I forgot to add a word to my last entry: "employees."  My old
company has at least 500,000 employees, if not more.  Hopefully
that makes it easier to understand.

I don't want to jinx it, but Joanne got me an iPod nano as an early
gift for our 3 year anniversary.  This is my longest, and best
relationship, ever. (Joanne, if you're reading this, I love you!)

This Wednesday, I leave the project that I'm currently on to go to the
project that I was on for about 2-3 weeks.  It's a long story, and
there are tradeoffs on both jobs.  My current job is really close
to my house, I like the work, etc.  The other job's commute sucks,
but there is a free gym in the basement, I'm allowed to bring my iPod
to work, and I'll have more responsiblity on the new job.  I've
never had that much responsibility, so hopefully it won't be too tough.

I've heard a lot about "Ong Bak The Thai Warrior."  In fact, I've
known about it for more than a year, when it was at the local theater
that plays independent films, but I never knew that it was filled with
so much action.  I tried renting it, but no luck.  I tried
buying it at Target - sold out.  Finally went to the king of all
retailers, Best Buy, and they had it.  I won't spoil it, but it's
more action than story, but it's really good action.

I was going to buy the new Kanye West CD, but according to some people
at work, if it doesn't carry the COMPACT DISC label, then you won't be
able to rip the songs to MP3, so I said "screw it" and put it back on
the shelf.

My boss treats me to a free dinner or lunch, every month, just to see
how I'm doing, if I have any problems or complaints, etc. 
Although I appreciate it (it's more attention than I was getting at my
other company, which has ~ 500,000+ [I dont remember the exact
number]), we always end up going to these super-fancy restaurants that
I normally don't frequent.  Ever since college, I've gotten more
in touch with my Asian side (before that, I was a super-banana) and I
prefer cheap, Asian restaurants.  Anyway, we ate a really fancy
steak restaurant, where the waiter brushed the crumbs off the table
with something that looked like a mini-shoehorn after we were done
eating.  Again, I wouldn't mind eating at such a place, say, if I
were 10 years younger, but now it just seems strange.

If I had my choice, I'd be working some kind of job that required
physical labor.  It's too easy to get fat working at a computer
all day, even though I try to get up once an hour.

Anyway, Naruto is coming out for PS2, next quarter, 2006.  No one
understands my fascination/obsession with Naruto -- the anime, the
games, toys, etc.  I'm going to import the third game for Game
Cube, and play that until the PS2 game comes out.

Not to sound like a crybaby, but three-day weekends really don't feel
much longer than 2-day weekends.  Probably because I've gotten
used to working four, 10-hour days.

The Kennedy Center in D.C. is hosting a lot of Chinese cultural events
this month; supposedly it is the largest Chinese cultural display in
the US, according to the Washington Post. 

There's an open-air market place, but it was really small.  I
thought there would be more than 5 booths, but oh well.  There was
nothing interesting either -- no food, only expensive antique items.

The most interesting thing today was the martial arts
demonstration.  There was tai chi (boring, in my opinion) and
wushu.  The wushu was really cool.  The little kids were
amazing, doing arials and butteryfly kicks.  I was so motivated to
go out there and do a 540!

I don't know why, but it bothers me when I hear people mention "egg
drop soup", "hot and sour", etc. and "Chinese food" in the same
sentence.  I heard some people behind me today, when I was
attending a talk on Java, talk like that, as if that's real Chinese
food.  Of course, they weren't Chinese, nor were they Asian. 
And they wonder why they're fat???? Simple -- stop putting gravy on
your rice! 

I think I'm weird in that the Asians I know who were white-washed when
they were younger, are still white-washed.  Although I do things
from each culture, I don't shy away from either.  It's easy to
absorb American culture, but I think it takes more effort to absorb
Chinese culture, living in America, while almost all of your friends
are non-Asian.

**** edit regarding last statement****: No, I do not think any
particular race is smarter than another.  I should've written more
than I did.... What I disagree with, is that somehow, there is some
"ancient" Asian (or Chinese) secret to how and/or why Asian students
succeed in the classroom, which seems to be the selling point of this
book.  Does that necessarily imply that Asians are smarter --
no.... I just think there's no secret to it.  If you have ability,
and you use it, then that's the end of it... there's no Asian
upbringing secret, IMHO.

I wasted a bunch of money on my car the past two weeks.  First, I
took my car in to fix my A/C.  It worked for one day, then it
didn't. So I took it back.  The manager there wouldn't fix it for
free (why not -- the work was already done, but it didn't fix it) so I
had to pay again.  BS.

Joanne, a friend of mine, and I went to eat Szechuan dim sum today at a
local restaurant.  I love it -- I can eat almost any
cuisine.  My friend was a different story. Although he's Asian
(Chinese, born in Vietnam), and still FOB-like (in speech, dress,
etc.), he didn't seem too thrilled about any of the dishes, except for
a noodle-soup, probably because it's similar to pho.  At least he
tried it though.  My best friend (a white guy) would smell it
first, take one little nibble (probably what an ant would eat), then
put down on his plate, and continue to nibble, pretending to like
it.  He's really not comfortable trying new stuff, so he usually
eats pizza or mac & cheese (I'm not kidding, that's all I eat if I
visit his house.)

Don't ever switch jobs into the computer programming field, unless you
enjoy the constant struggle of keeping your skills current.  I've
read about 5 technical books in the last two months, just so I can stay
current.  I'm constantly browsing technical websites, emails,
etc., just to know what's going on.  If you stop for a year, your
skills will be outdated, and you'll have to go to some old, boring
project.  

Naruto has started on Cartoon Network. I don't have cable, so I don't
know how good (or bad) it is, but the reviews seem to be good, except
for the fact that they made a guitar intro and ending, like how they
ruined the Japanese songs from Dragon Ball Z.  Americanized anime
songs are always terrible.

http://www.xanga.com/belovedjojo had this link 
on her page... interesting, but I highly disagree with their statement
"The reason that Asian students outperform their peers in the
classroom has nothing to do with how they are born and everything to do
with how they are raised."

Everyone knows that gas is expensive. So now I'm trying to save every
cent.  I just walked an hour and a half with Joanne to Starbucks,
and used my spare change to buy a coffee.  I don't care if seem
like a cheapskate, especially when I'm trying to save up for a down
payment on a house.

Walking is good for you. It's good exercise and it saves gas!

work  Even though I always
gave 125% effort at work, I never got any compliments from my
managers.  I started to think I sucked.  Anyway, finally, on
my new job, my team lead (who works for a different company, but at
least knows what I'm doing) sent me a nice email, complimenting me on
how quickly I got up to speed on things and started helping out other
employees with their workload.  It just made my day.   I'm
going to forward it to my boss, and hopefully he remembers this during
bonus time.  (Another nice perk I didn't have at my other company.
)

labor day  Where does all
the time go? I had no idea this weekend was coming up until someone
mentioned it on Monday.  I'll probably just stay at home and read
books.  I need to save every dime to get that new house.

How long do you wait for someone?  Does it depend on your
relationship with them, and the situation?  Well, today, Joanne
and I waited for a friend of mine to show up for about 3-5 hours after
he said  he'd show up (12:45 PM).  I kept calling his
house,wondering if he got lost and turned around.  No
answer.  He doesn't even carry a cell phone.  Finally, we
left the house about 5.5 hours later.  I didn't reach him until
9:00 PM tonight and found out he had the wrong address.

I know I ennunciate my words properly, so I think it was error on his
end.  No one else who has visited me has had this problem, no
matter how close or far they live from me.  Anyway, I finally
convinced him to get a cell phone.  I think it's a necessity if
you drive, so that you have a phone for emergency purposes.

And no, it's not an error below: I'm reading a "girly" book.  I
don't care -- the excerpt from the back looked interesting so I picked
up a copy from Barnes & Noble.

I worked OT again this week -- fun. Hopefully it'll help in my quest to
save up for a down payment on a new house, which I hope to get next
year.

For some reason, I was craving two all beef patties, special sauce,
cheese, lettuce, pickles on a sesame seed bun, so I got a #1 meal at Mc
Donald's.  Believe it or not, I barely eat fast food, except for
breakfast, and even then, it's only on the weekends, about once a
month.  The Big Mac isn't really that big -- I was starving
afterwards.  They should give Big Macs to kids in happy meals, and
include four patties in the adult Big Mac.

My car's A/C isn't working, so I dropped my car off at the dealer for
early bird service.  Unfortunately, they didn't even work on the
car because they didn't even get my envelope out of their drop
box!  They asked when I dropped it off (which was last night) then
checked the box -- it was STUCK in the upper portion of the box. 
How is that MY FAULT?! 
Anyway, rescheduled for next week.

Weekend was too short since I didn't have Friday off. 
I fixed Joanne's brother's computer.  I don't get it, I think
anyone can learn how to fix a computer -- just read the instruction
book and that's all there is to it.  Anyway, setup wireless
network, installed ethernet card, installed DSL, removed about 5
viruses. Not in that order of course.

Watched GTO, the Japanese movie.  I thought it was pretty
good.  These days, I'm more into reading manga and watching anime
than regular movies.  I don't know why.

I finally figured out what laptop I want to get with my company benefit: Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi  It's got an AMD-64, PCI-express graphics card, 100GB HD, 1 GB ram, and a lot of other cool options.