dennis yang dot com

So, I decided not to go to Tahoe for the Thanksgiving weekend, on account of there not being enough snow to warrant an early snowboard trip.. After gorging myself on bbq’d turkey at Yangsgiving 3 (pictures forthcoming), I decided to go on a bike ride with my friend Chad, who suggested we ride up to Point Reyes Station..

So yah.. I didn’t really think much about the ride beforehand — he did mention that it would be a 80 mile ride, roundtrip, and after some quick (faulty) math in my head, I figured that I’d done in about three hours or so.. Uh.. oops. That would be wrong math. Like doubly wrong.

The ride turned out to take a little over six hours, and yah, 80 miles is a long way on a bicycle. I was exhausted afterwards, but happy that my ankle held up through the whole thing (it started getting sore somewhere around the first 10 minutes of the ride.. uh oh… but then the soreness went away after I got warmed up.. I guess that’s good, right?).. According to my cyclocomputer, I rode 84.41 miles, which is my longest ride to date. my previous best was the Pigeon Point ride, where I rode 47 miles. Wahoo! Biking is so fun. My goal of biking a century shan’t be far away, methinks..

Saturday was Eileen’s birthday, which she celebrated at El Rio… A karaoke band, the Amazing Embarrassonics, were there… so, people got to get up on stage and sing karaoke… They were pretty good musicians, and were able to cope with the varying degrees of karaoke skill..

Andy did a great job conjuring up Johnny Cash with his rendition of “Ring of Fire”..

I was on the schedule to sing some Neil Diamond.. but, right as I was about to go up.. they announced… “Oh.. We’re done for the night.. See you in February!” Hmm. That’s not cool.

Ben had a fun portrait day at his house, and he took this fabulous picture of Bailey..

Woo.. I voted today. Pretty exciting stuff.. I’m trying to keep my streak alive since I haven’t missed a November election yet. Looks like the dems are taking control of the house, and Arnie is now a two-terminator (as coined by sfgate).. I actually was mulling over prop 87 for a bit — yes, Clinton and Gore both were behind the proposition, but I’m wasn’t sure that it was the best way to go about pushing for alternative fuels… but, in the end, I decided to vote for it. But, it looks like it might not pass. Hmm. Oh well.

Anyway… since I’m on the subject of voting, I might as well share some vote-y linkage..

• Freaknomics on the irrationality of the vote [thanks doug]
• CNN’s roomful of bloggers [thanks penelope, who says that voters make better employees]
• Sonicliving’s I Voted Contest

And look.. Willo, Ali, Brian voted too!

Well.. I just got back from San Diego… The drive down there wasn’t that bad, but the drive back was a bitch and a half. I had to navigate around two accidents in the LA area, so it took me like 5 hours to get to the grapevine from San Diego. Double Yuck.

So, the trip down to San Diego was awesome… weather was gorgeous, 85 degrees and sunny all weekend.. There’s apparently a huge number of Browns fans down in Southern California (including someone with this crazy Mustang), and we sat in a block of about 2,000 Browns fans. Of course, the visitors section was waaaaaay up in the nosebleed seats, but still, it was fun to be in a big block of Ohioans.. We even dressed up Doug in some Browns gear, although he spent much of the game pondering how seemingly normal people could get dressed up in various goofy outfits, bark loudly, and hurl epithets at people simply because they were rooting for another team (whose allegiance simply was based upon geographical location).

The Chargers were supposed to be a much, much better team than the Browns, the fact that we were winning at the half was pretty cool. The Browns lost, but they covered the spread (12.5 points) against the Chargers, so I guess that’s something. The offensive line didn’t really seem to protect Charlie that much from the Chargers pass rush, but I probably don’t really know what I’m talking about anyway, so I’ll just stop now — mistake by the lake does a much better writeup of the game, so if you’re so inclined, you should go read their recap (and I like that the Browns are 9-0 in their moral standings)…

After the game, we all went over to Canes for the Regina Spektor show… as expected, she played a marvelous show, although there seemed to be an excruciatingly long time in between the opening act’s set and Regina’s set.. The opening act was just one dude, his guitar and his “band” (an iPod), so it’s not like they had to break down anything, so I don’t know why it took 45 minutes for her to come out and play for us. I must be getting old, cuz my knees ached after that show, and it even a very dancey show.

Anyway, thanks to Doug and Laura for being gracious hosts.. Go Browns!

Well.. I’m leaving in a few minutes, driving down to San Diego in a few minutes. I’m heading down to visit Doug & Laura and to catch the Browns vs. Chargers game on Sunday. And as luck would have it, Regina Spektor is also playing a show there that night — I tried to go see her last weekend at the Fillmore, but her show was sold out and tickets were going for $100 a piece… Doug was able to just wander over to the venue last week and pick us up all some tickets for $12.50. Apparently, shows that do well in San Francisco don’t do so well in San Diego, and vice versa. Hmmmm… that’s a good thing to keep in mind for future shows.

I wonder if there are any other SF people travelling down for the Browns and Regina…

So, my friend Doug had a lovely chat with the lovely folks over at uncommongoods.com.. Gotta love those online store chatty things..

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Chat Information
Please wait for a site operator to respond.
Chat Information
You are now chatting with ‘Marc’

Marc: Thank you for shopping at UncommonGoods. How may I help you?
you: Chopsticks. I need chopsticks.
you: watchoo got?
Marc: I’m sorry, we do have items that include chopsticks, but we do
not have chopsticks by themselves
you: Eenteresting.
you: how about angora sweaters?
Marc: We do not have any adult clothing except for some slippers and a t-shirt.
you: Hmmm…
you: How about keyboard software?
Marc: We have no software
you: Or a topper for a Christmas tree.
you: You know, like an angel, a star, or sweet baby Jesus.
you: That lights up.
Marc: We have this item:
Marc: http://www.uncommongoods.com/item/item.jsp?itemId=14107
you: Right idea, but GACK is that thing ugly.
you: You do sell moose measuring spoons, though.
you: in pewter.
Marc: Yup, we have those!
you: Ok. Thank you!
Marc: You’re welcome.
Marc: Is there anything else I may assist you with?
you: Nothing comes to mind, but now that I know you’re here, you’re only a button click away.
Marc: I’ll be here!
you: muchas gracias, amigo.
Marc: De Nada. Bueno Noches.