What's on my mind: (7/12/03)

I've got insomnia, so, another one of these lame surveys in my quest to make my long thoughts solely answers to surveys. Stolen (again) from John Chi who I sincerely doubt reads my page and is probably disturbed that I read his.

Firsts and Lasts

• First Car: 1982 Datsun Sentra. I think I've mentioned this car before. Datsun, not Nissan. 2 door, manual, bought for $1000. It was bright yellow. At some point in its life it acquired a Chiquita banana sticker on the trunk. I learned to drive stick on this car. Beat it up pretty badly also. At the tail end of its life it took about 2 minutes to get up to 50 MPH. I'm not exaggerating.

• First Date: Uh, should I share this? So I actually had 2 girlfriends in junior high. Hard to believe, but true. The first one was this Filipino girl. Thing is, we never actually went out on a date. Our relationship consisted of talking on the phone and avoiding each other at school. Very mature. She even broke up with me by proxy. So my first date was with my 2nd girlfriend (1st girlfriend's best friend... long story), this white girl who was a foot taller than me at the time. We ate at the Bold Knight on Monterey Highway in south San Jose and went to the graduation dance. Her dad, a police officer with a huge police dog, chaperoned. Comfortable.

  I was no mack, though. I didn't date again for 6 years. I barely spoke to girls during that time. And if you see my high school pics, you understand why.

• First Job: Summer after frosh year in high school I worked at Great America. Several of us did. We thought it was cool. In reality, it sucked. It's just menial labor, minimum wage, and since I didn't have a car it took forever to get there. I had to take a combination of VTA buses and the light rail. Not worth it. Plus my dad made me give my first meager paycheck to him and my mom. "To receive blessings from God." Right. On the plus side, I learned to swear in Vietnamese that summer. On the minus side, I nearly went insane from the music. I worked in the "Farmer's Market" in the hot dog place and they played the same music over and over in the courtyard. Maddening.

  I do think though that everyone should have a menial job some time in their life. It's just a good experience, even if it's not "fun". Gives you a healthy respect for certain things.

• First Screenname: dcfly. My first AOL account in high school. I quickly realized that you can't use e-mails like that on stuff like resumes so in college I used a normal address dchai and felt sorry for people who had to write like "nuwanda@state.edu" on their resumes.

• First Self Purchased Album: MC Hammer - Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. Why MC Hammer? No clue. Some kids from church lived in Fremont and supposedly he went to their dry cleaners and they'd wear MC Hammer shirts all the time. Maybe that's why I was into him. No clue.

• First Funeral: My great-grandmother.

• First Pet: A couple hamsters in elementary school. They both died bad deaths. One electrocuted itself biting through a power cord that was next to the cage. That was gruesome. In the morning we found it completely rigid, the other one running around the cage madly. The other one died when it got caught between the wheel and the cage. We had a funeral for at least one of them, a la Rudy Huxtable on the Cosby Show. Which annoyed me because it made me miss Wayne Walker's 49ers Preview. Compassion is not my strong suit.

• First Piercing/Tattoo: Haven't done it yet. Almost got a pierced ear senior year of high school but I lived with another family that year and the father was strongly against. Speaking of which, I don't understand male pierced ear etiquette anymore. When I was a kid it was understood (maybe misunderstood) that if you pierce your left ear you're straight, your right ear you're gay. But somewhere along the line, that got all jumbled. I dunno what the rules are now. If there are any.

• First Enemy: 1st grade. M1ch3lle H9yd3l. It lasted for a while actually. I remember being humiliated once when I couldn't correctly identify the climax of a story (we had to map events in the story according to Intro - Ascending Action - Climax - Descending Action - Conclusion) and the teacher made me consult her. Argh. I'm still against this story. The climax happens at the very end. How can we map Descending Action and Conclusion if there is none? What kind of assignment is that? Whoa, I keep grudges forever. Yike.

• First Big Trip: Hmm. Probably going to Oregon to see relatives. Can't really remember. I do remember when Marshall, Peter and Maggie couldn't speak any English though. It still startles me that Marshall is relatively fluent in English.

• First Play/Musical/Performance: Hmm. I started piano when I was about 6 and we had, at the very least, yearly recitals with all our teacher's students so probably that. Have I ever mentioned this? I took piano lessons with Amy Ch0w so we'd see her once a year at said recital. I remember when she started taking gymnastics. We all thought what a waste of time. Also, she stopped growing. But yeah, guess we were wrong.

• First Sport You Played: I think it was that flag football thing my parents made me do, I think it was even before kindergarten. Where I just stood around looking at the sky.

• First Musician You Remember Hearing In Your House: Bing Crosby. Every Christmas growing up we'd buy a tree and put up decorations as a family while playing Christmas records. We had 4 records we used: A Bing Crosby Christmas album, one random one with classic songs like 12 Days of Christmas, one sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and the Chipmunks Christmas Album. The last one is particular good. I'm not joking.

  This tradition actually lasted a long time. In fact, it's only this past year that my parents didn't get a tree.

• Last Good Cry: Good cry? I dunno, my wedding?

• Last Library Book Checked Out: Whoa, I can't even remember. Not even from college. Probably some CS reference book.

• Last Movie Seen: Blue Velvet. Just, everyone says how "important" this film is. And I like to expand my cinematic vocabulary. I liked Twin Peaks. Thought I might like it. Didn't. This movie is just 100% disturbing. Important my arse.

• Last Book Read: The last book I finished was "The Revenge of the Incredible Dr. Rancid and His Youthful Assistant, Jeffrey". I've started a few since though. I tend to start a lot of books and not finish them.

• Last Cuss Word Uttered: I think I've mentioned this before, but I've never really sworn before, even in jest. I kinda explained it in men's group but I think the reasons behind it are kinda complex and deals a lot with guilt but whatever, never have.

  I have sworn in other languages though, like Vietnamese like I mentioned above. Not sure why I have no problem swearing in other languages but not English. Just doesn't have the same impact I guess.

• Last Beverage Drank: Sapporo. So I almost only drink with food, and sometimes when having sushi it's nice to have a Japanese beer. We like Asahi the best, but they didn't have it in small bottles so they recommended Sapporo as being almost exactly the same. It's not. Even Jieun can tell.

• Last Food Consumed: Sushi at Kimusushi in San Jose. It was actually pretty good. They have a bunch of gimmicky rolls, like I had one with eel, hamachi, avocado and ponzu sauce, and places like this tend to not have good fish (e.g. Miyake). But the fish was not bad. I tend to rate the fish based on the salmon and the uni. The uni is tricky though. It's one of those things where if it's bad, it's *really* bad. So I usually save that for the second visit, if the first goes OK. I know some people are huge on quality tuna but for me, it's easier to tell with the salmon. And the salmon was pretty good.

• Last Crush: Too obvious.

• Last Phone Call: Called Eddie to get keys to his place. I'm not sure the last time I called someone just to chat. It's been a while.

• Last TV Show Watched: Wow, I can't even remember. When Survivor's not on the air, I watch almost nothing. Maybe the World Poker Tour? Not sure.

• Last Time Showered: This morning.

• Last Shoes Worn: OK, these questions are getting lame. Love of the game. Since the bird pooped on my Timberlands I've only been wearing my '96 Nike Air Maxes.

• Last CD Played: You Are In Control. I like to periodically study Scott Underwood. He's awesome.

• Last Item Bought: I finally bought a chair for the office. Not surprisingly, I used a coupon and there's a $21 rebate.

• Last Downloaded: Downloaded the Matrix Reloaded parody on one of those MTV awards shows. How many awards shows does MTV have anyway? Too many. I can't keep them all straight.

• Last Annoyance: I was seriously in a hurry the other day and was in the left turn lane behind this car. The left turn light is green. But for some reason, the car slows down as it approaches the turn, as if it's going to stop. And then, just as the light turns yellow, it decides to go ahead and turn. Of course, timed perfectly so I catch the red. What the heck ever kind of driving is that? The light was green for a good 5 seconds while the car was slowing down. I dunno. I try extremely hard not to get angry while driving, but given the time urgency and the extent of the driving stupidity, I got annoyed.

• Last Disappointment: I think I get most disappointed at myself. Like I haven't been on the ball with small group and that disappoints me.

• Last Soda Drank: Also hard to remember, since I rarely drink soda. I think it was a root beer at Quiznos. I did that deal, the buy chips and drink and get free sandwich. It's a great deal. You know that every deal I post on the jbb I actually do, right? I'm that much of a cheapskate.

• Last Thing Written: Uh, this? If on pen and paper I honestly can't remember.

• Last Key Used: House key I guess.

• Last Word Spoken: "Crushed".

• Last Sleep: I can't sleep, that's why I'm doing this stupid thing. I slept maybe an hour tonight but I'm not even sure about that.

• Last IM: I think it was Eric about some jackchecker thing or other.

• Last Weird Encounter: Random or weird? Random was running into M1ke L9u a few days ago at 24 Hour. Weird was this wedding I went to about a month ago, a high school friend. I saw this girl I vaguely know from Houston. I'm not certain, but I think we made eye contact at the reception and were probably thinking the exact same thing: how on earth do *you* know the couple?? But I think we both decided it wouldn't be worth the awkward conversation to figure it out (we barely know each other). At least I did. So we made that brief eye contact and then didn't interact the rest of the night.

• Last Ice Cream Eaten: Green tea and red bean. Came with this banana tempura dessert. Eh. I'm a bigger fan of the Thai fried bananas. I'm an even bigger fan of the Thai mango with sticky rice. Yum yum.

• Last Time Amused: This.

• Last Time Wanting To Die: Uh, too personal.

• Last Time Hugged: This evening. Me and Jieun hug frequently.

• Last Time Scolded: Also this evening, I think.

• Last Chair Sat In: I'm sitting in that "executive" chair I got on sale with a rebate.

• Last Shirt Worn: I'm wearing this grey T-shirt Henry got me randomly from Aspen.

• Last Time Dancing: I hate dancing. I'll do it at weddings to support the couple but it's not my thing. I think I last danced at Ben and Linnea's wedding.