I, Olympian So I spent today in Colorado Springs at The United States Olympic Training Facility. To my surprise, the trip was rather fun. I really don't like the way the U.S. handles the Olympics and I despise that many American professional athletes participate in the event (especially jerks like Andy Roddick not wanting to stay in the Olympic Village), but it was really nice meeting the younger athletes. They have a certain purity about their quest for the gold and their enthusiasm was awesome to be around. Anyway, here are some tidbits from the trip and my travels as of late. - I wore a 2004 Canadian Olympics Team shirt. I thought it was really rather funny to sport it at the U.S. Training Facility, but nobody else found it as humorous as I did. - We got to fire air rifles. I've discovered that I'm the worst shot ever. There are three reasons for this. 1) Guns just make me nervous. 2) I'd get too impatient while aiming and just fire to get it over with. 3) I'm really much better with swords. - Female gymnasts are really hot. - Olympians and prospectives get to dine at the second-best cafeteria I've ever been to (next to the one at Matt J's old law firm). - Once again, I defied the weatherman. It was supposed to be thunderstormtastic, but it was gorgeous and sunny. - Spending an hour on the Stairmaster in high altitude is tiring. I'm not sure why I forgot this would happen since I was in high altitude not too long ago. - I'm in a pretty relaxed mood considering I've been on five airplanes in the last three days. - I'm starting to fall into that zone where I'm much more comfortable on the road than at home. It feels more natural sleeping in a hotel (which is surprising considering how lovely my bed is). My mind is more at ease when I'm in some other city. "I wonder what you're running from now?" asked the Raymond.

Binary Time! Good: Making the weatherman look foolish by enjoying a brilliantly gorgeous weekend when he forecasted rain and clouds. Bad: Getting brilliantly gorgeous weather when you were secretly hoping rain and clouds would sabotage a potential...uhm...thing. Good: Yummy mummies. Good: Sangria. Good: Having fun and learning new things while secretly plotting to show people how ridiculous (part of) their idea is. Good: Pretty Japanese maples. Bad: Pretty Japanese maples that have large vents attached to them. Bad: Looking for something you swore was there and turning around just before it because of an eensy bit of doubt. Good: Having the ultimate companion when you're aimlessly wandering. Good: Multi-mile walks by the beach. Good: Gaining a better understanding of yourself and important bonds. Bad: Still feeling purposeless. Bad: Women that try to emasculate you by eating their food and drinking their coffee faster then you ever imagined they were capable of. Good: Greatly enjoying the company of said food & beverage vacuum.

"No Man is an Island" Those are the immortal words of Jon Bon Jovi. I can buy that no man is an island...but I take serious issue with islands that are not islands. Fashion Island in Newport Beach--not an island. Island's (the hamburger chain)--also not an island. Recently I was at another non-island island. It's actually a peninsula. It's distressing that this peninsula has been deemed an island. That's just lying to the people.

Bloggery and Semantics Before I get to today's rant, here are the pics from last Saturday's karaoke. I've felt weird about blogging lately. Random people have been saying things like, "Yeah, I read that in your blog," and I find it disconcerting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know anyone can find it if they really want to and part of the reason it's here is to help people I don't talk to all the time keep track of me (I love/miss you cousin Mae!). It's just weird to have people that scarcely know me read my silly thoughts. Over the last few months there have been more and more personal and professional things that I can't write about. When you add that to the random readers, blogging as a form of self therapy isn't what it used to be. Xtina was chiding me for not using Movable Type to blog. She says she wants to leave comments and stuff. It's a bit hypocritical since I'm fond of leaving comments on other people's Live Journals, but I don't want anyone else typing on my blog. It's my stage and I don't want to share the spotlight. To steal the immortal words of Chris Jericho, "It's my show ass clown." Heh. The last two graphs illustrate how I simultaneously adore and abhore attention. Perhaps Katherine is right. I'm just silly. Lastly, I want to address two things that Little Miss Know-it-All has been razzing me about. Firstly, a person that helps you find extracurricular work is not an agent. Second of all, questions require interrogative statements used to test knowledge. Never mind that I stole that second bit from Airplane! It's true. Now excuse me as I get ready to run off to my happy place.

BTW Doing morning radio shows while nursing an enormous headache is not easy.

Phone Phun Last night I had a fairly extravagant dinner and an excessive amount of wine (+1 vodka, +1 port). I don't really remember the last time I had a fancy dinner with all the trimmings, but it made think of Gertrude (my old boss at Ziff who was quite the gastronome). It was a rather lovely way to celebrate Xian's birthday and to give myself a little reward for beating myself up at the gym. As for the wine, it's been nearly a month since I had a drink...and boy did it show. There are lots of details that I probably shouldn't share, but it went something like this: - I made 15 drunk dials. I think it's a new personal record. I remember calling Shane twice to tell him how much I hate his cat and how Will's cat is by far the superior feline. - My neuroses kicked up a whole new level while I was sauced. - I wrote a not-so-nice message on our whiteboard. - Sprint text messaged me the next morning to tell me that my (free) phone will be turned off on 6/30. I knew I shouldn't have made that call to China. - Carlos and I figured it out. My phone should have a breathalyzer so that I can't use it after two drinks. I forgot how much I really enjoy wine. Next time I'll ask Ryan to leave an XL1 out to preserve my drunkenness and put it in a time capsule so that future generations may benefit from my silliness.

Time Flying First off, big ups to Kat Hunter. You rule! Thanks muchly. The weekend totally flew by. There was boxing (X3), a brief party drop-in, karaoke, and a movie. It was all rather pleasant. It's just that...I guess I don't feel like I've been away from the office long enough. I suppose that's what happens when I'm actually in the office for more than three consecutive days. Boxing has been fun. I'm amazed that I haven't hurt myself yet, though I swear I'm an uppercut away from doing something snap-crackle-poppy to my wrist and going on disability. My right still sucks, but it's slowly getting better. Saturday I popped by Will's party for a bit. His apartment is darling (clearly his wife's doing) and he has the cutest cat ever. It's way cooler than that piece of crap Asuka. I'm seriously contemplating getting a t-shirt that says "Asuka Sucks" or "I Hate Asuka." Perhaps I should get both. Anyway, it was karaoke until 3:00 in J-town (which is nothing like O-town). It was mostly cool. There were some lamers there picking music that wasn't cool nor crappy enough to be fun. And some chick I didn't know drank half the vodka I brought--I would have preferred Petey drinking half of it. I'll have pics later. After a lovely Sunday on The Hill (boxing/Klein's/Farley's), I saw Napoleon Dynamite. It was funny and enjoyably ridiculous, but there was something missing from it that I couldn't put my finger on at the time. I think it's that I like movies to A) tug on my easily pullable emotional strings, B) help my get lost in my abundance of silly thoughts, or C) be so vapid that it's delectable. While I enjoyed the movie, it didn't do any of those three things for me. That said, I had fun and the company was rather wonderful.

Korean Hookers So I made Rannie box on Wednesday night. She was a little sick and got winded after a bit, but I think she had fun. Her right hook seems like it will develop into her best punch. Ergo her ring name should be "The Korean Hooker." Tee-hee. Yesterday there were all kinds of events that kept me out of the office. It's been a while since my last press event, so I rather enjoyed the gatherings. My non-drinking thing hasn't made them any less fun, but I think I'll get really bored with sober events in the near future. I'm still debating whether I should run away or not this weekend. I have 12 hours to decide.

Internet Explorer... ...is for suckers, much like shoelaces.

Championship Rounds Justin and I had a pretty nice workout. Since I wasn't lifting and he was there to motivate me, we went 12 rounds instead of my usual ten. For the uninitiated, 12 rounds is what they fight for championships these days. In the old days, when men were men (or really, before television imposed its will on boxing) championship fights were 15 rounds. Anyway, we spent eight rounds alternating between the heavy bags, double ended bags, and the duck rope. Then we went four rounds in the ring for some target punching. Moving around the ring for three minutes is hard. Punching for three minutes is hard. Combining the two is really difficult. It was lots of fun though and we didn't hurt each other--bonus! Tuesday was pretty boss in general. I went to a cool industry mixer at The Metreon. I wasn't feeling like "secretive girl" (think The Fairways) so I was able to chat with lots of people without ridiculously neurotic thoughts bouncing in my head...well, less ridiculously neurotic thoughts were bouncing around than usual. Plus, my beloved Detroit Pistons vanquished the Lakers!!! I'm so jazzed at the team Joe D (my favorite player ever) has assembled. Lunch was even interesting, with an unplanned trip to beautiful, blissful Millbrae and a surprise visitor. On a weird note, I really need one of my hippie friends to gauge my vibe. Lately I've been getting some curious reactions and I'm starting to wonder if it's because I'm not nearly as miserable as I was during that Sandra phase. In some ways it's amusing. In other ways it could lead to some minor annoyances. I'll need to give this some thought and really get an outside opinion. I mean, I know I've been happier the last several months and since I've started training again I feel even cooler. I'm just wondering what kind of energy I give off now. A-ha! Glenda will know. Must. See. Her. Soon.

Swiffering I totally spazzed out when the cable guy was in my room yesterday. Every time his shoes touched my floor I winced. I almost passed out when he touched my bed. So as I was watching Raw I tidied up as much as I could. It was a lovely night of Shark sweeping and Swiffer mopping. Now that my TV and consoles are (nearly) set up, there's no reason I can't unpack the rest of my things. Oh, here are some pics from Shane's party.

Raymond II Last Friday I made my triumphant return to World Gym. I lifted weights for a bit, did some crunches, and went ten rounds. It was cool going back to where I used to box. What I've discovered is that my left hook is still okay, my jab is still pretty decent, my uppercuts are mediocre, and my right has gone from average to crap. I'll work on things though and see what happens. It was just really nice to be boxing again. After the gym, I made a totally cool midnight entrance at Shane's party. It was pretty fun, thought it was odd--though interestingly entertaining--sipping diet cokes as other people were totally hammered. The scariest part of the evening was listening to Gifford butcher multiple Beatles' songs. Saturday I tanned on our porch for an hour. Then Xian, Jarik, Monica, and I went out for some Filipino food. Then I took a long nap because I was sore from boxing. To cap it all off, I made another spectacularly late arrival (11:00PM) to a friend's bachelor party. Like most bachelor parties, this one got...interesting. The late arrivals are pretty necessary these days. If I hadn't arrived late for both parties, there's no way in Hades I would have been able to stay out as long as I did. Getting back well past 4:00AM isn't in these bones anymore...unless I start past 11:00PM! My productivity continued on Sunday...after 90 minutes of tanning, that is. Xian, Ryan, and I went to Ikea. I bought a stand for my beautiful 46-inch Samsung DLP. I watched the Pistons smack the Lakers around again (tee-hee) while I put together the TV stand and my Herman Miller Mirra. Finally, I spent the rest of the night setting up my consoles and other electronics. And today I'm working from home so I can instruct the cable guy on where to put my HD cable box (it's going to be cool). I think I'll attempt ten more round later this afternoon.

Jeff Vader So my old college buddy, current business colleague, and forever friend (that I'll always think of prancing around the dorm in a white terry cloth Ralph Lauren robe that was too big for him) is not accepting his new nickname. Eddie Izzard inspired me to start calling him "Jeff Vader" and he is...resisting his new moniker. Perhaps I should explain to him why it's funny, but it's funnier to me if he doesn't know why. Oh well. In other news, a bunch of press events have popped up. And here I thought I'd be free of them until August. Most of the stuff is local, but there are events in Los Angeles and Colorado Springs too. I wish publishers would have their events in Hawaii again. Oh well, at least there's Cabo. So what was I saying...oh yeah, I really didn't want to put on the press-junket face for several more weeks. It takes a lot of energy to be this charming. "Oh, it's true." On a totally non-related note, June is apparently television month. I should have a rather beautiful DLP coming in the next week and a DLP projector coming at the end of the month. I'm thinking of getting an 80-inch screen to accompany the projector. Playing Soul Calibur on that will be awesome. It's as if I was controlling a real person.

My Kingdom for a Desk I'm computing from my freshly made Sauder desk. Since I'm trying to be as anti-Ikea as possible, this was a good cheap alternative. The only downer is that it wasn't nearly as easy to put together as Ikea stuff. It wasn't hard though, just mildly annoying. Save for a small part of the drawer that I smacked in frustration (well, irritation really), it's put together rather nicely. With a dab of wood glue, it will be perfect. I think I'll leave all the part labels on as badges of honor. So that's a desk, a bed, a book shelf, a vanity table, and a dresser that I assembled myself. I think I'll start a show called This Old Modular Furniture.

What I've Learned... ...friends that suddenly hook up with coworkers and run away to Mexico are amusing. ...kittens make funny noises when you squirt water down their back. ...shopping is still one of my favorite forms of therapy. ...soaking in hot tubs is also up there. ...and that's followed closely by tanning. ...I need to practice Scrabble. ...I never knew Ronald Reagan was so beloved. What happened to the evil that men do living after them? ...there were some E3 pictures of Raina I forgot to post.

Save Me! I just got back from seeing Saved! with Xian and Rannie. It's the most wonderful movie I've seen since Lost in Translation. Save for three minutes of over hokeyness, it was perfect for me. It had heady intelligence, romantic sap, and delicious irony. There are many things that make me laugh, but I genuinely found this movie to be funny. The play on zealous religious beliefs was delectable. And I'm always a sucker for sappy romantic stuff (stares at the two victims he dragged to Sweet Home Alabama). Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, and Macauley Culkin were great, but I'm totally in love with Eva Amurri and was smitten with her performance. I remember seeing her in an episode of Friends and thinking, "How you doin'?" It was cool to see her in a wonderful move. See it! It rules.

Tri-Symmetry As I alluded to in my last post, there was a reason I needed to be in The OC this past weekend. More specifically, I needed to be leaving The OC on June 1. You see, I left New York for San Francisco on June 1, 2000. I left San Francisco for The OC on June 1, 2002. So it seemed appropriate that I enjoyed one last weekend in the sun and leave on June 1, 2004. The weather was absolutely brilliant. Every day was sunny and warm. I made excellent use of the pools and hot tubs. One side effect (I'm still deciding if it's unfortunate or not) is that my racoon tan has returned. I wish this cold would go away already. It was pretty much the only downer of a rather relaxing weekend. Well, symmetry has been achieved and my world makes a little more sense. Yay me!