PURVEYOR OF FINE WORDS

December 17 2001

going, going, gone

Well, I’m off for my trip. I’ll be back with lots of pictures.

Do you feel lucky?

December 17 2001

jill scott

I picked up Experience: Jill Scott yesterday. Good stuff. It seems like I’m moving, yet again, on to a new genre of music after about a year of listening to the same stuff because all the new stuff was teen pop. Thankfully that’s coming to an end.

Do you feel lucky?

December 17 2001

taking off

I love people watching in San Francisco:

I was at El Burrito when I spied a supermodel-thin Asian male wearing the de facto all black outfit replete with black driving gloves. Intrigued, I then watched him get into his black SLK where his female companion—also dressed in a slinky black spaghetti strap dress—was waiting. As I sit down to eat my burrito in the empty dining area, these two crank up the house music and start eating in the car. My questions are: Was the burrito place too plebian for them to eat? Why were they dressed up at 2pm on a Monday afternoon?

Cool person #2 was at the post office. She was a short stocky woman, somewhere in her mid-thirties, who was standing in line behind me as we waited for the clerk. Now, as anyone would expect around the holidays, the lines were fairly long and so it appeared to be about a 15 minute wait from where we were standing. Apparently, waiting for any amount of time was preposterous to this woman. In the 15 minutes we were in line, I counted 9 cries (not under-the-breath mutters) of “this is ridiculous!”, 4 exclamations of “I can’t believe this!”, and one count of “C’mon lady, go to the counter already!” Nice.

The last sighting was in Borders, where a older woman was slumped back in a chair snoring at twice the volume of the in-store music. I mean, she was engaged in a full on snore-fest apparently from shopping too much since she was surrounded by her shopping bags. I wish I could be as care-free as she was in public.

Do you feel lucky?

December 16 2001

shopping

Ah, I spent all day yesterday making sure that the terrorists have not already won by braving the mob of shoppers spilling out of downtown San Francisco. While I was at Virgin listening to a CD over in a corner of the store, this guy comes over to listen to the CD next to me and then farts. Of all the places inside or outside of the store he could have farted, he chose to do it next to me in a small corner of the store. Ass. I had to leave because the smell was just too much for me.

I made some marble cafe mocha cheesecake for Nancy’s holiday thing yesterday. Yup, it was damn good.

This is how you apply the principles of a rice rocket to a PC

Do you feel lucky?

December 15 2001

sweet

I went boarding again yesterday with the ex-Calico crew at Sierra which had 6″ of fresh powder due to the storm the night before. I had a blast even though we only spend 4 hours on the mountain and the ride up was a bit rough. We didn’t get to the condo until about 12:30 after dealing with snow chains and spinouts since Brian’s Maxima just wasn’t cutting it in the snow. My neck is quite sore right now from a nice tumble I took.

Two days until I leave for Asia! I’m still scrambling to find things to read in preparation for my 15 hour flight. 15 hours! I don’t know how I’m going to be able to handle it, seeing as I was going nuts on my measly 6 hour flight back from Connecticut.

Last Monday I went to a little concert soiree by one of Heidi’s friends at a place up in the Cole Valley/Twin Peaks area. It was hosted by a nice doctor-type gentleman and I swear, he had the biggest house in that area. The house was complete with a spiral tower that afforded a view of all three bridges. Very posh.

Do you feel lucky?

December 12 2001

ironic

Wow, this story about the guy who choked to death on his wife’s nail during their wedding has got to be the freak accident of the year.

Most definitely, too much time on their hands.

Do you feel lucky?

December 11 2001

the consulate

I’m starting to get excited: 6 days until my trip to Asia! I’ll be touring around Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Shanghai for a few weeks, with Shanghai as the highlight of the trip since it’ll be my first time. While I was at the Chinese Consulate getting my visa, I saw this little girl rub the barrier post with her hands and then rub her hands all over her baby brother’s forehead. Ah, to be a kid again and not have to do things that make sense.

I feel out of touch with the rest of the world as I sit here pointing and clicking my way through my cyber-Christmas shopping. The stark contrast of the images coming from Afghanistan compared to life in the US really emphasizes the complacency in which many of us live. I mean, does anyboby else find that our society has become a collective of self-centered egotists? We will sue at the drop of a hat and eschew any responsibilities for our actions. Parents sue their child’s high school because the child was cut from the varsity team, like the many other frivolous lawsuits (but to the credit of the woman who sued McDonalds over hot coffee, there were reportedly over 700 prior complaints filed about their hot coffee). Seeing as 9/11 has caused many people to come together, maybe they will also realize that we’re already lucky to be living in this country and stop bitching about mundane things.

Do you feel lucky?

December 11 2001

soiree

This is what the person behind the retail counter is really thinking about you when you do stupid things. Try to be nice.

It is a sad milestone for America when obesity has reached the level where a father has been ruled that he is too fat to raise his kids.

Another sign of the times: Cell phone providers are shortening their off-peak hours to because we’re using them too much.

Do you feel lucky?

December 11 2001

whoa

Wow, this is scary. I typed my name into Google’s image search and it returned every picture of me that has ever been posted before this site was launched. I guess this is one of the downsides to having a unique name because searching for “John Hwang” returns a lot more random pictures. In any case, it’s a wakeup call to how little privacy we have these days. Did you also know that I can get directions to your house just by entering your phone number? It only works if your number is listed in the phone book, but it’ll definitely make you think twice about giving out your home number. You could always resort to giving out the Rejection Line number—always good for a laugh.

Do you feel lucky?

December 10 2001

sting

I just picked up Sting’s All This Time album that’s a great live set he performed on September 11, 2001 in Italy. I really like this version of Brand New Day; it’s definitely a must have for Sting fans.

Do you feel lucky?