another life blog

I’ve always wondered to myself, “what happened last Christmas?” First up, James Brown is DEAD on Christmas 2006!

Now, the brain dump…

In the first year of living up in Boston, thousands of miles away from my family - I looked forward to visiting Orlando after 4 months of “intense” basic science studies. I booked the airline tickets from JetBlue back in early October for pretty damn cheap price (< $200 US).

The flight down to Orlando was great in my opinion. Like Delta’s Song, JetBlue got LCD TV in every single seat with some 30 channels of DirecTV, standard “wtf am I on the map” channel, and XM Radio! The best part though, is the inflight snacks! Instead of some jacked up peanuts or pretzels, JetBlue got some kickass Doritos! I couldn’t get over the awesomeness of it!

Out of the airport, I waited for Po to come pick me up in his spankin new IS350 - the currently fastest Lexus production car. Waste of money in my opinion, but he really love the souped up Toyota ~ so what can I say? Other than the fugly in-dash console (he should have gotten SatNav), it’s really a nice car even though it’s not a car someone in his pay grade should be driving.

I don’t quite remember what I did the first weekend in Orlando. Nothing significant I think … played some games, watched some TV, visited Windham, grabbed the old Accord, chatted with Martin, grabbed my anime collection — Hmm, a bit of backstory is in order! Prior to coming down to Orlando, I was convinced that the existing system I have in place for cataloging anime is antique (EXCEL spreadsheet) and should be replaced by one that’s more … CD/DVD oriented. What I found was WinCatalog. It’s a really great program - plop in a DVD, drag it into the program, and all content indexed in a second or so. So, while in Boston, I cataloged about 250 DVDs.

Now, what can I do in Orlando for fun? Disney? No, I couldn’t - because Mei already went with everyone to Disney the weekend prior to me flying down. Why would they do something evil like that? I don’t know - cause they didn’t wanted to wait for me. Bastards. Well, maybe because last year, I had wanted to listen to a sexy princess read a book while in Magic Kingdom and Darlene sought to deny me of such pleasure this year. Hmm. Anyway, other than Disney, I could’ve gone to visit friends, relatives, parks, movies, whatever. Social aspects of life is always important, but I probably would’ve just gone to watch movies at Pleasure Islands, or stayed home and played FFXII if it wasn’t for Mei coming down with Impetigo. Well, that Sunday night, I went to visit auntie to have a nice dinner with her and chatted a bit about what’s coming up leading up to Xmas and beyond — so I wasn’t cooped up all the time. So Mei, if you’re reading this 20 years from now, don’t think that you ruined your Uncle’s 1st Xmas Vacation from Boston ~ your Uncle had nothing important to do anyway.

Impetigo is a bacterial infection that afflicted poor Mei’s facial area between the infraorbital and superior labial region. She blistered, bled, and everything in between. It got so bad, that Po and I took Mei to the doctor first thing Monday morning. After getting some anti-bacterial and viral prescription, we came home and Po went off to work. So from that Monday onward, I babysat everyday since Mei couldn’t go to daycare.

Most everyday, Mei woke me up at around 8:30 am. From 8:30 to around noon, she usually wanted to watch Clifford the Big Red Dog. With Po’s DVR, she got a lot of Clifford episodes readily available. At around 11ish, I would think up what to feed her, and then pumped her with some meds. Afterward, she’d want to play with Play-doh, or whatever skeleton she could dig up from her closet. During all hours, Clifford was usually on the background ~ which was cool - it got hypnotizing after a bit.

From previous experience, my old CD-Rs were already giving me cyclic redundancy check error years ago. So when I grabbed my anime collection, I knew I wanted to transfer all the CD-Rs into DVD-Rs. I just didn’t know how much pain in the ass it is. On that Monday afternoon, I seriously started moving files about and continued my cataloging efforts.

Each CD-R took about 4 minutes to copy. Po had 2 CD/DVD Reader/Burner in his main computer at home. Each DVD-R takes about 9 minute to burn at 8x. I did some preliminary calculations before I started to make sure I could do it while I’m here in Orlando, and here’s what I came up with: 1600 CD-Rs = 3200 minutes with 2 CD Readers = 53 hours or about 3 days of continuous reading. 7 CD-Rs = 1 DVD-R; 1600 CD-Rs = 228 DVD-Rs. 228 DVD-Rs should take only about 19 hours. So, 3 days of reading, and 1 day of burning! No problemo!

Of course, this wasn’t possible. Mei needed to pee and poop quite often. Po and I would go out and do stuff. Dar needed the computer. I need to eat, sleep, drink, etc. But I started to re-organize! I copied and I burned in between episodes of Clifford. Needless to say, time flew past rather quickly when it’s a big factor in completion of tasks. To help with the task I set for myself, I bought myself a 1 TB External HDD to dump everything into. Yes, I’m insane.

As of right this minute, I’ve copied 756 CD-Rs, and burned 45 DVD-Rs. I’m still copying CD-Rs at the moment, and switching them out every 4 minutes. I’m also moving files. When I’m done with the #800 CD-R, I plan on moving the 1 TB Monster here to the main computer (it’s hooked up to my tablet now), and commence Operation Mass Burning. So enough about my hopes and dreams of anime re-organization. Here’s what else that happened:

1) Mei decided it would be fun to serve water to her imaginary guests at the table. She filled up water from the tap, and ladled quite a bit onto the carpet in the TV room. When asked where did the water came from, she replied, “I dunno.” (I wasn’t responsible, Dar was supposed to watch her, but was caught up talking to her parents)

2) Mei decided it would be fun to break into presents meant for Brianna, Bailee, and Emily (name on rice within oil vial) while in her search for golf ball on Saturday morning. I was asleep while Po and Dar were cutting each others hair. Mei broke Bailee’s vial. The anger that broke forth from Dar was enough to shatter Death Star.

3) Po’s ability to pin down people still hasn’t changed. I guess once you learn a bit of karate, it stays with you like riding a bike! It was fun watching for a bit, but had it gotten dangerous, I think I would’ve done more! Oh, I got to visit Cherie’s house for the first time too. Very artistic! Maybe I should get an autographed painting now…

4) We tried to line up for a Wii in Orlando, but Po isn’t someone who is willing to bear the shame of waiting in line with hobos. He is “too good” for such. Prissy boy. We did get X360 Gears of War (Winner of GameSpot Game of the Year 2006).

5) We opened Po’s PS3 and played Resistance: Fall of Man. I beat the game a few days later. PS3 is alright - but with Po’s crappy TV, PS3 is really as good as X360… nothing more.

On the afternoon of the Saturday, just 2 days before Christmas, we went out to eat at Chan’s for some lovely Dim-Sum then to the mall to pick up some more gifts for Em, Bai, and Bri. We discovered there’s a nice anime boutique in the Fashion Square Mall, and that there’s an author autographing his new book at Waldenbook. I personally think both Dar and Po are both allergic to books … so, they tried to just run away from Waldenbook. Their conscious got them to stay behind and wait, and I was able to pick up some nice books for Em, Bai, and Bri. I just hope Po and Dar’s book allergy is not passed on to Mei.

On Christmas Eve, we went off to auntie’s for dinner. Dar stayed behind in the house to make pierogi with Cherie. At auntie’s, we met up with Paul’s oldest(?) daughter Samantha and her three kids: Cheyenne 10, Zack 8, and Noah 6. I personally think Samantha really planned out her pregnancies very nicely. But for Po, I think his next kid should come only after Mei is about 12 (if at all)! Anyway, Samantha is a rather beautiful woman, and I think Po had plethora of evil thoughts with her about. As marriage material, mom would consider her way too old with too much package - however, I think having package shows signs of maturity and mental capacity. If she can raise 3 kids by herself, she is pretty asskicking in my opinion! I learned from Po that she was seeking someone new in her life, but I personally think she may be a bit too intimidating! Let me think about that for a moment …

Other than Paul and Auntie, all of us must seemed like children in Samantha’s eyes earlier tonight during Christmas dinner. We have no real worries, and lived under a nice safety umbrella. With sadness lining her eyes and tightness around her lips, they revealed hints of what she had been through. I didn’t talk to her much - fearing I would be crushed under the weight of her story… or asked the wrong questions. She maintained that guarded smile, and spoke only when necessary. I hope that one day, a brave man will come along and fulfill her dreams.

After some nice finger food dinner, we went home. Po opened up one of Dar’s Xmas present (Viva Pinata), and they played until pretty late. On Christmas Day, Cherie came over at around 10-11 am, and then we opened presents. I got a manicure set… and that’s really about it. Po got me Dead Rising, but I think he is more interested in the girl’s gargantuan boobies than I am. Cherie got me some nice BK games - I thought the Sneak game was hilarious (at least for the first 30 minutes)! Mei, of course, got a boatload of presents. Barbie dolls, Clifford, Cleo, Tito, … and Elmo! I got Mei TMX Elmo that raises the roof with its robotic laughter.

At around 1 pm, Po decided to start cookin, and we had ribeye steak. Took nap after, and then went off to auntie’s again. Unfortunate, Susan, Brian, and Brianna couldn’t make it to Orlando this year. Everyone else was there tho! Auntie made a full spread as usual, and I had some good times playing games with Noah.

Came home at around 10, and I resumed anime re-organization. I’m on CD #790 now. Won’t be long until Mass Burning!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 26th, 2006 at 2:21 am and is filed under my life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.