.: What’s Bruin :.

Some really stupid spammers tried to get through last night. I read their auto-deleted comments and was truly amused by their opinion that Spam Karma is too restrictive. This is my blog and they feel that it is an “inconvenience” to users that they have to enter a Captcha code or that their “non-spam” comments were blocked, ass (pun intended) if I had to allow every comment ever submitted onto my blog. I’m amazed at how stupid people are. It’s somewhat funny, but actually kind of pitiful.

Tags: Humor, site_announcements, spam, stupid-people

This short post replaces a totally useless thread. There was no point to it because my opinion was the only relevant one! LOL. I mean, with names like Nimble Rabit and Flying Penguin, who can take them seriously anyways?

Tags: site_announcements, stupid-people

The whole summer long we would pass by the restaurant, Mr. Chick, thinking, “What kind of lame place is that?” It must just be chicken dishes.

Today, while Pourpa was borrowing the car for an interview, we met for lunch and decided to go to Mr. Chick. The place was Greek food! And judging from the customers coming in to order, it was a fairly popular and busy eatery during the lunch hour.

Walking in you are bombarded by menus, several menus in fact. That was the confusing part. The choices for eating can be overwhelming.

Mr. Chick is Greek

“Mr. Chick” (I don’t know his name) took our order. We both decided to get gyros and fries, plus I also got a Greek salad just to see if would even come close to being as good as Josephine’s salad. I must say that the salad did actually taste “Greek,” unlike the watered-down Oscar’s salad. However, no Greek salad will ever be as good as Josephine’s. “Mr. Chick” is a friendly guy, very outgoing. Maybe that’s what typical Greeks are like when they talk to “foreigners.”

I’d be willing to bet “Mr. Chick’s”
real name is Nick

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Tags: Food, general_stuff, Life, Pourpa

My pages are Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional as of a week or so ago. But what’s strange is that at home, sometimes it validates, but most of the time it doesn’t (save for one “error”). I think there is something weird going on with my ISP, but at least to the outside world, this site contains valid XHTML. Wow. I never thought I could do it.

My stylesheet is almost valid, except for the curved text boxes that appear in Firefox/Mozilla.

Tags: site_announcements, valid-XHTML, web_design

So I have to order a cap and gown for my upcoming graduation in May. I think this is what I will be wearing. Then there are all these cool accessories like this hood. So I have to order on Monday because the bookstore is closed for spring break.

Master’s Regalia

But what’s really corny are the cap and gowns for the doctoral candidates. They look like jesters or clowns, especially the caps (Link: look at the doctorate picture on the right). Wow. You’d think after all the years of going to school and all the money you spend getting a Ph.D. that at least you would look distinguished instead of comical.

Ph.D. Clowns

Tags: commencement, CSUSM, education_and_training, MBA

From April 10 through April 14 I’ll be at Pensacola NAS in Florida again to observe the pilot of the curriculum I wrote for the satellite communications device. It should be fun again, as well as a great break away from flying the desk.

I like business travel. You get paid to travel, plus the per diem rates for hotel and food. It’s a sweet deal. Last time, I made an additional $200 from the trip. I’ll probably make the same for this one since it’s five days as well.

For this trip and the trip to Greece, I bought a pair of Sennheiser PXC 250 noise canceling headphones from costco.com. So I will get to hear if the noise canceling really works with my iPod Photo.

Also, I just realized that I fly through Houston. Maybe I’ll run into Andy Roddick at the airport. He lives in Houston.

Tags: Career, Greece, iPod, Travels

More fluctuations in weight after 2 hours of tennis. I don’t think so. The new scale is going back to Costco today. I ordered an electronic one with body fat analyzer from Costco.com.

Tags: Health, weight

You know, you can find all kinds of things on the Internet. Here’s the screenshot for proof.

Chip, Richie, Matt, Andy, and Sean say this guy is soooo good with a joystick. Chip says “Dude, I experienced IT at the last LAN party.”

Tags: Humor, stupid-people

With some encouragement from Andrew Phelps, I decided to participate in a worthy cause, helping to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to help fellow UCLA alum and valedictorian, Sean Voisen. Sean is running a marathon in June to help raise this money and he needs sponsors like you and me to reach his goal of $1,500. I hope he exceeds it. Part of his efforts include giving away a 512 MB iPod Shuffle. You get one raffle ticket for each $1 you donate.

Sean’s story is inspiring. As a cancer survivor himself, he lives (and writes) with a new appreciation for life:

It’s now been well over two years since my leukemia diagnosis. Though a mere blink of an eye in the infinite expanse of time, so much growth and change has happened for me in the past two years that it’s hard to believe it has only been two.

Not only have I graduated from UCLA, moved to Colorado, returned from Colorado, helped my father start his consulting business and completed four (4!) separate 100-mile bicycle rides to help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, but more importantly, I’ve started to learn the importance of what it means to live each day to the fullest. That’s why, contrary to what may seem the norm, I’m actually grateful for the opportunities that dealing with cancer has given me, and I couldn’t imagine life without it. It has been my great awakening – the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

And so, though each day may be a joyous struggle, I continue to try to do what I can to give back for so much that has been given to me. That’s why I’m writing you this letter.

http://voisen.org

Help support this cause. Donate today @ voisen.org/donate.

Tags: Announcements, cancer, Health, leukemia, UCLA

I’m kinda mad at the scale right now. Granted it is a new one, so I guess there are some fluctuations between scales. But 5 pounds! C’mon, can there be that much difference? Anyways, I’m playing tennis this week and going to the gym while Pourpa’s home for Spring Break.

Sunrider Weight Loss Tracking: Week 7

Tags: Health, Pourpa, Sunrider, Tennis, weight

I recently received approval to display Google Ads on this site. I find them to be kind of interesting since they are targeted to the material you read. So do some exploring and click through some of the links. Right now, I’m working on getting them to appear properly, so hopefully you will should see the ads soon.

Tags: Adsense, Google, site_announcements

Using the $10 gift certificate I won from Eliot, I ordered:

Tags: Amazon, Announcements

Happy Easter everyone!

There won’t be new hatchlings this spring at our house. I cleared out the doves’ nest, which has been situated on a little ledge outside in our backyard– a pesky nuisance for the last two years. It is finally gone. No more bird poop. No more mess.

Instead we have a wonderful miniature angel protecting us from those sex-crazed doves.

Flaming cherubim guarding the patio from nesting doves

Tags: Announcements, Easter, Humor

Pourpa and I decided to go to the Apple store today. Actually, I really wanted to because I wanted to get my new 30 GB iPod Photo. The last time we tried to go to Fashion Valley to get to the iPod store was during President’s Weekend and there were so many people we couldn’t even make it to the parking lot. Today was much better, not much traffic, but there were still a lot of people shopping. So it took about 20 minutes just to find a parking space.

During the course of our parking space search, we saw this weird guy standing at the edge of a curb in the upper parking lot looking at cars as they drove by. He looked like he was trying to cross the “street” to get to the mall, but was too scared to do so. He kinda looks like a guy named Elias: big, fat, and definitely weird.

Elias: “Dude, where are my
boyfriends, Chip and Richie?”

After the little adventure in parking, we finally found the Apple Store. Apple Stores, as you know, are very cool.

Apple Stores are cool

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Tags: Apple, geek_stuff, Music, stupid-people

You gotta love Costco. I brought in my iPod, two flash drives, and a scale; I only had a receipt for the iPod. Got my money back on everything, even though the drives and scale were several years old.

I’m gonna get a new 30GB iPod Photo today since the prices went down. They gave me $49 each for the two 256 MB flash drives, but I went back into the store and got two of the latest 512 MB drives for $44 each. And got a newer scale that matches the bedroom colors.

I received some hassle at the return desk because the items were old and no receipt, but you know what: “lifetime guarantee” MEANS lifetime guarantee.

BTW the reason I told them for returning the iPod was that “I just didn’t like it.” Sweet.

Tags: Costco, general_stuff, Life