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Mmmm.. hot dogs are sooo tasty.. The New York Times has a nice mutimedia article about hot dogs in and around NYC…

Mmm.. hot dog.

I’ll have to add these to my list of hot dog places to explore next time I’m out there..

[via thejerk .. it's nice that Pius is blogging about NYC hot dogs whilst travelling halfway across the world in Bangkok..]

Increasingly so, I cannot work in a quiet environment.. there are multiple theories as to why I seem to have an onset of ADD, but that’s probably why I definitely prefer IM to the phone or even email..

Anyway, I work with the TV on in the background as a nice way to quench the ADD part of my psyche — today, Tom Cruise was on Oprah today — just in time for sweeps week.. I really don’t usually watch Oprah, but honestly, the only other thing that was on was an episode of Macguyver with Teri Hatcher in it. I highly recommend against watching re-runs of Macguyver, since it makes you realize just how lame of a show it was (I swear it wasn’t so cheesy back then). Macguyver re-runs don’t hold up to the test of time.. and the fact that they recycled like the same 3 asian actors through every episode really started to get annoying.

So yah… back to Tom. he seems REALLY jazzed about dating Katie. I mean.. REALLY REALLY REALLY jazzed.. like almost in a Howard Dean, Tana from the apprentice, “Yeeaaaaaarrrrgghhhh” kind of way.. Overly excited.. He spent most of the first 45 minutes jumping on the couch and pounding on the floor, exclaiming how much in love he is with Katie. Oprah asked if he and Katie were going to get married and he hinted that they were discussing it all. I mean, yah.. she’s really hot/cute and all, but this whole thing still stinks of a badly orchestrated PR stunt.

At the end of the show Tom ran backstage and dragged a sheepish Katie out to meet everyone. She looked absolutely terrified, like a girl who’s PR agent told her that she’d be dating Tom Cruise for a little while. I mean.. what do they have to gain? It’s not like they have new movies to promote, or that they’re filming Mission Impossible 3.. oh.. wait..

Damn, those two can act.

Anyway… thanks a bunch to defamer for photoblogging the whole show…

Oh dear.. what have I done. I’ve decided to do the Big Kahuna Triathlon on September 11th, 2005… 114 days to get ready for the 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run. Oh jeez.

My previous “slacker training” schedule will not work for this race, I’m afraid.. So, I’m going to actually really need to train for this one..

Oh boy. Hope the ol’ body holds up… I’m not a kid anymore.

For this week’s edition of friday timewaster… we have.. kitten war! Kittens are so cute! What better way than to put their cuteness to a duel. May the cutest kitty win!

Here’s the absolute cutest one I’ve seen.. named Squee, it really does look alot like the comic book character Squee, doesn’t it?

Last night was the Techdirt 25k party at the cigar bar.. in celebration of Techdirt’s 25,000th post.. Me and the many Mikes of Techdirt headed down and enjoyed a drink and a cigar down in downtown SF. Despite the nasty San Francisco drizzle/rain, and despite the premiere of episode III, we had a good turnout, and a good time seemed to be had by all..

Back in the heyday, there was some sort of happy hour or party like every night… since 2005 is the new 1999 and all, who’s gonna bring back the happy hours?

I’ve posted photos at flickr, tagged “techdirt25k“…

This Saturday, May 21st, the Life Size Game of Mouse Trap will be shown here in San Francisco… Tickets are 5 bucks and there are three shows, running from 4pm till 9pm..

The life size mouse trap project is a proposed project for the BORG II for this year’s Burningman.. I found their description quite amusing:

The LIFE SIZE MOUSETRAP is a fantastically hand crafted, 16 piece 50,000-lb. interactive KINETIC SCULPTURE set atop a 6,500-square-foot, 2,000-lb GAME BOARD. This giant Rube Goldberg style contraption comes complete with a VAUDEVILLIAN style carnival show, original MUSICAL SCORE, CAN-CAN DANCERS, acrobatic HIJINKS, and other Spectacularly scripted SCENARIOS dedicated to the pursuit of spectacle laden fun!

Interesting.. current forecasts of a dennis burningman appearance this year are running around 30%, but if there are really going to be some cool art projects, that might just change…

So we lost yet another softball game last night 20-5 (albeit it was to the undeafeated team)… I think we’re improving though… There were no blow-out innings, they just consistently scored 5 runs each inning.. and after 4 innings, that’d be.. well, 20 runs. That makes our record.. um.. 0-6, I think.

Coach Kitts put me at right field this time.. It’s been years since I’ve played in the outfield, so my distance judgment is a bit (ok a lot) off.. I overran every fly ball, catching one of them with my bare hand (to prevent it from smacking me in the face). No golden glove for me, I guess.

Our baserunning was pretty spectacular — I think 3 outs were due to creative baserunning.

Maybe we need to get some red jerseys so we can start winning games.

This weekend was Bay to Breakers… and what a glorious weekend it was.. Unlike past years, I chose not to start at the start. Since I live only a few blocks from the course, instead of waking up ass early at 7am and heading downtown, I chose to sleep in a bit and join up with the race at Hayes and Gough. So.. all in all, it took me about 6 hours to complete about 1/2 of the course.. that’s about.. um.. 3 miles in 6 hours.. not bad, yah?

Well.. I woke up before 8am anyway, and since I was up already, I decided that I’d try and get down to the course to see the “elite” runners run by.. I got to the course at about 8:10am, and by then, they were already long gone, having completed the entire 7.5 mile run in like 34 minutes or something. Oh well. I did get to see quite a few people run by… I never realized just how many people 70,000 are, but I guess in years past since you’re moving with the crowd, you don’t realize how many people that is..

As we passed one of the icky green ponds in the park, Jablow and Rob were convinced that they were going to take a little swim. Connie tackled Jablow while he was untying his shoe, which made him land headfirst into the pavement. Ow. His head made a nice thud, and Connie’s goal of getting Jablow to NOT swim was a success. Rob, on the other hand, snuck over to the other side of the lake, and dove right in, headfirst. Unfortunately, the pond was like 1 foot deep. OUCH.

So.. yah.. it was a good day despite the 2 head wounds (they’re ok).

it’s no disco limo… but, if the dukes of hazzard had a limo.. this is what it would look like.. this best part is its license plate, which reads “REDNEXXX”. haha.

Man.. this year sure is flyin’ by quickly…

Last Friday was slope day at my alma mater, Cornell… Slope day is the huge party on the very last day of classes at Cornell. All of the students gather on libe slope and basically sit there and drink all day. In all of my years there it was a tolerated un-official event..

This year, they got Snoop Dogg. yah.. apparently now, slope day is all official and stuff, the whole slope is fenced off, and you need a ticket.. back in my day, you just showed up at the slope with your.. er.. water bottle.. and just sat there and contemplated the last day of classes.. while.. drinking from your water bottle. wheee.

Fo shizzle big red dizzle.

So.. I’m not usually THIS geeky, but Doug pointed me to this geourl service where you can add latitude and longitude information into the meta tags for your blog… But.. ok.. yah, I’m geeky.

Strangely, the MSN terraserver thinks that my house is 2 doors down from where I actually live. If you look at the picture, the red dot is NOT where I live.. My house is two houses to te left. The large construction site behind my building is now finished and is a bunch of new condos.

I’m at latitude 37.77854 and longitude -122.42398, and with this information, you can see my blog neighbors. What purpose does this really serve? I have no idea, but it sure is neato.

Here are Doug’s neighbors in San Diego..

There.. don’t you feel sufficiently geeked out for today?

It’s been an ongoing tradition to plan a trip whenever one of my friend’s turns 30, so this weekend was Korby’s birthday party in Vancouver… We all flew up to Seattle (since it was cheaper) and then drove up to Canada in a rented van. Kim made us all wear matching shirts.

Man, Vancouver is lovely. Clean city, cute girls, and cheap living — what more could you want? We saw a few places for sale in downtown Vancouver for like $250,000 CDN.. I think you can maybe buy a shoebox here in San Francisco for that. Crazy.

At the US-Canada border, Tom Kim chats with the border patrol:

“Hello.”
“Hello.”

“What was your purpose of your visit to Canada?”
“Uhhh… ummm.. Just looking around.”

“Hmm. So, what was your purpose?”
“Ummmm.. yah.. just looking around, you know.”

“Did you purchase anything in Canada?”
“Ummmm.. not really.”

“How do you know all of these people?”
“Ummm.. I don’t know.. I guess.. Ummm.. I used to work with him, I think.. and uhhh… I think they all went to college together”

“Please turn off your engine and open the door.”

Geez.. I mean, honestly… Tom Kim is the most suspicious innocent person I’ve ever met… “Not REALLY“?!?! Just looking around“?!?!? Haha.. man, maybe you “had to be there” but it was damn funny. Well, it was damn funny because we didn’t get cavity searched. That wouldn’t have been funny. Ok, maybe a little.

Anyway.. happy birthday Korby!

Clint sent this story over this afternoon.. 72 holes in 72 hours, describing what sounds like a fantastic golf trip in Oregon. Clint, Brad and I went up to Bandon Dunes last year, which was absolutely awesome.. Next on tap.. Ireland 2006 for the Ryder Cup. The current plan is to go up for a week (or maybe two) and make our way around Ireland playing the Irish courses, and they catching the Ryder Cup at the K club.

These Irish courses look amazing.

I’m on my way to Vancouver for the weekend to celebrate Korby’s 30th birthday.. see you guys Monday.

grrr..

So, my phone line and DSL have been down since yesterday morning.. I called SBC to ask them what the problem, and supposedly there was some sort of massive explosion somewhere, and lots of cables were cut. So.. they’re repairing the cable, pair-by-pair, and the estimated date that I’ll restore phone and DSL access is.. May 10th. I talked to the SBC guy and he said that it’s a major event, but as of now I see no articles mentioning anything about it at all..

Aaargh.

5 days?!?! That’s insane. I’ve not heard of an SBC outage lasting THAT long. Considering I work from home, this is going to be a big pain in the arse.

Luckily for me, I’ve found that the public library has free WiFi, and that’s just a few blocks away from my house. The library is nice, but I think I might seek out a cafe with free WiFi instead, since I’m getting hungry and thirsty.
Actually, I’m sitting right here near the CD library.. Ooo.. Maybe this is gonna work out just fine afterall…

But.. this means I can’t work until the wee hours of the morning.. and, I actually have to put on pants now.

I saw Her Space Holiday, Bright Eyes and The Faint last night here in San Francisco.. The show was at the Concourse at SF Design Center, which is this HUGE warehouse-like building.. It’s a magnificent space — for a convention or something.. NOT for a show. When you walk in, it feels like you’re in a huge airplane hangar or something. The acoustics were awful, the sightlines were atrocious, and oddly enough, for such a huge space, it was incredibly hot. The only good thing was that it was really easy to get a drink, albeit you had to stay in the “beer garden” areas off to the side of the stage. No drinks on the main floor, cuz that’s where all of the teenagers were hanging out, I suppose.

I really wanted to see HSH, but Phil (who had my ticket) arrived a little late, so I listened from outside whilst watching the ticket arbitrageurs (er.. scalpers) work in the rain. The show wasn’t sold out, so there were tons of people trying to sell their tickets.

The Faint put on a really good show — they play video behind them while they perform, and the video is sync’ed exactly to the songs they play.. it’s pretty cool. The Faint’s music is much more energetic than Bright Eyes, so when Bright Eyes came on, it was comparitively much more mellow.. And, Bright Eyes didn’t have as cool as videos as The Faint.. I mean, the bands share like half the members anyway.. that way, they’d build the energy up until the end…

So, some pics from the vegas bachelor party are finally posted… There’s not many pictures, since I conveniently forgot my camera (what happens in vegas stays in vegas, right?). 2 bachelors + 20 dudes + las vegas. (no, they’re not marrying each other, I know that’s what you’re thinking.) We did some “vegas stuff”, and we also went karting at the las vegas XPLEX. That was super fun. We started off in the smaller karts, that went about 40mph, and then moved up to the big sprint karts that went 60mph.. The track was cool, nice and fast with an assortment of wide turns, decreasing radius turns, chicanes, and one big straightaway. Two of the guys got into a little accident with the big karts and they made us pay for the damage. Oops.

The downtowners (my softball team I’ve joined in Alameda) suffered a heartbreaking defeat to.. um, some other team whose team I don’t know. I think the score was like 30-4 or something like that. Ouch. Since I doubt that we’ll be written up in the Alameda Journal this time, I’m sure a dennisyang.com writeup is almost as good..

Coach Kitts had a marvelous almost diving catch in the outfield.. he’s running for the ball, almost there, glove outstretched, he goes sliding across the grass… It was a Sportscenter moment (well, if he had made the catch, but it sure did *look* like he caught it.. i’m not quite sure what happened.. i still think he caught it).

We were just out-hit.. the other team was able to find the gaps regularly, particularly in short center. The ump was calling strikes and balls strangely.. Blue was encouraging the pitchers to pitch a lot higher than I’ve seen previous umps do.

I think we would do much better if we had jerseys, but after last night’s loss, I think the sponsors are all pulling out. When I was growing up, my little league teams were “Honey Girl Donuts” and “Fioritto Funeral Home” — that made for some interesting jerseys. Maybe I’ll give Fioritto a call, what could be more intimidating than a team sponsored by morticians…

So, I survived my second Wildflower Triathlon.. I’m pretty sore today. The weather was fantastic this year. Unlike last year’s 100 degree heat, this year was a pleasant 80 degrees or so.

I finished this year in 3:58:54 — almost 11 minutes slower than last year’s 3:48:04.. Well, consdering I trained much less than last year (I did NO running at all), I suppose that’s ok… I need to train more for the next one..

My splits for each year…

I knew it was going to be a long day when I put on my wetsuit.. I was struggling a bit to get into the suit, thinking to myself.. “crap.. have I really gotten that much fatter?” After about 1o minutes, I managed to get the wetsuit on, and I made my way down to the boat ramp, where everyone was milling about, waiting for the race to start. I looked around at all of the other competitors, nervous excitement filled the air..

I had my wetsuit half-on, as was the custom since it’s really hot in the wetsuit. I noticed how neat it was that when the wetsuit is half on, the logo of the wetsuit is printed on the inside of it, so that everyone can see what kind of wetsuit you’re wearing. I then looked down and thought to myself.. “hmm.. that’s weird, my logo is upside down.” — then it dawned upon me. I had put on my wetsuit on inside out. Oooooops. That’s why it was so hard to put on! Instead of the neopreney side next to my skin, the rubbery side was there… Argh! Well, at least I noticed before the race.. had I jumped into the water with my inside out wetsuit, who knows what would have happened.. ugh.

I was able to get my suit on properly before the start, luckily, but the problems didn’t stop there.. after the race started, I started to settle into the swim, when I realized I was having a lot of trouble breathing… Well, it turns out that I’ve added a few pounds since last year’s triathlon, so, maybe my wetsuit fits a lot tighter than it used to, making it sooo hard to breathe. I started freaking out and hyperventilating a bit, but after I flipped over and backstroked for awhile, I was able to calm down and start swimming again… ugh. not fun. I was able to paddle my way in around the 0.9 mile course.. somehow.

Thankful that I didn’t drown in the lake, I hopped onto the bike for my favorite portion of the tri (I must have been really eager since my swim-bike transition was the ONLY time this year that was better than last year).. the bike… Man, I really do love the bike part. You don’t really get to ride for 25 miles without stopping, except for in a race. The Wildflower bike portion is legendary for being hilly and grueling, but the good thing about riding UP a hill, as that you get to ride DOWN it later.. wee! This year, my top speed was 44.7 mph.. wahoo! That was super fun. Anyway, right around the turn-around for the out-and-back course, I really, really, really had to pee.. The way back is basically one long hill followed by a medium hill and then a huge hill… After the second hill, I just gave up and stopped and pee’d at the side of the road.. people kept riding by and joking that I was “lightening the load”.. haha.. i really did feel faster this year, although somehow, my time last year was faster..

And then.. the run.. Now, I haven’t trained running AT ALL this whole year, I’ve maybe run 3 miles in the past six months. Well.. it showed.. I speed-walked most of the “run” but somehow ended up with a time that wasn’t THAT much worse than last year.. strange.. Every time I tried to run, my legs would cramp up, so I just walked most of the way… The run course is 5 miles uphill and then 1 mile downhill.. Walking downhill kind of sucks more, so I ran that last mile all the way to the finish line…

And so.. I made it.. Mehul did very well with a 3:20 time, and Kristin beat me by a few minutes with a 3:55… next year.. maybe I’ll train a little harder, enough of this slacker training stuff..