counted 'em. Then they announced how many delegates each candidate would receive.

Then among each candidate group, we had to elect delegates to some other voting convention (for the state?). They didn't outright say we had to, but they strongly suggested we get equal gender and ethnic representation. (I found that to be somewhat humorous.) I was a little tempted to volunteer, just out of curiosity, but figured I'd be too tempted to go turncoat and be a traitor to my electors (I mean, not that Obama's a bad choice either). After that, they let us go; it was around 1pm.

*Opinions. So we were discussing the caucuses at work the following Monday, and the more I hear, the shadier this whole caucus thing sounds. Like one guy made a point that even though the Culinary Union officially endorsed Obama, a lot of the members ended up voting for Clinton. And yea, ideally, any election process should be one in which the participants can vote their hearts without fear of repercussions, but I don't think that's EVER possible in the real world. Like with the unions, even if some members DID vote their minds by choosing Clinton, did they think the union bosses weren't watching and making note of who voted how?? And yea, maybe gone are the days where you (and/or your family) can get whacked for not voting how you're told, but gradually, won't the dissidents notice they're getting all the bad shift times, slow getting promotions, etc etc.? A lot of "favors" are done in American politics, and when someone scratches your back, they expect you to scratch back- failure to do so WILL have its repercussions. The whole situation was likened to the old days of "political machines" and Boss Daley in Chicago and whatnot. There was talk that the whole shift from the primary to caucuses in Nevada was part of a power grab by Senator Reid, to consolidate his influence in the state. (Yea, I'm pretty cynical about the whole political process. I re-watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington recently, and I'm not so idealistic as to think most of our politicians are Mr. Smith's.) Yea, so long story short, I liked the electoral process better with primaries, where things are nice and anonymous. =/

I find myself gradually becoming someone/something I never meant to be. I feel like a little bit of me is dying on the inside. I don't like what I'm turning into, and I'm not proud of the things I've done. I hope this is all just a phase; I need to find myself again. I think I'm on a cathartic verge. =/

Taiwan Recap. So I was in Taiwan for ~12/24-1/9, mostly in Taipei. There were two main reasons for me going back, I suppose. The 1st being that I missed my grandpa's 80th birthday banquet to take my FE exam back in October, so I guilt-tripped myself into going back to Taiwan as a means to make it up to him in my mind. The 2nd reason was that several of my best friends from high school were going back as well. So it was a pretty good occasion to kill two birds with one stone.

Well, if I haven't mentioned before, my grandfather has Alzheimer's, and it's starting to get really bad. On any given day, it's about 50/50 whether he'll know who I am; and even if he remembers my name, he usually won't remember that I'm his grandson. -_- But yea, I had flown back with the intention of apologizing to my grandfather for missing his banquet, but upon seeing him for the first time and him not really recognizing me, I figured it was best leaving it unsaid rather than bringing up something he wouldn't remember and confusing him. I watched this Japanese film Memories of Tomorrow about Alzheimer's with my cousin, and it was really poignant and hit pretty close to home.

I went and prayed at the ashes of my paternal grandfather and grandmother also. I also have always guilt-tripped myself over missing this grandfather's funeral in Taiwan because I was interviewing for jobs back in the States. It was my first time praying for them since he passed away.

Saw my twin nephews (cousin's kids) and took them to the zoo. They're 3 or so now, and I think they're almost to the age where kids get not-so-bratty, but not quite there yet. Still super cute though, just a bit noisy and mishievous, hah. Anyways, I realized once again how clueless I am with dealing with children. =/

On a different note, hanging out with the friends was a blast. It was great seeing old friends again and doing what we always do: eat, drink, and be merry. It's just kinda funny that we had to all fly halfway around the world just to see each other though, hah. Props to Queenna for playing host and tourguide for us. We did the usual thing of clubs, lounges, karaoke, and night markets. Went shrimping(?); it was roughly what I imagined I guess, but I think it would've been more fun drunk, hah- but I suppose it was kinda meditative, kinda like fishing. Went to the Taipei Auto Show- was ok, I think 80% of the ppl were just there to see the race queens, hah. We went and saw the movie Warlords at the theatre- it was ok; had me thinking for awhile afterwards. And we counted down the new year at the Taipei 101 and watched the fireworks- supposedly the last year they're gonna do it; it was pretty cool, but it was packed as hell trying to leave (though I guess not as bad as I'd imagined). And ate at this toilet-themed restaurant called Modern Toilet; it was pretty amusing, but I think there's a very fine line between hilarious and disgusting, hah.

But yea, ended up getting overly drunk on more occasions than I probably should have, and I'm sure my liver has suffered an untold amount of damage, hahaha. So we went clubbing one night at Plush, and I got so wasted I drank CANDLE WAX cuz it was in a cup that LOOKed like the same cups we were drinking out of. And I supposedly didn't stop (and for some reason my friends didn't stop me), even when they TOLD me it was wax (assuming I couldn't tell by taste)... Yea, I don't remember the 2nd half of that night, and I didn't find out about the wax thing until they told me the next day. >_< Oh yea, and I don't remember getting on the taxi to go home that night, and I don't remember getting off either. I just remember that the taxi dropped me off like several blocks away from where it should have, and I was walking walking walking for a looooong time before I got home. I'm actually VERY surprised I knew which way to walk- it's like a MIRACLE I made it home that time. -_-

Sites hit this time: 45 Pub, The Bed(?), Plush, Lava, Luxy, Kama Lounge, Person, Barcode

But yea, I guess I was just savoring the flavor of the whole trip and trying to take it all in, cuz once I started working, it seems like vacations are few and far between, and I imagine I probably won't get the chance to go back again for awhile. =/