Tweets for Today

• 12:23 Morning so far: haircut; student seminar with free pizza. #

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Tweets for Today

• 12:01 Monday. Bad: have to work on CM presentation. Good: free Goode Co. BBQ after class; boss has not yet returned. #
• 12:21 Monday. Ugly: guy in lab's fiancé has temporarily taken up residence in lab; they whisper to each other a lot. #
• 14:41 This will end well, too. Blockbuster is on a roll: twurl.nl/0ife8j #
• 15:39 Time to trek over to Rice... #
• 16:09 Jack White is a *professional*. New Raconteurs album may be more artisansl than artistic, but I marvel at the sheer competency on display. #
• 16:10 Now this is a beautiful spring day. Ever so slightly crisp, sunny, some nice wind. Beautiful day to tackle a couple walks. #
• 16:51 Microsoft was not a competitor to Compaq. Please refrain from asking asinine questions, classmate. #
• 16:53 Lesson learned: Compaq, like M$, succeeded on the pure dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time. #
• 23:25 Bad neck ache ruined my afternoon/evening. Just woke up from a very therapeutic nap. #
• 01:53 Shoe shopping online is about 100x less annoying than having to do it in person. As is true of most forms of online shopping. #
• 02:31 2 days of having no tabs in my browser at the end of the day (at least at home). This is down from ~100 tabs usually waiting to be read. #

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Tweets for Today

• 13:22 Circumstances last night prevented me from Twittering, so I will attempt to recap now. #
• 13:23 1) Nice dinner with Jeff, Jim, Jerry, and Cindy at Buca di Beppo. Well, nice company. Mediocre dinner. #
• 13:23 2) Drink back at Jeff & Jim's. The man makes an excellent martini. #
• 13:24 3) Leave, discover my car along with several other has been egged. Hastily go after my car door with paper towels. #
• 13:25 4) Aside: who says drugs are bad? If those little shits that did this had been strung out on heroin, they wouldn't have been egging my car. #
• 13:25 5) Manage to find car wash that's open at midnight (59 & Kirby). Feel a little better. #
• 13:26 6) Decide it's too late to catch Trail of Dead at #s. Instead consume pitcher of Lonestar at Late Nite Pie with Char & Alison. #
• 13:26 7) Beer makes me feel better. #
• 13:28 8) Who the *fuck* eggs cars anymore? Couldn't they have just broken in and stolen my iPod? Would have been cheaper. #
• 13:29 Now at the car wash getting some *other* cosmetic issues taken care of. Good thing I didn't get that done yesterday. #
• 13:30 Oh, apparently the little fuckers that did this got caught. There are phone numbers, but no guarantee they're real. Feeling litigious. #
• 14:57 Is money that used to buy CDs paying off credit card debt incurred buying CDs? tinyurl.com/589n8b Probably not the whole story... #
• 15:03 My car has been washed 3 times in 3 days. Strange. #
• 15:37 Hick high school kid: why are you playing crap country on your laptop speakers in the car wash waiting area? Because you are a douchebag? #
• 02:54 Cindy & I split the Dogfish Head Red & White tonight. Not as good as I had hoped. Reminded me of their Jiahu or one of the Chimays. #
• 02:55 Watched Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. The Bruce Timm/Paul Dini DC Cartoons (Batman, Superman, Justice League) are *so* excellent. #

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Tweets for Today

• 09:57 Thank God for wireless at the car dealership. Though I always feel a little dirty that it's filtered: no mazda3forums.com for me. #
• 10:03 Wait. Penny Arcade blocked. This just got worse. #
• 10:16 And Houstonist is blocked. Well, it's not that good anyway. #
• 10:19 & Joystiq. Nothing fun allowed, apparently. #
• 10:48 Pitchfork blocked. Now I'm really feeling oppressed. Thank God for the iPhone... #
• 13:31 Having lunch with 'Brina. #
• 15:20 And now, to try to get some work done. #
• 17:21 I realized last night that I just don't get or give enough drunk dials anymore. #
• 18:13 Okkervil River are a blessing. #
• 18:53 Friday and Battlestar Galactica. What a great combination. #
• 01:07 Wow. Didn't realize how much I missed the office until it came back. #

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Tweets for Today

• 13:28 The mystery of the unknown key has beensolved. It's to the complex's pedestrian gate. No wonder I didn't recognize it. I've never used it! #
• 14:10 Hah. This will go well. tinyurl.com/6krmrq #
• 15:17 Cool houses: tinyurl.com/5voudp #
• 15:50 Preparing for thesis committee meeting. Worst 2 parts of my year. God willing, this is my second-to-last one. #
• 17:38 First take on Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin's new album: too damned slick. #
• 18:51 I'm glad that on my iPhone, Mobile Safari no longer causes the iPod app to crash with great frequency. #
• 03:01 Enough No More Heroes for one night; I suppose it's bed time. #

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Tweets for Today

• 12:45 It's the patio. Done deal. #
• 12:49 Silliness: paying $10 for 2 day birthday present shipping, realizing it shipped to wrong address, paying $8 to ship to intended recipient. #
• 13:09 Considering this spectacular deal for the new patio: rickroll.it/830781 but worried about theft potential. #
• 14:05 Buried in this article, looks like I might be getting an HEB! Finally! tinyurl.com/69wzp6 #
• 15:49 Taking the shuttle to Rice is lazy and takes as long as walking, but it looks an awful lot like rain... #
• 18:00 If there's a projector problem, b-school prof usually jokes "Is it Mac?" But It isn't a) a Mac or b) funny. Laughter anyway, though. Sad... #
• 18:02 Kevin Rose's home theater: lame. tinyurl.com/5jcsu2 #
• 18:36 Wow, Office '08 sort of does look less ugly. #

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Tweets for Today

Daily Twitterings:

• 13:17 So Walt *doesn't* know when the next iPhone comes out? tinyurl.com/3pausx #
• 17:22 Feeling patio-ish. #
• 17:31 Signal is always bad in this one room... #
• 23:55 So *that's* what rancid peanut butter tastes like. Date on the jar said best if sold by 10/06. Which, to be fair, it probably was. #
• 02:37 3.5 years later, I finally finish Pikmin. Now back to all the other games I haven't finished. Zelda, you're next. #

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Tweets for Today

Daily Twitterings:

• 14:13 Patio or balcony? Light or dark? Flood risk or no? Slightly cramped or slightly spacious? Decisions, decisions... #
• 14:14 Not sure why, but I *love* leftovers. Maybe because they're already prepared and paid for. Yay Pappasito's grilled platter. #
• 19:43 Finally, somebody addresses the question of new iPhones and the FCC: tinyurl.com/4jycry #
• 19:45 Accomplished: picked up comics, went by Sam's. Did not: pick apartment, sign lease, wash car. Pending: school stuff. #

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Tweets for Today

Daily Twitterings:

• 15:55 Look, leasing office, I know you're short-staffed in Saturdays, but *someone* should always be in the office. Poor. #
• 16:17 Twitter means always having someone to roll your eyes to. #
• 21:25 Had a kangaroo burger for dinner. #
• 22:08 Hanging out with Jeff & Jim. We're discussing lamp shades. These are, of course, my gay friends. #

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Tweets for Today

Daily Twitterings:

• 14:53 The construction going on in every room abutting mine melds surprisingly well with the Fuck Buttons album. Surprisingly well. #
• 15:09 What kind of publisher doesn't give the author a chance to proof the final layout? #
• 17:35 How fucking hard is it to silence your phone in class? 3 phones went off today! And then people don't silence them when they do ring! Mo ... #
• 21:27 Every morning I think 5 minutes of sleep would benefit me more than a freshly-trimmed beard, and every morning I'm so wrong. #

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The mysterious ways of tipping

Here's a fascinating article on subtle (or not) rascist tendencies in tipping.

Tipping is a curious practice. The logical side of me says the whole thing is silly; that people should just be paid appropriately.

The sycophantic part of me, however, likes the opportunity to curry favor. In some situations where I know the person who is providing me service, but it's not a business where tipping regularly occurs, it feels downright weird not to tip—like at the comic book store where I see the same people week in, week out. Or sometimes I'm tempted to say, "keep the change" in the weirdest places, even if I'm not familiar with the person who's helping me.

So strange...

Thief

Somebody took my lunch out of the lab refrigerator. It was a nice Central Market boxed lunch, it was free, and now it's gone, and I'm hungry. Is fucking nothing sacred?

Justice League, Disturbing news, the Prole; Pizza score; Hans'; Jana Hunter and Lola's; Valhalla, Tapatia, the Petrol Station; Borat; Wii

11/13

Will came over and we watched some Justic League. Which was good.

Amidst that, Bryan sends me an IM and mentions he had gotten an e-mail from Rachal, who, apparently, is now married. I could list many reasons why this should have meant absolutely nothing, and they're all pretty much true, but at the time, it was like being punched in the stomach, having the wind knocked out of me. It took a good week or two to process. In the end, all is well, but hell, we're over three years past this and it still stings a bit. Maybe it always will, maybe it won't. But the worst is long past over, and that I'm thankful for.

So shortly after that I went up to the Prole for the usual Monday activities. I was more than a bit distracted, but good company, good beer, and good music improve any situation.

11/14

I only stop here to note that after journal club, I managed to snag a whole Star Pizza to take home. Yoink!

11/16

Jana Hunter, whom Cindy and I had met in Austin, was playing her first show in Houston since I'd met her. I only knew her musically through her affiliation with Devandra Banhart and the "freak folk" movement.

What she played was nice, light, pretty folky acoustic stuff. It was really good, actually, and I really enjoyed the show. It's funny, hearing her voice, it was like hearing a different person from the one I knew.

Afterwards, I caught up with Merry-Lynn and some of the other youngsters from school at Lola's for some cheap drinks. After paying the homeless guy a couple bucks to not deface my car, I walked into the ultra-divey place. I liked it a lot, actually. A few parts Scruffy's, a few parts Mary Jane's. Dan later would ask if I went there to buy drugs, but it didn't seem that shady to me. I thought it was rather nice, though nice as in pleasant, not nice as in high quality.

11/17

Cindy, as usual, was working late, so Kim from Keck and I went to get some dinner at Tapatia since we don't always get to hang out much, and it's a good time.

Cindy and I had made arrangements to hang out with her friend Tyson and his maybe-maybe-not girlfriend Louisa. We me them at their place up in the Heights, or, actually, in their neighbor's backyards where we were promptly offered food and beer. We took them up on the latter, noticed how nice and neighborly they were, (The Heights: Houston's Canada), and then drove a little ways to the Petrol Station, which was, gasp, outside the loop.

It was a charming little place. Equal parts neighborhood coffee shop and neighborhood bar, there was tastefully mismatched furniture both inside and outside, and pleasant-seeming people both inside and outside. Even some playground equipment out back (you know, for the kids), and a fire, which sadly we did not sit around. There was a nicely chosen selection of beer available. I'm not exactly wholly comfortable with Tyson, and his situation with Louisa was pretty strange, too, so it wasn't the most socially at-ease evening, but seeing this hidden gem of a bar was reward enough.

11/18

It was t-minus 12 hours and counting until Wii-day, and I was determined to do what I could do get one. I knew Toys 'R Us was having a midnight sale, so I called them to see what the deal was, and apparently there were already 60 people in line for 100 systems. That option didn't look good.

Cindy had made plans for us to see Borat with her brother. I made sure that it would be over in time for me to hit Amazon at 11:00 PM when the system would theoretically be available.

The film was, frankly, awful. I liked the wonderment at the cultural differences of the Americas; I hated the naked fat guys, the other gratuitous nudity, and other low-brow humor that was neither clever nor particularly funny.

Anyway, we did a sweep by Toys 'R Us just to confirm that there was, in fact, a long line, more to witness the spectacle than anything else.

We got home, I started hitting the reload button on Amazon, and Cindy went for Whataburger. Amazon never put the systems up for sale, or, rather, I missed the 15-second window in which they were up for sale. I resolved to hit one Target location for an 8:00 opening, the next for a 9:00 opening, a Circuit City across the street for a 10:00 opening, and Sam's for an 11:00 opening.

I stayed up a little longer, until 2 AM, still thinking that Amazon might put the Wii up for sale. No such luck, so, to bed.

11/19

Up at 7:05, threw some clothes on, and Cindy and I took off for the South Main Target. We got there and only saw a few people in line, and I knew that it couldn't be that easy. Apparently they had already given out the tickets for all available Wiis and that the people who had them had gone for coffee, breakfast, and/or bathroom breaks.

The remaining people politely filled us in on the situation. I quickly made for the Meyerland Target store, arriving there by 7:30. I was told by the nice ladies waiting in line to get systems for Christmas for their kids that there were 34 systems available. I think I was something like 35th in line, but not everyone in line was buying one, so I figured I was safe.

Cindy's brother wanted us to pick one up for him, too, so just to be safe, Cindy went across the street to Circuit City and was second in line after a hispanic family, who apparently was buying them to sell on eBay, and had other family members in line all over town. A fucking racket, apparently.

Anyway, turns out the store was opening early (8), so soon the manager came out and passed out tickets. As he got closer, I got nervous, as the stack rapidly seemed to diminish. Turns out, I had reason to worry, because the bastards only passed out 30 tickets (I later saw two spare Wiis sitting out).

But I got the last ticket, #30. I couldn't believe my luck. I had maybe five minutes to spare between my arrival and the arrival of the people behind me. One of the guys behind me stayed in line because he was special or something. The rest went across the street to try CC. I chat pleasantly with the ladies in front of me, some of whom wanted iPod advice for Christmas presents.

So they open up the store, and we walk to the electronics section in the back and line up. Basically, they let people walk down the aisle one at a time to pick out games and accessories. I grab Zelda, the primary impetus for the entire outing, consider picking up two more games to get a free gift card but decide it's probably not worth it, as there aren't really two more games worth buying and I already have some store credit to use at Best Buy. I also grab an extra remote, so that Cindy and I can play Sports, and, against my better judgment, grab an extra "nunchuck" attachment, which at the moment only allows for two-player boxing, and also against my better judgement, the "classic" controller for playing more traditional games with more traditional controls.

I then get up to the register and get one of the last three Wiis. The guy behind me asks to make a phone call, puts the sales associate on the phone to talk to whoever it is on the other end of the line, and is given a system to buy, just like that. Nice that he didn't try to take one of the vouchers from the unconnected customers.

So, bag o' Wii in hand, I wander through the store to the built-in Starbucks and get beverages for Cindy and I, walk out, stow the Wii safely in my locked car, and go over to Circuit City to wait with Cindy.

There's a rumor that the store will also open an hour early, but they don't, nor do any of the employees entering offer up any additional information. The wait's a bit long, and slightly cold, but a bit before 10 vouchers are passed out. There's some bullshit about having to show a driver's license so that they only do one per household, which is completely silly but not important. Then they say that if multiple people came in the same car, but of course there's absolutely no way to enforce that. Idiocy.

I briefly consider buying one to sell on eBay but decide instead to let somebody else in line have one in hopes that it will go to a loving home. I ocasionally regret that decision...

Circuit City is a bit short on games and accessories, so I'm glad that I bought my system at Target. Cindy and I return to my place, I quickly hook the thing up, and we play some tennis. It's great, though most of you reading this already know that. Cindy leaves to go visit her parents', and I take a nap.

Later I'll get up and get started on Zelda...

Randa's visit and Oliver's birthday; Kristin's Birthday; Jeff's Birthday and the Mink; GS Picnic; Cousin Jer and the Prole

11/7

Having been out of town all weekend I stayed in and got some laundry done. I also, having been taken in by a Wendy's commercial for that burger that has bacon, cheddar sauce, and jalapeños, went to get one... but they fucked up my order, and it wasn't worth driving back for. Stymied.

11/8

Randa (hi Randa!) was in town to catch a cruise with her mom out of Galveston, so she took the opportunity to get a Niko Niko's fix. I joined she, Brina, Shawn, and Cindy for some good ol' Greek food.

Afterwards, the ladies decided to join me at Two Rows' for dollar beer night in honor of Oliver's birthday. Good times were had.

11/9

Keeping the birthday theme of tapas, but changing the local from Mi Luna to Beso (which Citysearch doesn't seem to list). I had fond memories of being there with Lisa and some of her friends after I set up an internet connection for one of them, but this time I found the food had slipped towards mediocrity and the prices high.

Afterwaards, Kristin's search for novelty took us to martini specialists the Davenport. I had a very girly martini which drank like dessert, and then... hmm... round two escapes me. It was definitely something less girly. Maybe another martini, maybe a beer. I liked the Davenport, but I think it belongs in later stage of my life when I can sit around for an evening and sip $10 martinis.

11/10

Absolutely nothing happened.

11/11

The second birthday celebration of the week belonged to Jeff. We met at one of his and Jim's favorites, Mo Mong. Will and I were the only straight ones there (Cindy had another dinner to go to), and I felt... a bit out of place, but the meal was enjoyable enough. There was a free shot from a liquor rep (the fact that I can't remember which one might suggest that they're not the most effective advertisers). There was also some sort of asian beer with a tiger on the bottle. Appetizers were ordered, including wasabi crab cakes, which were good despite my general dislike of wasabi, probably due to restraint on the part of the chef. I settled on some sort of curried chicken dish for my meal, which turned out to be good, fairly light.

Afterwards, Will and I went for drinks with Jeff's crew to some gay club or another. Then we split. I met up with the usual Dan crew and Cindy at the Mink.

11/12

Ah, the graduate school picnic. A keg to polish off, barbecue to eat, parking places to find. After driving around for nigh half an hour, a very nice mother in the car ahead of me let me take a parking space that had just opened up.

So after a quick trek through the park, it was barbecue time. Barbecue this year was provided by Pappa's Bros., and was a step up from "http://houston.citysearch.com/profile/9953169/houston_tx/demeris_barbecue.html"
>Demeris, which we've had in years past, and always seems rather... marginal.

There seems to be a common phenomenon that the homeless people hover, 30 yards away or so, waiting for our leftovers. Which is great. We always have way too much food, and they sure need it more than we do. But when they start asking for beer, it's a bit of a grey area. Thankfully one that David handled, unilaterally deciding that it was probably... a bad idea.

We only had one keg this year, down from two, but it was plenty, and I told David W. that I was committed to helping polish it off. In fact, as the afternoon wore on and the beer didn't, really, a call went out. A call for a keg stand.

And then somebody volunteered me. Keep in mind that, having been to Baylor, and probably having been underexposed to keg culture in general, I'd never done one. So I did. And it was good.

Cindy was next. We got the ball rolling and then decided to make our exit, leaving the remainder of the crowd, inspired to do great things, to finish off the keg.

After that I started out for my aunt and uncle's, realizing soon afterwards that I was almost certainly a bit drunk. So I set course for home, collapsed on the sofa for a while, and then Cindy came over later and we hung out.

11/13

It turns out that decision was for the better, as when I went to Susan and Jerry's on Sunday afternoon, who was in town for a visit but Cousin Jer? So it was good to see him. He wanted to go to dinner at "the boat" which is apparently a wonderfully trashy place to get fried seafood, but that didn't work out so we ended up at something else that sort of looked like a boat, but ended up being a seafood/asian place. Not exactly what he had in mind, but we made it work.