But what if she’s calling during House? I got two calls during the show. The first was from Arbitron, who somehow thinks that I’m going to do their bidding for the huge payment of $2. The second was from she-from-the-midwest-who-will-not-be-named coming back from one of them newfangled rocky-rolly shows. But it was during House! How could I talk to her? Well, even if I could use my non-existent charm, she’s a bazillion miles away in some foreign land of kielbasa and pierogi.

Now I’m hungry for pierogi. Feh.

I got to spend it working late, but as a single male with no one to pester him about Valentine’s Day, I did spend some time during my lunch hour at Rite Aid, watching the frenzied purchasing of last-minute chocolates. I just kind of wandered around snickering. We have to have our fun some way, don’t we?

I’m feeling a little tired, and my head hurts. Plus, since my back hurts, I’m probably not going to the gym soon.

Speaking of the gym, my friend Deren thinks I should quit taking my own magazine to read, especially since I usually take a geeky computer science journal. But if I don’t take my own magazine, I usually grab some gossip rag to distract me from the crap that’s on TV. So, I don’t know what’s worse. Being caught reading about 3-D shading effects or being caught reading about Brad & Jen.

1. I’m running a slight temperature.
2. I’m getting fatter.
3. Bone marrow biopsies still hurt.

I would go to sleep early if Monk wasn’t on. 🙂

Well, I went to the library to return several overdue books that I never read and I ran into some neighbors who took me to an international development gathering at the local pub. Dunno what it had to do with international development. I talked to a woman about Utah for a minute, a guy about Idaho for a minute, and then listened to a woman complain about Canada and how she wanted to go home. Well, I did talk to a guy who worked for Citibank in Japan and he was pretty interesting, but I also met an attractive Russian woman and told her the Russian phrase that seems to piss off everyone I tell it to. People are usually expecting some sort of rude cursing, but mine is from a James Bond novel. “Smyert Spionim.” I think it means, ‘death to spies,” but it’s probably much worse since it pisses off most people I tell it to. It’s my social experiment.

So, I think I annoyed the attractive woman in like 2.5 minutes. If I take that to be about average, that means if I ever go on speed dating where you get 8 minutes, I’ll have 5.5 minutes of awkward silence per woman. Or 5.5 minutes of recovery time between the time I get socked in the nose and the time I get to start annoying the next woman. Take your pick.

And I took the Asshole/Bitch test, and I guess I’m three-quarters asshole. Not that anyone is surprised.

So, for the most part, I can tell (honestly, guess well) what nationality most Asian people are. It’s much easier when it’s Chinese vs. Korean vs. Japanese since I have much more experience with that. But I thought this one dude at the gym was Chinese, but he’s not. The Chinese woman (good thing she was reallly Chinese or I would have been 0 for 2) told me she thought he was Filipino. AIIIGH! My BLIND SPOT.

Well, Happy New Year to both of them anyway. And all of you. For those who like to sound, well, more gay, it’s the year of the cock. For those pretending to be more proper, like my sister, it’s the year of the hen or rooster.

I’m going to have to figure out the story about the red envelopes. I always thought the older people gave them to the younger people, but a guy I know swears it’s only married people who give them out.

Speaking of music, which we WEREN’T speaking of but I couldn’t think of a segue, I bought both the Jackson’s original “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)” and Shaggy’s remix, “Shake & Dance.” And I’ve bought all these odd dance CDs because I HAVE NO TASTE AT ALL. Well, I have odd tastes. It’s not like I listen to C&W. Ugh.

Not exactly much for debauchery, but I ate a pulled pork sandwich for lunch and pork chops for dinner. And now I’m getting so sleepy that I can’t think of much more. I did get a call from someone telling me of her escapades on the singles website. I surely haven’t anything from my personals ad. Maybe I’m not the writer I thought I was.

It’s FREE ITUNES time again and this time I’m getting the songs as I go. Right now I’m trying to decide whether to get “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)” by the Jacksons or “Shake & Dance” by Shaggy which samples that song. Choices, choices.

So, here I was, staring at this empty box on the WordPress “Write Post” page thinking that I’d written something and I hadn’t. And I was talking to women at the gym again, not the gay guys that my sister thinks I talk to. Do I pick them for attractiveness, for buffness, for the size of their, er, PERSONALITY?

Nope. I talk to them if they have iPods! Last week I saw someone with an iPod Shuffle. It’s quite cute practical but we all know I don’t need THREE iPods. I’m sure if I didn’t have two I’d want the second one, but now that I have two I only use one. I asked her if she’d reloaded the songs and she said she hasn’t gone through her first 100 yet. Of course, I listened to Richard Marx twice today…

The game is over, the team I was rooting for lost, and I didn’t get to beat my wife. I don’t actually have a wife, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to really beat her, but there was some statistic that my friend’s wife saw and she was telling us it was her day to get beat. Not so funny if it’s really happening, but it was interesting when she mentioned it.

I was rooting for the Eagles. I was also rooting against the Patriots. I think my time in New England was not my favorite experience, and I’d be happy if that part of the country just went back to being the insular losers they deserve to be.

I root for the Eagles because of the quarterback, Donovan McNabb. He’s a great quarterback, and also the one that Rush F*cking Limbaugh said was “overrated” because what we have here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do well. So I wanted to see the Eagles win, and I wanted someone to shove a replica of the Lombardi trophy up Rush F*cking Limbaugh’s big pompous ass. But that didn’t happen.

What I did get was an interesting football game and a few interesting ads.

I’ve also been admonished for not posting over the weekend. Well, that’s mainly because I don’t do that much and couldn’t think of anything to write about. Really. “Today I helped my friend set up his wireless network and then I came home to watch reruns while doing the crossword puzzle.” How interesting is that?

Actually, I’ve seen people with livejournal blogs where they post several times a day and it’s just short postings like, “I’m so depressed…” Oh, what a joy that is to read! What skill it must take to write such effective prose! And while I really don’t know the reason I’m writing on this blog, I think it has something to do with practicing my dangling participles.

I have this picture on a bulletin board on my wall. It’s the only thing I think I’ve ever had on the bulletin board. You’ll notice that the bulletin board says “L.A. Rams.” The Rams moved to St. Louis in 1995 and I got this bulletin board back when I was in high school. The picture on it is from a girl I sat next to on a plane in the mid-80’s. She and her sister, 7 and 5, were flying from Denver to Portland to meet their parents. I can’t remember if they were flying through Portland to somewhere else. I guess that means she’s in her late 20’s now.

The picture is supposed to be me, playing soccer and has been on the wall for over 20 years.

Did I mention I’m getting more obsessed about these shoes?

I seem to be going through my shoes about every three months. I guess it doesn’t help that I had a stockpile of my expensive running shoes and I wear them to walk to work. I don’t think they’re meant for my plodding commute, 40 minutes each way. My quick calculation would indicate that 40 minutes is only two miles, but whatever. $100 * 4 isn’t exactly cheap.

So I thought I should get shoes that are a bit more rugged. I thought I saw some interesting ones on House, MD but on closer inspection, they just look like some sort of Nikes.

You can see the springy things towards the heels.

Dunno why I wanted shoes like the arrogant doctors on the show, but you have to start somewhere. I think I’ll probably end up going to REI and buying whatever fits. I think I also need a bigger belt.

Some one set us up the bomb.

I get email from time to time telling me not to give up on applying to medical school. Hah. Fat chance I’m going to try that again. I’m pretty frigging bitter already. A few more rounds of not getting in and I’d have to hurt someone. Anyway, that was all about TEN YEARS AGO and I’m pretty much over it. I had to find something else to be bitter about, and that’s my vestigial Master of Science in Computer Science. I’m now making less money than the 20-year-old high school dropout I’m working with and happy for it since most of the CS jobs are going off-shore and I don’t think I could find another job.

After all the time and money I spent applying to medical school, I’m not taking down the web site I put up with all my rejection letters. People ask me what I did wrong and the answers are all there. I did a lot of things right, and the medical schools I contacted even told me they had NO idea why I didn’t make it off of the wait list. The last rejection letters I received were AFTER classes had begun at Creighton University, St. Louis University, and Case Western Reserve University. OK, maybe Creighton sent the letter a little earlier. I can’t remember that far back. But I do know I was looking at the calendar and even called the schools to ask when classes started.

So I know I need to get over it, but then what would I do? “Get on with your life,” right? Well, on with my life is serving as an example, a bad example, to others.