Sleepless in the Seattle Metro Area

Annoyed

2009-07-03T23:35:00.000-07:00

I played Magic for the first time in many years tonight, versus my dad. I won seven out of seven games. He was... annoyed.

I sort of miss the game; it's still a great game, and I always loved the deckbuilding. It just takes such a commitment to stay on top of things, and I think I can only really handle one game that requires that kind of focus and mental dedication at a time. And, at about $14 a month, World of Warcraft isn't really any more expensive than Magic would be, and as difficult as it can be to find a group to play WoW with sometimes, it still must be easier than finding someone in person to play Magic with.

Indulgence

2009-07-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

One indulgence that I allow myself precisely two times a year is frozen yogurt. I used to get it a lot as a kid, but these days it's just whenever I'm in the Denver airport, as inevitably the path from my Seattle gate to the Lincoln or Omaha gate will go right by TCBY. Occasionally I try something different, but every time I do I’m very disappointed that I didn't just go for my decades-long favorite, plain vanilla yogurt with gummy bears on top.

And it is delicious.

Lighting money on fire

2009-07-02T14:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm off for a week with the family in Nebraska. Should be interesting. And hot—oh so hot. But at least air conditioning is standard in every house in Nebraska. It never even occurred to me before I moved to the Seattle area that this was not the case everywhere. Every year it gets hot in the summer, and every year everyone seems very surprised that it's hot that summer.

I haven't been back in a year and a half now, and I'm fairly certain that Mom's going crazy with anticipation. (That's a lot of pressure, you know—the quality of this visit is the lynchpin of my mother's sanity.) If you recall, I had planned to return for Christmas last year but was stuck in Redmond due to a snowstorm. I chose a replacement flight over the July 4 weekend because I particularly miss setting off explosive and incendiary devices* in honor of our great nation's birth, and for the most part, fireworks are not legal here.

(* I am typing this post in the airport. Hopefully they do not read this post at the TSA security checkpoint.)

The Fourth was always one of my favorite holidays. Sure, fireworks are fun, but I think that there's more to it than that. It's a holiday that, in Lincoln at least, practically demands that the family get together for a collective fun activity: blowing things up. Everyone can participate if they want.

In contrast, Christmas is more about the gifts and the meal and spending time with long-lost relatives. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's an event designed around family togetherness. The Fourth of July brings family togetherness as sort of a bonus, but the real focus is on hot, bright, and shiny things that burn your hands. It's a collaborative amusement that you can't have any other time of the year. I think that those two aspects—the group activity part and the time restriction part—are what make the Fourth so special to me.

Or maybe I just like fire more than I'm willing to let on. Either way, tomorrow I get to "light my money on fire" as my skeptical mother always says, and it's been half a decade since the last time I did. I can't wait.

As a kid, my sources of income were quite limited, given that but I'd still manage to save up for months and months and have fifty bucks or so to spend on fireworks. My grandfather would usually chip in a twenty for each of my brother and me, which was always a really big deal. We'd budget things out and make sure that we got exactly what we wanted. The Fourth only came once a year, and there was no money to waste (unless you're like my mom and any money spent on fireworks is a waste).

The Fourth is one of my dad's favorite holidays too. I decided that a perfect Father's Day gift for him would be a fireworks shopping spree. Admittedly, it sounds more like I just forgot to get him something and I'm pulling something out of my butt a couple of weeks late, but in reality (I swear) I hand-picked this gift after weeks of thought, and I was sure to tell him that his present was coming with me this time. Hopefully he'll enjoy lighting someone else's money on fire just as much as his own.

Are You Able to Feel the Love This Evening

2009-06-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

In the gym locker room this morning they were playing an elevator music version of Can You Feel the Love Tonight? from The Lion King. Or, rather, a perhaps-unlicensed cover—the rhythm was spot-on, but the tune wasn't right. There were enough subtle differences that they didn't seem like mistakes or artistic license, but it was close enough that I thought at first that maybe I just didn't quite remember the original tune. But once it got to the "wide-eyed wanderer" line (of course, it was instrumental) I was certain that it was just a bad cover.

It reminded me of something I was talking with Jason about recently: I get really annoyed when I remember song lyrics incorrectly, especially when my head's version is notably different from the real thing. Worse, rather than correct myself on future listenings, I tend to just reinforce my incorrect lyrics with every subsequent hearing. The best example of this that comes to mind is from Somewhere Only We Know by Keane. There's a line "...sat by the river and it made me complete" that I sing every time as "...sat by the river and admitted defeat." My version is just about the opposite of the correct lyrics, and I know I'm wrong, and I try to sing them correctly, but despite my efforts, I get it wrong constantly, and I'm not really improving. It's frustrating. (I have a playlist of songs for which I want to learn the lyrics and be able to sing along, and that one is on it. It's my driving/Segwaying playlist.)

Pending

2009-06-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

Having a pending trip is a really good excuse to ignore bathrooms and kitchens and carpets in need of cleaning. I mean, they're not going to get any better while I'm away; I might as well just let another week's worth of dust build up first...

Killed by an unknown attacker

2009-06-25T16:00:00.000-07:00

Two nights ago, I dreamed that I was walking by a house in an expensive-looking neighborhood, and one man out of many people in uniform who were standing in front of the house came up to me and asked if I was Travis. I said I was, and he somberly told me that he was sorry, but Jason was dead. He had been shot, and was the tenth person that day to have been killed by an unknown attacker. My first reaction was disbelief, possibly partially because I had no idea why Jason would have been at this house that I'd never seen before. As it all started to sink in, another one of the people standing in front of the house yelled something unintelligible to the man talking to me. He then apologized and explained that he meant to say that James was dead, not Jason. Did I know a James?

I think the man talking to me may have been based on the doctor from Arrested Development. I don't remember what he looked like, but I was thinking about that character the day before. (It's not the same joke, as the doctor in that show always gives factually accurate but misleading information, whereas this was simply wrong.)

As it turns out, even in a dream, hearing that someone you care about is dead only to find out seconds later that they are not is very upsetting.

Lamest nightmare ever

2009-06-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

Last night I had the lamest nightmare ever. I was tracking a package on FedEx.com and saw in bold red letters "NOT DELIVERED - SIGNATURE REQUIRED." At the sight of this I became immediately severely distraught. For some reason or another, my package not being delivered on time was absolutely soul-crushing. Luckily, the dream ended after fifteen seconds or so of utter despair.

(Usually I'm just really pissed off.)

Very stale spam

2009-06-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

Every time I give my email address to a company I give them a unique one so that if I ever get spam because of them, I can know exactly who's responsible, and if necessary I can block that specific address without harming my ability to get mail from other people. (I have my own email server, but you can easily do this with Gmail... at least, until the spammers catch on and look for plus signs in email addresses.) As it turns out, I very rarely get spam from any companies that I've given my email address. I can only remember one company that has ever sold my address in more than half a decade: Uproar.com, a casual games site. That is, until the past few days.

I got spam from an address I've only ever given to S&K Menswear before. I ordered my coat from them nearly five years ago, and I just started getting spam to that address this month. That is some very stale spam. As it turns out, the company has gone bankrupt. Apparently a good way to make money when you go bankrupt is to sell your customer database.

Fuzz

2009-06-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting much recently. I've gotten a few requests to post on some more interesting, controversial, thought-provoking topics. This, I'm afraid, is not that.

I worked at the Burger King in the university student union during my junior year in high school. During that year is when I first started growing facial hair. It came in pretty evenly, but rather blonde and fuzzy compared to what my hair looks like today. One evening, a week or two after it had started coming in, the manager on duty was my favorite one—the one I could have conversations with about technology and games and things relevant to my interests (he helped me decide on my first domain name, in fact). He walked by me, and said roughly the following to me:

Manager: Travis, tonight when you go home, I want you to shave your beard fuzz.
Me: What?
Manager: You just should.
Me: Why's that?
Manager: We're all excited for you. You have your first facial hair. You've proven that you can grow facial hair. Hooray! But it looks terrible, and if you shave it off it will grow back faster and look better. Don't worry, you'll get more. Get your dad to show you how.

I was really embarrassed for a moment, not because he was intending to embarrass or annoy me, or because he told me this around the other employees, but because he was completely right and I hadn't even realized it for myself yet. I was avoiding shaving simply because I wanted people to notice that I was all manly and stuff.

(Historical note: I didn't make facial hair a standard part of my appearance until a couple years ago or less.)

Packets

2009-06-02T12:46:00.000-07:00

After my morning workouts I basically always get a protein shake at the club's bistro. I get one with strawberry powder, strawberries, and peanut butter. It ends up being rather tasty. The price of one of these shakes is a fairly disturbing $6.60. However, I provide my own protein powder, so they only charge me half price. The packets of powder are available a few feet down the hall for $2.00. By buying the packet in one location and taking it to another location I save $1.30 per shake.

It makes me wonder if this business model is intentional, or the pricing just wasn't thought through very well. It's possible that this works so that people who are price-conscious can get a shake for a slightly more reasonable $5.30, but the majority of people won't be willing to go to the effort (or even find out that such a deal is available), so most people will still give them $6.60. Or, maybe 50% off is a really easy thing for their system to do and they don't care or realize that there's a price discrepancy.

Scott Baio is a jerk

2009-06-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

I just spent a whole dream being bitched out. In this dream, I had previously sent Scott Baio a short letter informing him that some devoted fans had created an entire website full of crossword puzzles about him and his Arrested Development character Bob Loblaw. He sent me a very lengthy letter in return through his agent, and included an advertisement for the latest stop in the tour for his book "My Real Life Is Boring," which happened to inconveniently be on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. (Incidentally, if this letter is how he writes, he must have had a good editor for his book.) According to his letter, my transgressions for sending this letter included:

Wasting the time of an important TV star
Wasting his precious touring time
Obsessing about him an unhealthy amount (these weren't my crosswords; I was just passing the information)
Posting very factually inaccurate information about him online
Failing to understand the distinction between Scott Baio the actor and Bob Loblaw the character
Failing to focus on other aspects of his career, such as a writer
Wasting his time in general

There were other complaints, but those are the ones I recall. I was pretty annoyed at the mild irony in him writing me back with factually inaccurate information and failing to understand the distinction between me and the people writing crossword puzzles about him, but for some reason I decided to write back a curt apology and send him back a golf club as a gift. I don't know why I was sending a golf club, or why I thought that tinfoil would be an appropriate wrapping paper for it. Once I had wrapped my letter and the club, I realized I didn't have an address—my original letter was an email. How did he (or his agent) get my address anyway? And then I woke up.

Caramel Apple Pops

2009-05-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

I think that Caramel Apple Pops have the least or most incompetent quality control of any food that I can think of. Some of them have tiny apple-flavored hard candy cores surrounded by huge piles of caramel, and some are big chunks of apple candy with a diminuative glob of caramel stuck to one side. Almost none of them look "right." It doesn't really end up mattering; they taste good in whichever configuration you find them, but you never really know what you're going to get when you open one up.

It's Not Me, It's You

2009-05-24T02:12:00.000-07:00

The short version:
Coldplay—X&Y: 6/10
Ozomatli—Embrace the Chaos: 7/10
P!nk—Funhouse: 9/10
Lily Allen—It's Not Me, It's You: 9/10

I've been listening to the followup to Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head, X&Y, and I like it a little better than that one, but it's rather similar overall. What I find particularly strange is that two of my three favorite songs on here weren't even singles—my strong favorite of the disc is Square One, the opener. After that, I like Talk, which was the third single, and then X&Y, which again was not a single. The album itself is a bit above mediocrity, sort of inoffensively decent. I could live without it, but I don't regret owning it.

A more interesting disc I've been also listening to is Ozomatli's Embrace the Chaos. I don't even know what to call it: a sort of rap-infused Latin pop, perhaps. It's an eclectic mix of weird sounds, but it works out pretty well. I really like Sueños en Realidad, and Dos Cosas Ciertas and Vocal Artillery should give you a good example of what some of the rest of the album sounds like. I can't really recommend it to anyone in particular, but it's worth taking a listen and seeing if it's your thing.

After hearing Jason play it in the car, I picked up P!ink's latest CD Funhouse, and it's excellent. It's full of party rock anthems, but there are some slower, more heartfelt songs as well. The whole album is put together and flows really well. The opening track So What is fantastic and sets the tone for much of the rest of the disc, even though the next few songs are rather somber. I also love One Foot Wrong, which is in the "darker" half of the album, but still fairly energetic, and Bad Influence is quite good too, back in the party mood of So What. Really, I can't say that it's the perfect party CD or anything like that given the number of slower introspective songs, but I can definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys energetic pop-rock.

Also excellent is foul-mouthed Lily Allen's newest, It's Not Me, It's You, produced by the "bee" from The Bird and the Bee, and while it has similarities when compared to the latest Bird and the Bee album, it's got more of a wilder side. I can't get enough of Fuck You, and Everyone's at It and Never Gonna Happen are both pretty glorious too. Part of the appeal is admittedly the Sarah Silverman effect, hearing this cutesy, perky music playing behind the lyrics of this bitchy, somewhat slutty Brit. But, the music certainly stands on its own, and I'm looking forward to checking out her debut album.

I haven't really decided what I'm going to listen to next. There's plenty more in the queue, though.

Here we go again

2009-05-22T01:30:00.000-07:00

So, I've got a boyfriend again. It should be easy to remember because it's the same one as last time.

Jason and I talked again tonight for quite a while, and we agreed that we are still clueless, and we were clueless when we broke up. We value each others' friendship too much to risk it, but fear doesn't seem to me to be a valid reason to end or avoid a romantic relationship. So, we're going to give this another shot. In reality, we've sort of been boyfriends again for months now in everything but name and corresponding Facebook hyperlink. But, it feels nicer to not be pretending otherwise.

For simplicity's sake I think that I'm just going to say that we've been together for eight months, with a rough emotional patch in there that lasted a few weeks and was brought on by confusion and relationship inexperience.

Unfair

2009-05-17T00:29:00.001-07:00

Why is it that when it's warm I feel very sleepy, but I also can't sleep? That just seems unfair.

Intern

2009-05-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

In a couple weeks I'll have worked at Microsoft for five years: a pretty significant chunk of my life now (about 18%, if you're counting). I'll get a little crystal trophy thing to commemerate the occasion.

I've got my own intern for the summer now... it's an interesting notion having that kind of responsibility over someone. It's nice that they trust me enough to give me someone else's career to nourish or ruin—just apparently not quite enough to actually promote me.

Delicious

2009-05-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

I think that a great place to store candy at work would be in one of those biohazard sharps containers you see at doctor's offices. You could get such a weird reaction from someone seeing you reach into one to get something to eat.

Hmm

2009-05-13T01:15:00.000-07:00

I think I may have just flossed my filling out of place.

Too real

2009-05-06T16:43:00.000-07:00

I got my new TV delivered yesterday, a 55" LED LCD. My initial impressions are that it's gorgeous, and the picture definitely looks better than I expected based on in-store observations. Plus it's an inch and a half thick, so it looks pretty striking. I haven't given it a good high-def test yet, but I plan to soon—I did watch the first few minutes of Quantum of Solace on it, and it was actually sort of eerie how sharp it looked. My previous TV was 1080i and this one is 1080p, but the picture looks so much sharper and smoother than before. Actually, it's sort of creepy how smooth the picture is compared to before (or honestly, any other TV I've watched). Car chases are supposed to be furious and blurry, but on this TV everything was sharp and identifiable. It looked quite unnatural: it actually looks too real to me. I found my first Blu-ray experiences sort of strange as well, and now I love the extra picture quality, so I'm sure that this will pass over time, but for now it was a fairly unexpected consequence of upgrading to a nicer TV.

Hooray!

2009-05-03T02:10:00.000-07:00

Ted: Well, Torr says that his battle with cancer is finally going to be over in a couple months.
Travis: Hooray!
Ted: Not the "hooray" kind of "over."
Travis: Oh.

Eating things that don't make me want to die

2009-04-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

I've been finding gradual weight loss to be more difficult than I expected. Over the past month or longer my weight loss has been so gradual that I've basically just maintained my weight. Maintaining weight is hard enough and I suppose that's an accomplishment itself, but it's not really what I'm going for yet. I'd still like to lose a bit more weight before I get to a point where I'm maintaining.

I think that a lot of the problem is that when I was on the strict diet, I began to forget what it was like to eat delicious food; food that made me happy. I still had incredibly strong cravings for sugar and unhealthy things, but I could resist simply because I was telling myself that I don't eat those things anymore—or at least not right now. That was challenging, but achievable. Now, I allow myself those things occasionally, and that seems to be the problem. Eating healthy food is even more unappealing than it was before, because I remember exactly what it's like to eat things that don't make me want to die, because I ate those things just last Friday.

So I think that as much as it pains me, in order to lose a little more weight, I'm going to have to go back on the strict diet for a little longer. I should probably do this sooner rather than later, but I suppose I'm not in a huge hurry as long as I'm not gaining weight, which hasn't happened—I've kept things under control. It seems that in theory, whether I maintain my weight now or lose some more first and then maintain that lower weight, the difference between the two options is just a one-time cost of pain and anguish. The annoyance of maintaining the weight will be very similar regardless of whether I'm at 216 or in the 200s. I can deal with one-time costs.

Now I just need to decide when I'm going to start back up again. I do not look forward to it.

Yeah... no.

2009-04-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

I got my estimate for what it would cost to repair my old TV last night: $1,024 plus tax and the $95 I've already spent on having it diagnosed. I paid $1,000 for the TV and a receiver and a set of speakers and a sub in the first place.

Yeah... no.

I've already ordered a new TV anyway. It's a lovely 55" Samsung LED LCD. I will have it next Tuesday. Admittedly, it was a bit more than a thousand bucks. (Anyone want a broken 52" DLP?)

Congratulations! You are Japanese.

2009-04-28T16:21:00.000-07:00

I saw this Facebook quiz titled "What type of Asian are you?" According to this survey, my friend is Japanese. This does not seem like the sort of thing that requires a quiz. I imagine that the quiz goes something like this:

What type of Asian are you?
1. What ethnicity are your parents?
[ ] Chinese
[X] Japanese
[ ] Korean
[ ] Other / mixed

Results
Congratulations! You are Japanese.

(I'm not even going to start on how obnoxious Facebook quizzes are...)

Estimation

2009-04-23T14:35:00.000-07:00

I am more and more annoyed that people whose job it is to repair things will seemingly do everything they can in their power to ignore requests for estimates or anything resembling them. I just asked a TV repairperson for an estimate of whether my TV is likely to be a "small problem" or a "big problem" and he wouldn't even give me that. My request was just ignored, as if I hadn't said a thing. This seems to absolutely be the norm. No one is willing to guess at anything unless it's a big project that requires them coming out to your home to assess things.

I try to be as reasonable as possible, saying that a wild guess is fine and that I understand that the full extent of the problem can't be diagnosed without actually investigating, but it doesn't help. (I make estimates of things for a living. I'm still bad at it. Everyone is.)

Survivor

2009-04-23T14:29:00.001-07:00

Today I am 10,000 days old.