sotto voce

are like weeds. They are everywhere.

I got out of the shower this morning to a really angry Andrew. He started off by asking me if I knew the meaning of "invisible assumptions". Then he shoved me his laptop and asked me to read an email from a professor he’s working for at Yxxx (a supposedly-reputable institution in my Naneenoo city who apparently hosts a lot of pricks and assholes). Basically what happened was that this professor wasn’t happy with the fact that Andrew had scheduled another work for another professor on the day when he’s supposed to do work for him.

God, I can just imagine this little prick as an idiotic, bratty tyke with his imaginary throne going "Me, me, me, me ,me!!". I sure wish I could’ve given him a good spank.

It’s okay if Andrew is getting paid for all the shitwork he’s doing for all these profs. Thing is, he’s not. He’s doing all these stuff hoping he’ll get a good recommendation for grad school in the end and getting this kind of a not-very-nice email on a Monday morning makes him feel like he’s doing all the shitwork for nut-fucking-nothing. Besides, I know how Andrew isn’t at fault at all in this case because the prof never confirmed with anyone that he’d like his study done today. Even if Andrew decided to drop everything and do his study today, the secretary wasn’t even ready with all the logistics. So really, the prof is the one who creates this "invisible assumption" (whatever the fuck it means) that  the world will spin the other way round when he wishes it to be.

What I don’t understand is, ... how could someone who’s so unprofessional could be a professor at this reputable institution. He might be a damn good scholar, but judging from the survey questions he designed, he’s not that smart. Andrew actually improved his survey questions and this prick didn’t even acknowledge Andrew’s contribution at all. What an A-grade asshole??!

Sometimes I wonder if all these assholes get up there (become successful) by being pricks. If they get up there by stepping on lowly interns they think they can treat like shit, ask to do all the shitwork and then leave their names completely out of the publications. I’m lucky to have nice professors who often gave me more credits than what was due. But anyway,... urgh… I just don’t like how managers, professors and people in power think that they can treat their employees/interns/underlings like shit.

Any ideas on how to deal with these assholes?

I’m seriously jinxed.

I’ve been known to laugh derisively at people (read: country bumpkins) who suggest that city life is dangerous. "Nonsense," I told them. To back up my contentious claim, I told these people that Andrew and I never locked our doors, and sometimes we left the car unlocked overnight. My bike had been chilling on our porch unguarded and unsecured to any structure. And although bum-encounter (ie. when a hobo approaches you asking for some "change" – makes you wonder if they support Obama) is inevitable, we can still walk around the neighborhood safely, even at night.

But every time I told someone that my city is safe, something always happened. Something bad, that is.

The first time I dismissed it as pure bad luck. My coworker was asking me about parking in the city, and I told him: No problem. I have off-street parking, and street parking isn’t that bad either as long as you know how to parallel-park. That same night, my sidelight was smashed by some hooligans during dinner, and I didn’t even notice it until the next morning when the same coworker pointed to the light and asked, "What happened?". I shyly told him that my street-parked car became a victim of city vandalism the night before.

The second time, one of my coworkers is looking to move to my city but feels unsafe to live in a city. I told her confidently that safety is not an issue at all. That same night, I was walking home from the grocery store and a Hispanic man in a box car parked on the side of the street catcalled me and asked for my name. I ignored him and continued walking. I figured that was a more civil response rather than flipping him the finger or shouting "go fuck yourself, a-hole". Well, unfortunately civil response doesn’t send the message clearly enough. As I walked away from him, he started the engine of his car and followed me around while pestering me for my name. "Just as friends" he begged. Is that sketchy or fuck??! I was pretty worried he’s gonna followed me home and do something to me, so I walked really slowly behind this old man. I know that the old man would probably be pretty useless against this young man, but at least I’d have a witness. Anyway,... I think the guy got tired and left, and I triple-checked before entering my apartment, to make sure he’s not around and doesn’t know where I live.

As if that’s not bad enough, last week I was talking to a friend online and when I told him I lived in Naneenoo (name of city where I live), he commented that from what he heard Naneenoo is a very very dangerous place. More dangerous than New York.
I told him: Ptui. NO Fuckin Way.
That same day, Andrew and I were in the room after work chilling and watching TV. As we’re slowly drifting into sleep, I heard this loud alarm and it took a full minute before I realized it was our car alarm. I woke Andrew up and he quickly ran out of the door wearing nothing but his manly fur. I seriously thought it was just someone accidentally bumping into our car and took my own sweet time before I went downstairs with Andrew’s shorts. I didn’t find him anywhere in the parking lot, because he is chasing the person who tried to steal my car down the street. In all his naked glory. I checked out the car (which is still in the parking lot) and found that all the locks are fucked up and one of the back window was removed. I’m guessing that this idiot tried to pick the lock, rather unsuccessfully and then decided to take out the back window and open the back door. Unfortunately for him (it could be a girl but I highly doubt it), we have a very very sensitive alarm and our left car door doesn’t work. So even after removing the window and unlocking the car, the door still can’t be opened.

Anyway, I was thankful the car is not stolen and still didn’t think Naneenoo is a crime jungle, until some fucker stole my freakin bike from the porch. This is the porch that’s connected to the fire escape and is on the third floor, and is connected to the kitchen. The thief had enough guts to walk up three flights of stairs onto the porch to take my bike even though there’s a likelihood that we walk into the kitchen and caught him in action. URGH< I'm pisseddddd as helll..... I didn't leave the bike more than three hours and someone just snatched it like that, from OUR FUCKING PORCH!!

Argh. Anyway, now I’ve learnt my lesson. It’s a dangerous crime-infested city I’m living in and I’m not leaving anything unlocked anymore.  And I’m not gonna argue with anyone who says that city-life is dangerous. It is fucking dangerous. Bloody hell.

That is, everybody in my non-existent movie studio.

Seriously, after these two days of obsessing over all Jeff Buckley’s songs, I’ve decided: That if I ever, by some round-about, weird, unpredictable way, become a movie director, I’m going to make a tear-jerker, dark romantic comedy using JB songs for the soundtracks.

I can’t believe there isn’t a single movie out there that uses his "Lover, You Should’ve Come Over". Can you believe it?? I mean, that song (especially his acoustic version) is a sure way to get chicks to blob like there’s no tomorrow. The first time I heard the song, I thought how apt would it be if they use that song in "Four Weddings and A Funeral". Maybe had the movie came out later, they would’ve used it.

Ahhh… Jeff… why do you have to die so early?? I still want to hire you to compose music for my movies, you know..

Over the bowls of noodles, we poked fun at my experience at the DMV that afternoon. From the cellphone-chattering teeny-boppers who cried mommy when they failed their driving tests, to the obese officer who wouldn’t fit into a Toyota Yaris, we covered all the funny angles in every way possible.

Half an hour before that, as we walked along the streets of New Haven on a nippy Tuesday night, I asked him if he still doesn’t hate me for putting him in this city – especially when he just received a job offer in ny. He said – and I agreed – that we provide motivation, comfort, emotional and financial support and that we’re much better off in each other’s company anyway, so we’ll take turns taking the slow career path. "Because that’s what teams do." And that’s what we are: a team.

One of my friends from college just passed away in a hiking accident. At first I didn’t realize it was him, because I’ve always known him as  "the cute, tall fella who played the bass". If you’ve been reading this blog for years, he was THE bass player who wanted to hook up with me but never did (because I was with wy then). Sexual tension aside, he was a friendly, cool guy who’s talented with those bass strings and were amazingly smooth on the dance floor. Maybe he secretly hated me for being so hoity-toity and shut him down, but he always said ‘hi’ and acknowledged me whenever we saw each other on campus.

I’m not close to him. This news didn’t sadden me as much as it made me feel… weird.

There are dozens of people from college I’ll never see again in my life, but I know they’re there. Somewhere… They could be dead too, and as long as I don’t know they’re dead, it won’t even matter that much to me. I’ll just assume they’re hidden somewhere in this Earth’s nooks and crannies. But when you know they’re dead, it’s almost as if you have to make a mental note that they’ve been bleeped out of this world. No more of that person. Every time you reminisce about that person, you don’t wonder what they’re doing, you just say (silenty).. "awww".

This is a non-sensical rambling, obvi. Absolutely no important points to be made. Although sometimes I wonder if there’s such thing as a calm, normal, simple life… Someone who doesn’t have major crises in his/her life. Or maybe you’re born into this world with , say, ten units of crisis you’re supposed to face in your life. You can "cash" them one at a time – which means you’ll face difficulties here and there, but nothing life-changing. Or, you can take them a couple at a time, or even all of them at once. I use the word "can" but I know these crises are not ours to pick and choose. They just freakin happen whenever, wherever, and in whichever way possible. Still, I wonder if we’re all alotted with certain amount of ‘pain’ and in the end, no one is luckier or unluckier than the next person in line. But what a bunch of bollocks I’m talking about… Even if I were to get smashed by a twenty-four wheeler on my way home this afternoon, I still won’t suffer as much as those caught in the Darfur crisis.

So don’t you think it’s bloody rotten that you can either be lucky and live a somewhat peaceful life, OR you can be thrown into a life full of war, misery, starvation, and death?

Apparently McCain has closed the gap to 7pts in Philadelphia poll, mostly because people buy his "I’m for drilling offshore, Obama isn’t, therefore you should vote for me" campaign.

PEOPLE, are you stupid or fuck?

First of all, out of the 44 million acres of offshore area leased to the oil and gas companies, only 13 million acres are in operation. Do your math. That’s more than 30 million acres still in development or sitting idle. Do you know how long it takes to develop a working offshore rig? 1-5 years just for research, another 5 years plus before it can actively produce oil/gas, owing that the amount of oil/gas underneath justify the construction cost. If there’s too little stuff down there. Project closed. Let’s move on…

And do you have any idea how many miles and miles underneath those precious oil/gas are??? And how difficult (not to mention dangerous to the workers) it is to drill stuff offshore?

Think, goddamit.

Just because McCain is for offshore drilling, it DOES NOT MEAN that he’ll bring down gas prices. Nope. Even if he gives more lease for offshore drillling in Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic coast, ANWR, etc whatever, it’s not an instant supply of fossil fuels he’s gonna get us. Have fun waiting.

From Krugman’s column in NYTimes today:
A McCain campaign ad says that gas prices are high right now because “some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America.” That’s just plain dishonest: the U.S. government’s own Energy Information Administration says that removing restrictions on offshore drilling wouldn’t lead to any additional domestic oil production until 2017, and that even at its peak the extra production would have an “insignificant” impact on oil prices.

Besides, it’s only the pampered Americans who get gasoline at this cheap a price. No wonder US is world’s no 1 gas guzzlers (per capita), because gasoline is so unreasonably cheap, with the fuel subsidies and all. And guess what…. cheap gasoline reduces the motivation to conserve, to invent green technology, to get rid of US addiction to foreign oil.

It’s ridiculous to hear the govt moans about reduced consumption in oil – as if that’s a bad thing. Oh yes… it’s a bad thing for them, because they get less fuel tax money, which is normally spent on building more roads and a nifty disproportionate amount goes to public transit.

Yes, I hate high gas prices. Look at me, I have to drive 30 mins each way every fucking day and a full tank costs sixty bucks. I’m definitely miserable. But I’ll be so very happy to take the train and bike to work if only

i) there’s a bike lane that’ll prevent me from getting knocked by a car during rush hour
ii) there’s more train going my way instead of the funny schedule they have right now.

where’s US mass transit??
this is supposed to be a first-world country,  but the mass transit is third-world alright.
Unless we figure out a way to be less addicted to oil, our fate will always depend on oil supply and demand of the whole fucking world, on speculators, and on and on and on.

So before you decide to vote for McCain because you think he’ll bring down gas prices,  do some fucking research first, read and listen to the news, and think if you want this economic dumbo and his bullshit plan to lead the country.

grhh… i’m so mad. please… stop being stupid, okay?