friday meant shopping.
labor day weekend means crazy savings.
shopping at gilroy means outlet centers.
outlet centers mean super saving prices.

so guess what i got?

timberland sack - 7.00
timberland widebrimmed hat - 8.50
j.crew black t-shirt - 6.50
j.crew black t-shirt - 6.50 (yes, that's right...two t-shirts)
white long sleeved guess shirt - 3.50
light blue long sleeved guess shirt - 3.50 (yes, that's right.)
banana republic formal belt - 14.00
total: 49.50
let's check retail prices. (i love doing this.)

timberland sack - 15.00
timberland widebrimmed hat - 30.00
j.crew black t-shirt - 16.99
j.crew black t-shirt - 16.99
white long sleeved guess shirt - 38.99
light blue long sleeved guess shirt - 38.99
banana republic formal belt - 19.99
total: 176.95

oh MY. . not that i would actually buy a 40 dollar shirt, but it sure beats spending more than 150 dollars.

YES, I'm a materialistic whore. I love shopping. I love buying stuff. I'm a freaking PAGAN!

Deception Point is working out pretty good. Lack of sleep, however is not.

a couple of things.

i've been thinking about business school.
at the same time, i'm tired of school.

paradoxical and logical at the same time.

- next thought -

demure is such a beautiful looking and sounding word for something that means, simply, modest.

- next thought -

books are great. apparently my parents are willing to just let me buy books and whatever, as long as i don't sit in front of the television being a potato. call me spoiled, but this is great.

- next thought -

i've become obsessed with sunglasses. there is no cure.

- next thought -

books are great, but i don't appreciate them like other people do. wen lent me Banana Yoshimoto's "np" and i finished it last night. i enjoyed the story, and all, but i'm just not sure where i stand with the book. wenchin has it because she says it's beautifully written. i don't know if i've caught onto this beautifully written stuff.

i gauge how good a book is to me by how many words i tend to skip when i read.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway was GOOD. i didn't skip a single word.

Michael Crichton books are good. i don't skip anything.

John Steinbeck is horrible. i skipped paragraphs and sometimes chapters.

Hiroshima was fantastic. I read sentences repeatedly.

Chuck Palahniuk's books are superb. I've read my copy of Fight Club ragged, and thankfully my copy of Choke is hardcover.

Kurt Vonnegut's Timequake was just bad. I skipped the last half end of the book.

Dan Brown, although predictable when we get to "Digital Fortress", is just gripping for me.

So where I stand with "np" is a little vague. I skipped a word here or there, but it still had my full and utter attention. I liked it, but I can't nitpick it, even if i wanted to. I have no desire to read it again, or fully understand it, but again...I liked it.

It doesn't make me wonder about how I perceive books. I love reading them, and most of my books, I read repeatedly. Heck, my copy of Jurassic Park back in 6th or 7th grade is mostly yellowed, frayed and beat up, but I still read it.

However, my experience with "np" has certainly made me wonder how well I actually gauge books.

latest book buys:

(before taiwan)
choke by chuck palahniuk
invisble monsters by chuck palahniuk
timequake by kurt vonnegut
poker nation by andy bellini

(after taiwan)
smoke and mirrors by neil gaiman
the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by mark haddon
the devil wears prada by lauren weisberger
deception point by dan brown

right there, i must've spent at most 60 dollars (thank you half-price books!) but i have no qualms about it.

i just know that these books that i've bought, timequake aside, i will read repeatedly.

- next thought -

dream for last night:

andrew chang had a lackey in my dream. it was weird. he, his lackey and i were supposed to meet someone at RIMAC North, off the 28th Highway exit (don't ask me, i have no idea.). We were climbing up hills and mountains to try to find his friend, and scaling down absolutely impossible walls in classrooms. (don't ask me, i have no idea.)

We finally end up meeting his friends who I can't remember what they look like. We're about to leave and carpool with them when a guy who bought a pair of fake sunglasses (see? obsession) came up to us and asked us to ID his sunglasses in a catalog. We do, he leaves without saying thanks.

To get to the carpool, we had to walk through school and a giant arcade, really similar to a humongous golfland. somehow in the process, i actually lose all my clothes, so I stop by the locker room (golfland has locker rooms now? don't ask me, i have no idea.) and grab what i think is a clean towel.

in fact, i accidentally stole someone's towel, so in the process of getting a newly folded and laundered towel, i piss off a football team or something.

the football team corners me in front of the sinks and starts splashing things at me, like vodka, rubbing alcohol and chlorine. every now and then some guy would come in with a can of hairspray and a lighter and try to set me on fire.

the first time, they totally missed, so I was dry. the second time, they got chest with vodka, so when the fire came, i put both my arms up to block. it worked pretty well, and the guy was far enough away to where i just felt heat on my arms.

the third time though, they got everything in my hair. alcohol, vodka, chlorine, all three. instead of waiting for the flame to come to me, i charged the guy who held the aerosol, hoping that he'd panic and not be able to get in a shot. it almost worked ,but since hair's not only highly burnable, my hair was pretty much a loaded torch, waiting to be lit.

my head went up in flames, and then something similar to what you see in The Butterfly Effect happened. I got transported out of my body, and I could see a computer graphic animation of myself dying, head on fire. It didn't really look like me, but I could tell it was me, wrapped in a towel, sprawled on the floor, head being burned.

i woke up, checked my head a second, and went back to sleep.

Here's the rest of my days in Taiwan before I got bored with having to keep a journal. Lame, I know.

========================================

July 20^th, 2004

Yay, wearing army green pants, but not the combat ones. I’m really happy with these pants, but it feels like they’ll shrink after washing. BOOOO. I’m happy with the pants I bought, because they fit perfectly, but I’m a little worried because they fit perfectly.

I don’t know when I’ll wear the Jungle Hardwear pants…I don’t want to wear them the same day my cousin is wearing them. Eh well.

I was up till 1130 last night with my cousin, explaining Kill Bill to him in Chinese. It was really fun, until my grandfather called to call me back down to go to sleep. LoL.

And this morning, I think my cousin broke up with his girlfriend. Personally, it felt like she was kinda needy and somewhat bratty…always making a sour face at my making fun of her….lol….

Anyway, not my place to poke. I’d like to, but I won’t.

July 20^th, 2004

In a nutshell, I did nothing. Had an interesting discussion with my grandfather about cars and drugs, but that’s it.

July 21^st, 2004

12:00 pm

Being bored at the office. I pretty much don’t have anything to do. I’ve changed the things they wanted me to change, edited what they wanted me to edit, and translated what they wanted me to translate.

I need to find more work fast, or I’m going to loathe being here, which I don’t.

1:06 pm

So I went to KFC for lunch. A couple of bits about it:

-no such thing as potato wedges, or mashed potatoes or coleslaw. only side dishes they have is corn on the cob, biscuits, popcorn chicken and egg tarts.

-they have egg tarts. ice cold.

-they offer spicy fried chicken.

-they give salt and pepper with your chicken.

-2 People: 6 Pieces of Chicken for 199, 6 Tarts for 100, Mini Popcorn chicken for 35. (Fairly ripped off with the popcorn chicken, that’s for sure.) Total is 334, about 10 bucks.

-Not too bad for 2 People at KFC. LoL. Definitely a little more expensive than most food in Taiwan, but The experience is worth it.

-not only do they greet you at the door, they say good bye when you go out.

Had a good time at lunch! Heheh…

Next Day:

Had a very uneventful evening. Watched TV, left the TV at around 9:15, went to sleep at 9:35.

July 22^nd, 2004

9:07 am

So I had a freaking crazy ass night.

Had some really crazy dreams.

First off, I woke up in the middle of the night discovering that I was scratching my mosquito bites, so I went to the bathroom, dumped hot water on them and consequently gave myself a third degree burn. Luckily for me, they don’t itch.

I went back to sleep and had this scary ass dream about my teeth.

It was weird, like my teeth were loose or something.

It started off all normal, I went to brush my teeth at a friend’s house, and when I was brushing my bottom front teeth, some teeth started falling out, like 4 of them, at odd places.

I thought that was a little weird, and I was holding them in my hand. But when I felt the inside of my mouth with my tongue, I felt my teeth were normal feeling, but just a little off. But no gaps.

So I looked in the mirror and opened my mouth and consequently got the shit scared out of me. Everything on the bottom had changed. The front two got moved INTO my mouth like a whole half a centimeter, and the rest of my teeth had pushed themselves toward the front. My molars had turned jagged and instead of one row of neat lined up teeth, I had TWO rows, the first row right under my tongue consisting of two teeth, the second row where my teeth would normally be and not exactly neatly lined up, or smooth like teeth should be, but jagged, chipped and damaged.

I woke up, felt my teeth with my tongue and calmed myself, but for a second I was freaked out. All those years with braces to be destroyed in a single moment, scary.

So I went back to sleep, and consequently had another sort of freaky dream, but I didn’t wake up scared, just kind of confused.

I left my car parked at a friend’s place for a party. I left the keys at his house in case he needed to move the car. I went back after the party and discovered my car was gone.

I went indoors to find my friend and my keys, but we couldn’t find them. The conclusion? Someone stole the keys and just simply drove off with my car. Oh fantastic.

On top of that, I had to go to San Diego the VERY next day for school. Normally I would drive down a day or two early, but circumstances made it that I had to drive to San Diego the day of class. And now my car is missing.

And before I leave, I had to attend a party. So my dad told me to take the van, and go to the party separately so I can leave from there. So essentially, after the party, I had to drive the 7.5 to 9 hours down to San Diego, leaving at around 10 pm. I would then attend class the very same day.

I woke up VERY confused. Dismissed it right away.

THEN, I got an email from my dad about my car, and sort of flipped out, but he was only talking about the insurance and my constantly deflating right rear tire.

I don’t want anything to happen to my car…what with it being one year old…knock on wood.

I showed my relatives my car and they were like “WOW.” They asked me all these questions since they don’t have the Matrix in Taiwan.

Okay. Time to figure out what to do. Learning quite a lot here, but not much to do.

July 23^rd, 2004

Not much happening. Just prepping to go to Yi2 Lan2 tomorrow.

Will have a computer hiatus I believe. I could bring my computer along, but it’d be pretty unnecessary, in my opinion.

July 24^th, 2004

Went on a bus ride, listened to Yellowcard. Stopped for lunch, listened to some really shitty karaoke singers, and then checked into the hotel.

After the hotel, went to some weird history outdoor museum thing that didn’t make any sense.

Came home, watched TV until I died.

July 25^th, 2004

Painted sandals. Regretfully, I didn’t do such a good job and wished I gave my characters a more 3D feel.

Ate lunch, chilled at the sea water pool, which just sucked the water right out of me, and then had dinner, and then went to the night market. Got two quick-dry shirts for 10 bucks and that’s about it.

July 26^th, 2004

Got up, went to a weak little kid’s water park. After, went back to the hotel for lunch, drove northwards for dinner and then back home.

All in all, the company vacation was interesting, but it wasn’t a blast. Can’t exactly complain though, it was a pretty much all expenses paid trip.

July 27^th, 2004

Switched departments. I’m now in sales. I’m still translating though, and I’m waiting on a guy who can unlock the computer for me.

Not much happened really. A little bit of translating, a little bit of help here and there, but not much .

July 28^{th and} 29th, 2004

I’m lumping entries because I don’t remember a goddamned thing.

I moved out of Linkou and into Taipei for the rest of the week. My cousin’s supposed to take me places to look for stuff and what not.

It sounds like fun to me.

In any case, I want more stuff, I’m such a materialistic whore.

I want more pants, shorts, shoes, clothes, and everything. SO BAD.

July 30th, 2004

So today I saw my cousin get completely pissed off.

I think I’m just going to copy and paste from my conversation with Kat.

Arctand3r (10:34:17 PM): so i had lunch at my grandparent's place
Arctand3r (10:34:21 PM): with my oldest cousin
Arctand3r (10:34:25 PM): and my uncle's oldest son
Arctand3r (10:34:34 PM): and the topic changed to girls and girlfriends
Arctand3r (10:34:36 PM): and essentially
Arctand3r (10:34:41 PM): my other cousin, not the first one
Arctand3r (10:34:49 PM): likes this girl who's small, short and cute
Arctand3r (10:35:00 PM): except the rest of my rleatives disagree with finding a short cute girl
Arctand3r (10:35:15 PM): instead my cousin should be looking for a taller pretty woman
Arctand3r (10:35:32 PM): and my grandmother basically said that the girl that my cousin likes is just BAD.
Arctand3r (10:35:36 PM): in a simple blunt word.
Arctand3r (10:35:46 PM): and he got all pissed and stuff and basically stormed out
Arctand3r (10:36:02 PM): so i learned one thing today
Arctand3r (10:36:25 PM): never ever let your relatives know if you're in a relatinoship or not, regardless whether or not you have one.

That’s pretty good.

That explains most of it.

In any case, I made my first lay out today even when I’m not supposed to, so yay for me.

I’m going to go watch King Arthur tonight! Excited is what.

Ironically, I just realized that I’m wearing the exact same thing that I wore the last time I went out with my cousin’s friends.

Scary.

Anyway, living in Taipei is better, IMO. AIR CONDITIONING FUCKING RULES.

We’ll see how this weekend goes because I go to Taichung come MONDAY. I have to wash my clothes this weekend. FACK.

==========================

So I just came back from watching King Arthur. I am definitely buying that movie. There’s something about that movie that I really like. Maybe it’s the stoic ness, maybe it’s the way the things in that era just look NOBLE. At the same time, I can’t say Keira Knightley was in it for a good reason. It was kind of a disappointment. Granted she was hot in a dress and firing a bow and arrow, but I really don’t like the role she plays. She can fight and kick ass and crack good jokes, but her role in that movie’s just a disappointment. However, Clive Owen was really far beyond my expectations, as was Lancelot. I did like how they really messed up the original story of King Arthur to get this version to work. .

Anyway, my cousin’s out again. His girlfriend is beginning to grow on me. She’s definitely a bit bratty, but she’s beginning to grow on me. Fun to be with is what. Anyway, I have the rest of the night to myself even though it’s 11:15. I’m thinking I might spend it watching 8mm, which is in my cousin’s collection.

We’ll see. Major shopping tomorrow, so COOL.

Time to make a list and check it twice.

July 31^st, 2004

This is more of a recap.

Saturday, woke up pretty early, expecting my cousin to take me out, but instead he goes to his girlfriend’s place for like 2 hours.

*sigh* what can you do, right? I watched a couple of movies and chilled for a bit before they treated me to Thai food. It was really, really good, so forgiving them was pretty easy. LoL. They tried to take me shopping, but I’m fucking picky as hell, and essentially came out empty handed since everything was frickin expensive. The Puma shoes I wanted were freaking 3800 bucks. That’s like…100+ bucks. GAH.

I did pick up David Tao’s live CD for like 11 bucks. Pretty good. I’m thinking I might buy way more CDs later, but I kind of want my cousin to kinda ditch me in one place and then pick me up in another and let me do my own thing. Only problem is, there’s a lot of places where my lack of Chinese skills would get me into trouble, so I need him around.

So after, we went to Ji1 Long2 Night Market. It was fucking crowded. The food was fantastic, and what not, but it was just CROWDED. At first I was all nice and slowly walked with traffic and all that. By the end of the night, I was just shoving and making my way through. I figured that I’d never see these people ever again in my life, so whatever.

We saw this haunted house, it’s got this tree growing out of the middle of it, and it’s like this gigantic fucking tree. It’s tall, for one, and for two, the idea of it growing in the middle of a city is ludicrous. Of course one would think that contractors would just tear down the corner of the building, but no one wants to try. They think it’s eerie for a tree to be growing straight through the house. And during the day light, the tree perfectly blocks ALL light to the building. Henceforth, haunted house. I don’t know. Don’t really want to fuck with it is what.

We went back to Taipei, and my cousin was supposed to take me clubbing, but he ended up taking me home instead. LAME.

Was kind of looking forward to it, and was kind of dreading it, but he wanted his own brand of fun and left me at home. LAME.

Anyway. Went to sleep after watching hella TV.

August 1^st, 2004

Woke up a bit earlier today, went to go get Grandparents from Linkou and first aunt took us to a Japanese restaurant called Mitsui. It was freaking good. The sashimi was to die for, and the fact that the lobster head was still twitching and in its death throes was kinda interesting. The food was fantastic, but I really don’t want to know how much it costed…the place looked REALLY sleek and really trendy, and hence REALLY expensive.

Came back, watched almost the full length of The Fast and the Furious, and then went to sleep for about 6 hours. Woke up in time for dinner and then went to the local Sunday night market.

I saw the cutest girl working at the oyster pancake stand. She was kind of walking around serving people and I just stood there and watched her for like 15 minutes while my uncle and aunt got distracted by an auction of some sort. She was just pretty. The entire time she was there, I just watched. Right before I left, she was walking towards me by chance and I locked eyes with her. Instead of looking away like I normally do, I just locked on. Right before she turned back to her work, she gave me this smile. Her eyes were beautiful and it just made my night. Too bad I didn’t have my camera, hahha…I always forget my camera now. Anyway, I’ll probably go back to that night market next week, and maybe I’ll take a picture of her then. We’ll see.

I’m going to Taichung tomorrow. I’m going to be there until Wednesday. God this is going to be interesting. My cousin’s already telling me how boring it is. Great. Ha.

August 2^nd , 3^rd and 4th, 2004

In Taichung, two cool guys, Alex and Eric.

ALWAYS talk until freaking late. Ran around warehouses, realizing I’m REALLY fat.

Will be back in Taipei on Wednesday night.

this isn't a new revelation, but rather a revival of an old one.

back in high school, a psychology class called upon me to record all my dreams down for a month.

i kept pen and pad underneath my pillow, and for the whole month, i dreamt vividly, constantly and wildly.

it was probably the best month i ever had, in terms of sleep. i didn't always feel rested in the morning, but i certainly had something to think about.

i decided to try that again. i stuck pen and pad underneath my pillow last night.

most of my dreams that i recorded are fragmented, at best. none of them were as vivid as the time in high school. but i'm sure over time, these dreams will get refined and become more and more clear and memorable.

most of these dreams i could not remember for my life right when i woke up. i'd fall back asleep and remember them, pop awake and scribble them down.

the other problem was the fact that i was scribbling them down in near darkness. i'm not able to read some of the things i wrote.

it looks lilke a 1st grader was in charge of this pad, but i learned in high school that it's crucial to keep the lights off when writing this stuff. falling back asleep is a lot easier.

here are the results from last night:

1: something about a restaurant and a (unrecognizable) eating at it documentary style.

frankly, i have no idea what that means, nor do i remember what the dream was.

2: i dreamt wrote in this book, boring repeated dreams

i barely remember this one. i dreamt that i wrote a lot of dreams on the pad that i had. however, when i woke up to write this one down, this was the second one that i had written down, as opposed to the 7th or 8th one that i had written down in my dream state.

3: Hawaiian cocktail luau, was with Dad/Denzel Washington/Others, saw Robin Williams no Filimng, was asked to leave, talked to a girl for RW and she said call me but no number. HA. Beat the shit out of some (17) kid who was in the kiddie pool and pissing in it

I clearly remember this one with a little bit of difficulty. It was a place in Hawaii with stores, people, pools, similar to a cross between Raging Waters, a Hawaiian Place, and a tourist attraction spot. I was clearly with my Dad, but he turned into Denzel Washington and my roommate at times, but he was still the same person.
We saw Robin Williams performing his comedy routine for people in one of those knee deep pools, so we went up to watch. My dad handed me his video camera, when the girl for Robin Williams (probably his agent or something), told me no recording. I told her that I wasn't recording. She was not super attractive, but decently good looking, but she had a stupid temper. When she saw that I still had my camera in hand, she asked me to leave.
I told her that I wasn't recording and that I was just enjoying the show. My dad, who by this time turned into Denzel Washington was yelling at the girl, telling her to mind her own business, and that I wasn't recording the show. But she goes, "He's recording the show, sir. I asked him to stop." and straight out, i grabbed her hand and said "You fucking girl. You're so full of it. I wouldn't be recording that overgrown monkey (borrowed THAT from Robin Williams Live on Broadway) and I certainly WOULDN'T be recording you, you bitch."
She then puts her hand up to her head in that "call me" sign, and I flipped her off. At that point, Denzel turned into my roommate, and he grabbed me in a full nelson and pulled me out of there and away. As soon as he let go, it turned into my Dad, and my dad was lecturing me about listening to the woman. Of course since the morphing of Dad to Denzel to roommate was going on, my Dad wasn't there at all, so he didn't understand why I didn't just listen to the stupid girl.
We passed some restaurants, and decided to stop for some chips, salsa, and guacamole, but to get there, we had to walk through a 7 feet kiddie pool. why is it so damn deep, i have no clue. but this 17 year old kid was basically doing a stupid rhyme, and talking about how he was pissing in the pool.
i grabbed him out of the pool and just took my frustrations out on him and tossed him back in the pool. me and my dad got the chips and i woke up after that.

4. brus the colate on upside down popsicles bar? turr right side up, TADA. Crown.

I sort of remember this one. you take a vanilla bar, and you take really cold chocolate syrup. you brush it on the bar while you're holding it up side down, so it drips down toward the tip, sorta like if you pour hot wax over something. maybe i poured the chocolate on. either way, when the chocolate beads up 3/4 of the way to the tip, you stop. stick it in the freezer, ASAP. when you take it out again though, the chocolate should be frozen, and turn it right side up. If down properly, it looks pretty cool, similar to a crown.

i like these experiments. they're pretty fun. i kinda wish i had my sketchbook, even though I left it in San Diego. the images could be so vivid that i could sketch them out of my head.

i have reaffirmed the fact that women and girls are just beautiful to look at.

everything about their body just flows.

slanted shoulders, sloped abdomens, curvy hips, all that.

ooooh wheee.

they're just nicer to look at, from a purely artistic point of view.

from a hormonal point of view, it's fucking great.

i recently found this.

now before you start calling me a jerk or identifying me as some regular guy who does nothing but ogle girls, remind yourself one thing:

i am.

but aside from that point, this blog is really cool. i like how the writer constantly talks about what the clothes do for the girl, as well as a insight to possibly how a guy's mind works.

i've been checking this blog out daily. it's been fascinating.