dennis yang dot com

The first day that I got here to San Francisco, I was strolling around downtown San Francisco when I stumbled on a huge gathering of bicyclists at Justin Hermann plaza.. Critical Mass.. Well, it’s been eight years now and I still have never ridden in one, until yesterday.. I met up with Max and his awesome bike that he just finished at Justin Hermann (along with a few hundred other cyclists).

On account of the San Francisco-y weather, kind of drizzly and cold (typical for late January, I’d say), the mass wasn’t nearly as large as I’ve seen in the summer, but there was still a good turnout.. The ride left around 6:30pm, and we went up Market street, past City Hall and up Van Ness. Yes, traffic was snarled for blocks all around, much to the dismay of many irate drivers. Pedestrians were allowed to pass through the mass, and throes of onlookers, most with smiles on their faces, cheered us on from the sidewalks.

Critical mass isn’t really an organized event.. it’s an “unorganized coincidence” of bicyclists, so it was kind of cool to ride in the whole thing, not really knowing where it was going.. Since the group went right by my house, I just dropped out of it there, but from what I hear, riders went all the way up Russian hill amongst other places.

Anyway, it was a safe ride with no real hassles or arrests as far as I could tell.. although I hear the New York ride had some trouble.. eek.

interesting..

http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen

[from doug]

it’s 8am.. the phone rings…

me: “Hello?”
telemarketer: “Hi, I would like to speak with Dennis Yang.”
me: “Yup, that’s me.”
telemarketer: “Would you be interested in getting more traffic to your website?”
me: “Um, which website would that be?”
telemarketer: “Um… dennisyang.com?”
me: “Have you been to dennisyang.com?”
telemarketer: “Uh… (typing sounds)… yah.”
me: “And what do you see?”
telemarketer: “You.. got…a puppy?”
me: “Yup.”
telemarketer: “Would you be interested in getting more traffic to your website?”
me: “Um, sure, but I don’t think I’d be interested in paying anything for more traffic.”
telemarketer: “Oh. ok.”

Hmm.. ok, once written up, it doesn’t seem as ridiculous as I thought it was.. but I get telemarketer calls for dennisyang.com every once in awhile, and it just makes me laugh. Hehe.

So the first week with the puppy has been good so far… She’s taken nicely to her crate, and sleeps through the night without any trouble.. The housebreaking is going pretty well, I think we’re batting around .500 right now, which isn’t bad I think.. I’m getting better at reading the signs of when she has to go out, and this morning, she even batted at the door to be let out.. woohoo.. go bailey.. Oh yah, that’s the name we’re kind of going with right now.. Bailey. She looks like a Bailey, I think..

Barney (Pang and Ben’s boston terrier) came over Monday night and the two of them had a grand ol’ time running all around the house. For a little 9 pound puppy, Bailey doesn’t seem to show any fear of a dog that’s almost twice her size, and she and Barney had some athletic chasing and playin.. I think they’ll be good friends.

Anyway.. check out some of these pics.. she’s excessively cute.

Oh.. and she snores.

we got a puppy today! she’s a boston terrier, and we haven’t given her a name yet, but she’s sooo awesome. wahoo! so if you have any sugestions for names, send em over…

Woohoo.. another blog meme wagon to jump on.. Willo put together a list of cities that she visited in 2005 (cities in which you’ve spent at least one night).. I guess this meme was really kicked into high gear by Kottke last week.. hmm… 7 days to reach me, that’s a little slow.. oh well.. here’s my year in cities.. It was quite a travel-y year, it seems.

In rough chronological order… Entries with *’s were visited multiple times…

Beijing, China
Shanghai, China
Hangzhou, China
Hong Kong, China
San Francisco, CA *
Hillsborough, CA *
On a ship between Miami, FL and the Bahamas
Chelmsford, MA
Providence, RI
Hanover, NH
New York, NY *
Las Vegas, NV *
Stateline, NV
San Luis Obispo, CA
San Diego, CA
Tucson, AZ
Van Horn, TX
Austin, TX
Sulphur, LA
New Orleans, LA
Hot Springs, AR
Guymon, OK
Vancouver, BC Canada
Hatch, UT
West Yellowstone, MT
Cody, WY
Salt Lake City, UT
Twin Falls, ID
South Lake Tahoe, NV

Wow.. that’s a lot, but I guess I did a lot of travelling last year.. new years in China, and then 2 roadtrips, plus the multiple birthday trips.. woo! This year has started off with New York, Hoboken, and San Francisco already, so already I’m on my way to another banner travel year..

Remember when MTV used to play music videos? Man, those days were the best, I especially miss walking up to the TV to change channel with that little slider box thing. Remember that? It was like a little plastic thinger and it would zip to the left and the right so that you could change channels. We didn’t have cable when I was a kid, but I do remember the kids down the street had that thing, and I remember it being da bomb. I mean, music videos on TV, that was a good idea, I don’t know why nobody does that anymore. I mean, even M2 is starting to play shows and stuff now.. grr.

Anyway, check out the Top 50 Music Videos of 2005… but, Willo got it right when she called this video the best one ever.

Good times. Good times.

Though the week has been peppered with nasty not-so-nice weather, New York has delivered a fantastic experience in every other aspect of the trip.. Actually, the occasional bouts of freezing rain have kept the whole city blanketed in that damp movie set like quality, so maybe that’s a good thing.. So it was quite the accidental reunion here in New York for a whole bunch of my friends — somehow, like 20 of my friends from San Francisco ended up here for the new year.. good times..

So, for new years, I first headed over to Kevin’s for a little party with Eric and his friends.. They made a bunch of tasty food, but I had to leave before they got the the fondue… Damn, missed to boiling cheese-fest. Like I mentioned before, a bunch of us headed down to the Falls in Soho for the evening, so I had to join up with them (especially since I paid the $90 for the open bar, and I had to get my money’s worth).. The Falls was packed by the time I got there. Although from what I hear, it was packed at 8:55 since the open bar started at 9pm, I guess everyone wanted to get as much drinking in as possible.

As for shenanigans… as any evening with an open bar promises, there were plenty… Granted, Andy and Meredith left at about 11:50pm and celebrated the New Year on the PATH, but as for the rest of us, I’m pretty sure we got our fill of the open bar.. So yah.. there were a lot of shenanigans that I won’t get into, but at least one has made it onto the glorious Internet. And the others are probably best left in our collective foggy memories happily ringing in the new year…