Interesting story: 
Violent or erotic images cause momentary periods of “emotion-induced blindness”
But I have to disagree with their belief that I will rubberneck when I
see an accident on the road.  I just ignore it and keep going,
because I don't like wasting time in traffic, and I think it's rude to
everyone else.

They even have an experiment where you can test out their theory. 
They'll flash a bunch of images, show a disturbing image, and you have
to pick out the picture that was rotated.  Try it!

Finally got my VOIP setup today.  The call quality isn't bad; I
could hear the other line, but I don't know how well they can hear me.
Everyone I called was either not at work or busy.

I'm going to work OT tomorrow on purpose.  Why not? Easy money and it'll allow me to save quicker for my next house. 

I finally signed up for VOIP.  SunRocket's plan is $199/year,
which is about $16 per month.  The only reason I didn't do it
earlier was that I felt uneasy about not being able to dial 911 when
the power or internet service went out, so I'm keeping my land line as
a backup, which should cost $5 or under.

Finally finished watching "Triumph in the Skies", a TVB series. 
The ending seemed like it was thrown together at the last moment, and
there were too many coincidences.  Other than that, the series was
pretty good.  Now time to find a new series.

I haven't drawn in ages, but I just did a rough sketch of Naruto -- I
know I could improve it a lot more, but I wanted to scan in the rough
sketch, then show the progression towards a more finished drawing.

I've got a new addiction - su doku.  When I first saw it, I thought it was
boring.  But I gave it a chance, and it's really addicting. 
The first puzzle took me  few hours to solve, but I went back to
the same website (Sudoku_Online)
and solved the moderate puzzle in about half an hour. If you solve the
daily puzzle, you have a chance to win a free su doku book!

The weekend was pretty normal.  These three day weekends feel just
as short as two-day weekends to me though.  Joanne thinks VA is
boring (of course, she's always comparing to HK, but I believe the same
thing) so we usually just hang out at Borders, reading books and
magazines.  It's become a ritual -- eat at Chipotle, then walk
over to Borders.

Last night, went to Dave and Busters.  Haven't been there in about
a year or so.  The poker game is the easiest way to win
tickets.  I dominated everyone else in basketball, although my
scored sucked (49, 50-something).

edit: I do
watch the subbed versions -- I just can't wait for it to come out here,
so we can have the extras that come along with it, such as t-shirts,
videogames, etc.

Naruto was ranked #1 on Stuff Magazine's Hit list!

I can't wait for it to come to the States, but I have a feeling it's
going to be so Americanized that I'll lose interest in it, just like
when DBZ came out here.  At least we'll have cool video games
without having to import.

I feel as if I'm just writing just for the sake of having an
entry.  I mean, what if everyone blogged on the same schedule as
everyone else?  If they copied me, they'd be blogging once every
few days, instead of everyday, and then there wouldn't be anything to
read on Xanga.

Anyway, this has been another week of 10-hour days.  Friday, I'll
exchange my diploma at school -- they screwed up my name!  I find
that anytime someone screws up my name (or anyone else's name for that
matter), that it is offensive and rude -- I think that when spelling
someone's name, you should take extra effort to ensure that you've
spelled it right.   It's a sign of respect, in my
opinion.  So many people screw up my first name, inserting a
superfluous "D" (my name doesn't have a "D" in it.)  However, my
team lead always introduces me to new people on the team and emphasizes
how to spell my name -- I was totally impressed the first time she did
that!  I never asked her to....

TKD -- I'm not ashamed to admit, I got hit during sparring -- in the
jaw.  Makes me think: why should I hold back my high kicks when
others don't?  Not everyone can kick high, so I never expect it.
However, a very small percentage can (including me), and I should just
be careful.    Something funny/weird/maybe hard to
believe if you didn't see it:  we had to sprint in class, and I
started lapping the other people, even the high schoolers.   
Everyone was like, "wow, you're so fast!"  and one lady said "Do
you do something else outside of class"?

I admitted I was a computer programmer.  I think people don't know
how to run properly  -- i.e. land on ball of foot instead of
heel.  Anyway, even if I ran the 'wrong' way, I'm sure I'd still
lap them.  I don't know how I did it.... makes me regret not
trying out for track in high school.

We went looking at houses again today.  It's always a stressful
event -- you look at a house, imagine where you would like to put your
TV, your kitchen table, how you would decorate the master bedroom,
etc.   Then, after you're done looking, you speak to the
sales manager, and reality hits you.  They want $45,000 within
five days, assuming you put down the necessary $3,000 just to lock the
price. 

Housing prices here are ridiculous.  I realize it could be worse
(such as in CA), but I'm sure Northern VA prices must follow close
behind.  The funny thing is, the houses we looked at are pretty
far from the city, at least an hour or more away.

Looking on the bright side, at least I own right now, and can build
equity.  I have a good job which pays well, and the only thing I
can do now is just live frugally, be patient, and pounce when the right
opportunity shows up.

Yeah, I admit it.  I'm a 25+ year old that likes hip-hop.  I
could've had a chance to get free tickets to Eminem and Fifty Cent,
playing this Friday in VA.  All I had to do was buy a Pepsi, take
it to the customer service center of the mall, and they would've given
me a ticket.  But with no one to go with, I didn't even
bother. 

I've gotten used to working 10 hour days now.  It seems like
nothing!  Get in at 8, leave at 6, it's not bad at all. Eight in
the morning isn't too early, and 6 pm is not too late either. 
Then I have a nice three day weekend every week!

It's hopeless..........I can't even figure out how to tie a tie! 
I've searched online and every site seems to have the same exact
instructions on how to tie a windsor knot.  It gets confusing
around step 3 or 4, depending on how the site labeled their
instructions.  What did I do before?  I just made my own
knot, which a family friend showed me.  I don't know the name of
it, but it seems to be the four-in-hand knot, based on the research I
did.
Maybe I should resort to clip-on ties.

I worked four, 10-hour days so that I was off Friday.  We went to
King's Dominion in VA, even though the weather was supposed to be 80%
chance of t-storms.  Luckily, it didn't even rain once! 

Driving 75-80 MPH, even with a few traffic jams, I made it there in about an hour.  Not bad!
I'll post some more pics later and a  description of the best
rides (I haven't been there since my first year of college). 
However, there was this game there that Joanne and I were awfully close
to winning, and although there were multiple prizes, we wanted the iPod
shuffle.

here's a pic of the game:

Basically, you have to stack the blocks, kind of like Tetris, but more
like Jenga, in a way.  You start w/3 blocks on the bottom, and you
have to stack the next set exactly on top, or if you don't a few fall
off and that's the end.  However, the number of blocks reduces to
two, then one.  Once there is one block, the next row that
consists of one block must be _exactly_ on top of that.  Anyway,
we got to the top row, but got too nervous and lost.

#$%@#% you, Stacker game!  We want our iPod shuffle!!!!!

average joe finale
I can't believe a "joe" was picked on Average Joe.  However, I
know Anna is honest and stayed true to her heart, which is why she
picked the average joe.

new job
I'm probably making a good impression at my new job. I learned the
general structure of the code pretty quickly and solved a few problems
even though I don't know the technology (Struts).  Probably helps
that I worked from 9am to 7:45 too!

iPod
I'm thinking about getting an iPod for Joanne and I to use, but the
fact that you can't change the battery worries me.... at least that's
what I read.   I'll do some more research before I get one.

Now that school is over, I'm catching up on Smallville, my favorite
show of all time.  I don't know what it is, I've always liked
superheroes, even as early as 4 years old.

waiting at restaurants
I've been meaning to blog on this topic, but either forget to, or when
I log on to xanga, I think it's not worth it.  Basically, when you
go to a non-Chinese restaurant, and you're waiting for a table, you
notice there are about 10-20 tables available, yet there are tons of
people waiting.  On the other hand, you go to a Chinese
restaurant, and as soon as someone leaves, someone who was waiting
immediately gets that table.  I just wish the non-Chinese
restaurants operated like this.

Chinese/English
Also, do you speak a language other than English at home? 
Exclusively?  If so, do you find it affects your English when you
go to work or school?  I have....  However, I was born and
brought up in the US, earned A's in English, wrote excellent papers in
college, etc., but spoke English to my mom and to my friends. [I
stopped speaking Chinese early on due to embarassment/harassment from
non-Asians.]  Anyway, now that my gf is from HK, I speak Cantonese
[not that well either] to Joanne, and just feel like my command of the
English language is no longer as good as it used to be, simply because
I'm speaking it less. 

Then you might ask, don't you speak English at work?  Well, the
answer to that is simple -- I'm a computer programmer -- how often do
you speak to workers except when you leave the computer?

Anyway, that makes me think about those people who make fun of
white-washed Asians and FOBs.... why?  Actually I could blog for
pages on this topic, but some of these people don't speak their
parents' native language either, so what's the big deal?