Matt and I discovered Skype last night. VOIP rules. It’s like talking to someone but at 50kps quality…much better than telephone. Calling land lines from your phone is ridiculously cheap too…I can be anywhere in the world, and call someone in the US for 2.4 cents per minute. I’m going to use it to call home from China and Vietnam.

Another interesting feature: you can search for people by name, country, etc and whether they are accepting calls. Seeing as how China is neigh, I decided to search China for skype users. With a bit of daring, and egging on by Matt, I called someone named “Jenny” in Shijiazhuang, China… and what do ya know…. I’m talking to some random woman in China. Fortunately she was an English teacher at a University, so we could actually converse. We talked about our lives and a bit about US v. the world politics. Quite an experience.

On the home front, it sucks to find out that you have a corneal ulcer (very small yet very irritating eye infection) 1 week before you leave for China. Also sucks to find out that your prescription eyewear won’t be covered under insurance. Had 2 cavities filled too…it’s unpleasant in a satisfying way, perhaps satisfying knowing that my teeth now kick ass. Dr. Thompson is the shit. TVs in every room, can’t ask for more.. If you have Delta, he’s the best in SB.

Craigslist…is great. Within 45 minutes of listing my coffee table, I had it out the door and $20 in hand.

Baller Chair of mine for sale on Craigs.

With the coupon below, you can get 1 free grande iced drink from starbucks (iced coffee, iced americano, maybe a frap…). Good from noon to 9pm, tell the cashier to use register code 113 (in the small print at the bottom). The coupons were sent out in promotional emails. If they give you guff, you could probably say that you got the email, and just printed the coupon. It’s been verified by calling customer service and through actual use, but when starbucks realizes how quickly information, esp of the free sort spreads through the tubes of the internet, they’ll probably rescind it. But for now…free Starbucks!!!!

Legeit coupon good through Sep 30, just save as and and print!

Long time friend David (like kindergarten) visited. Always good times. Did hanging, some projector watching, some hiking, meat marketing, phoing and some giving away/babysitting of household good, as I’m moving out in less than a week.

So, 1 more week of class, sell all worldly possesions, except what can fit in my car, clean apartment like nadie’s business, then move out and drive home. 2 days later, off to Korea, China, Vietnam.

For 5 minutes a day, the sun shines directly through the peephole and projects a rainbow on the far wall.

Spent the weekend in SD with David and Jake. Amtrak is acutally cheaper than driving my car down to SD. At first Amtrak seems like a great alternative to driving or flying. You get what is infinite amounts of leg room, a power outlet and view of the California coast all the way down. You watch some 24 or some Office, listen to music, nap and catch up on some reading. But then the train fills up, and it’s standing room only. There are people breathing on you. Your only consolation is the cute Vietnamese girl sitting next to you. Then the train gets progressively farther behind schedule. Then the already bitter and abrasive conductors announce that the train in front of us hit a car that was parked on the tracks, which will delay us even more. They announce every time the train pulls off the main track to let a freight or other amtrak train to pass, roughly 20 times. Then you arrive at your destination, and all you hear is people complaining. So why does Amtrak suck so much?

Today was the first day of orientation for China and Vietnam. Cool kids, lame teacher.

At the Aerospace Museum. Jake.

Today is my last day of work, aka I’m quitting. This will no doubt signifiy the end of an era…I’ve worked there for over 4 years.

Class for China starts on Monday, so, without any sort of break, I’ll be thrust right back into the mixer.

Don’t you hate untagged mp3′s? Itunes has no idea what to do with them and throws them at the bottom of my illegally long playlist. You can rename by hand, individually or maybe by artist, but who has time for that? I have better things to do like fix my free but broken steam cleaner. I discovered a little app called Magic MP3 Tagger. It analyzes each file to determine the song, then appropriately ID3 tags the song according to your liking. No more “audiotrack 01″ by “unknown” on my ipod. The only downside is that the free version only lets you batch 5 songs at a time with a 10 second pause telling you to fork over money. I circumvented this by writing a script in Automate 6 that simulates a couple keystrokes so that it will keep on tagging the entire batch. 5386 songs standing at attention. Yes.

Old one…. (Astia)

31st floor of TI, watching the pirate show. The fireworks flew right in front of the window.

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I got back from Vegas yesterday. Basically, after 3 days in Laughlin, NV, then 5 days in Vegas, I’m pretty sure I died a couple times. I don’t think I’ve ever drank so much or eaten so much crap or lost so much money. Goodtimes.

Laughlin is like Vegas but 1/10th the size, and along the Colorado river. I’ve learned that “going down to the river” is usually indicative of hickdom, and indeed there were plenty of trashy people. We took a charter bus, and started drinking at 8:30 am. I think Chris was blacked out by 11. There was gambling, drinking, more gambling, killing a buffet (I don’t think I’ve ever done so well at a buffet) and more drinking. I got to meet all of the nice Redlands kids. Great weekend.

I got a ride back up to Santa Barbara from Chris, we basically recovred for 2 days, then packed up Tuesday night and headed to socal to leave for Vegas the Next morn.
Rob, Chris and I did the drive, while Cindy and Em flew in and Jordan met up with us (he’d been there since the previous Friday playing poker. When we left, he’d been there for over 9 days.) We stayed at “ti,” formerly Treasure Island. Ti has the only Pho place on the strip, so they advertise. The restuarant is called “Pho.” How original. I can’t tell you how many times I overheard people saying, “I wonder how this ‘foh’ place is.” It looked kinda sketch. In the end we ignored. That night we (Chris, Emily, Robert, Cindy and I) hit up Tangerine, the lame ass club in TI. Nothing good to say about it, don’t go there.

Thrusday night we tried to go to Pure in Ceasar’s. When we arrived we were stoked to find a 15 minute wait, only to find out that it’s not open Thursday nights.
On Friday, Brandy flew in and Josh and Gina met up with us. I got a tip from some gourmand family friends that the seafood buffet at the Main Street Casino was bomb so we headed to old downtown Vegas. It ended up being craptastic. It’s always a little scary eating old seafood, because the seafood is extra gross and fishy smelling (as opposed to old rice or potatoes which are just dry or soggy). I’ve never eaten so little at a buffet. The high point was all of the random Japanese people in the casino and at the buffet. I found out later there was a Japanese bball tourney that weekend (yeah JACL!). That was the most Japanese American people I’ve seen in one place in quite a long time.

That night we rolled over to Jet in the Mirage. Knowing that the lines would be really long, we got there early. The girls were able to get in within 15 minutes. 2 hours later, we had finally moved far enough in line that we could see the entrance. It was another 30 mins to the front of the line, then 15 mins in the ID line. The bouncer offered us entrance, a table and drinks for $650. Rob was up about $700 and I thought he might splurge a bit, take one for the team. He didn’t, I was sad and cried. But realizing that people are easily bought in Vegas, I offered the bouncer $100 to get us to the front of the line. In the end, it was a good thing, b/c our no cover charge comp passes were only good till midnight. Chirs and I got 4 rockstar vods for $15 each. The cute bartender girl literally scoffed when Chris pulled out $40 for the drinks. By the time we found the girls, they were had tired themselves out dancing/humping each other. The rest is either boring or a blur.

The following night, we hit up Studio 54. Last time Chris went, it was a 20 somethings crowd. It was quite different this time. We were probably the youngest (in a good way) kids in line. We were so hip, young and cool, that the bouncer randomly hooks us up and lets us pay less cover. We danced the fuck out of the club, and were literally dancing more than anybody else. That was fun.

The drive home from Vegas is always shitty. Maybe it’s the traffic, maybe it’s the end of good times, maybe it’s the hungoveredness. It was 9 hours from Vegas to SB with food and dropping people off in LA, crappy times. But home sweet home…I’m going to detox now…till next weekend’s trip to SD.

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