February 8th thru the 14th, 2004

Hooked up with some folks and went to lunch on Alki (can't recall the name, hyperlink fans. So sorry). Then over to the Experience Music Project (a first for me) and I became a member so's I could go back for free. It was pretty cool. I played along with Nirvana on "Smell's Like Teen Spirit" and remixed the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams Are made of These." I am a rock god.

Garmickinny came over and cooked chicken and potatoes. We watched Frida. A good movie. We also washed and cleaned the rest of what needed to be washed and cleaned from Saturday. My kitchen is shiny again!

Okay. Woke up and had the tea. I am almost out of the English Breakfast and so I need to concentrate on the Earl Gray for a few days. The Earl Gray will give me a hard edge, make me a right bleeding bastard, a kind of Jean Luc Picard cum Ben Kinglsey in Sexy Beast. Sort of. Probably not. More on that later.

DDR a lot today. But you knew that. Met up with Sarja for tanning. God that's good stuff. Then we ate a Nemea from Romio's and talked about how it sucks when stuff you like become popular and people get all stupid about it. It was a good discussion. She left, more DDR and a nap and tea and Beyond Good and Evil. I tell you: I have NO idea what the title has to do with the game.

Ah, and then bowling. My first game was a 170-something, and then a few 130 somethings. We managed to make 3 points out of 4. That gives us 15 total, and the second place was at 10 so at most they have 14 now, so we're still fer sur in first place. But we bowl against them next week and they all have avergaes above, like, 200. Bastards. Oh well. The night went well otherwise too, being as how I and some gal visitig another team played the eye-ball game which was nice and yes, I was drinking, so I might be wrong about that. but she left with some giant lanky dude and I am probably ten years her senior anyway so it don't matter.

Thought I was gay. Let's look at the facts. I like DDR. I can't stand hard liquor but I like the froo froos like Mike's Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff Twisters, and Hooch. I like, I mean actually enjoy, cleaning my kitchen. Then one of my teammates suggested I might not be gay, I'm just Asian. So, I'm Asian.

After bowling myself and a dude on the other team played some DDR on the stand-up arcade machine there. For the sake of anonymity, I'll call him Chopwork Orange. Chop pretty much kicked my ass. We played two games. I did "beginner" level for the first game (he kicked my ass) and then I did "light" (he kicked my ass). I only got close on one song, "Speed Over Beethoven" by Rose. Anyhoo, I'll challenge him again some time because humility is good for my soul.

Walked home listening to Tori over and over again. This song is cool because of the odd time signature-- 3/4 for all of the measures of a phrase except the last one, which is in 4/4. A phrase will be from 4 to 16 measures, depending on the section of the song. I like odd time signatures. The Laika and the Cosmonauts cover of the "Misssion Impossible Theme" is in 5/4 time, which is cool. For no good reason, here's the lyrics to "Spark," edited to look like a poem:

Some of you may have seen a small device on my hip. This is a Sportbrain. It keeps track of my steps. At the end of the day, I plug it into a docking station and it uploads my step info to a website. The website then provides for me statistics based on my steps-- how far I've walked that day, how fast, how many calories I've burned, and so forth. I've had the thing for a few years now, though the company was non-fuctional for a span of time.

Starting in March last year (when the company came back online) I recorded 2,523,298 steps, or about 1070 miles. So far this year I have 374,816 steps, or 158 miles. I'd like to get 3 million steps this year.

Sportbrain sponsers events where, if you record a certain number of steps in a given time period, they'll send you a prize. I have until this Thursday to record 46,300 more steps, and they'll send me logo pad and pen. Not a big deal really. I have in the past got a mug, a hat, some colored faces for the device itself, and a discount on the heart monitor strap. Already today, thanks to my visit to the gym and some DDR, I have recorded 17,923 steps. Tonight I'll walk to SBC, which will be good for another 8000 steps or so, and some more DDR, for another 5000 steps or so.

The rest of the day: work, walk to SBC for the Tuesday night coffee thing: I skipped dinner with them all, walked home instead, and c-c-c-craaaaashed.

The days was so freakin gorgeous that I had to. Hooked up with Cancun and Marshal and walked around Greenalke twice (mind, I walked to Greenlake from the tanning salon). Then we crashed at SBC for 45 until someone C had met in Craig'slist arrived and we did one more lap and a partial.

Ate some sort of leftover rice with beans and diced tomatoes on tortillas with cream cheese thing. And another Mike's. HAD TO DDR a bit even though I was dog ass tired. Sportbrain step total for the day: 33,514. 15 miles.

Okay, for the time being, I can't remember what else I did this day.

Why are people afraid of it? Near as I can tell, it originates with witches' covens, if you can believe that. Back in the day, it was believed that a witch's coven consisted of 12 witches to mock the number of apostles, and Satan would comprise the 13th member. Friday's have been "unlucky" since the crucifixion. But everyone knows that since America has 13 original colonies, there are 13s all over our American money. There are some high-rise buildings that don't have a 13th floor-- are they unpatriotic?

This website: www.triskaidekaphobia.com seems to have nothing to do with actual triskaidekaphobia.

So I got some donuts and bagels and bananas and orange juice for some friends, who arrived, and off we went to Vancouver. A fairly pleasant drive-- the border crossing was a bit of a pain, but we expected that. We checked in to the Pan Pacific Hotel, right on the water. Very posh! We wandered around, found the Jolly Taxpayer Hotel Pub, where I had the shepherd's pie and a beer. Good. Some shopping on Robson (the Rodeo of Vancouver, I guess) and people watching. Then a nap and we went to the Tonic, where we stood in line for an hour, got in, and started drinking. We stayed till 4 AM and then it was Sunday, so back to the hotel to crash.