happy halloween. this halloween i am a fresh off the boat grad student from china.

well i was wrong about most of what i had predicted about the bills-pats game. i was right about the one thing that counts though. the bills lost... in true buffalo fashion. we were winning up until the last 5 minutes when everything goes to hell and we end up losing. it's always the same... you go into the game not expecting much... then you see that the team plays well... giving you hope... only to implode in the last couple minutes. good stuff i tell ya.

tonight we get to see the bills lose to new england........ again. so here's how it's going to break down. the bills run defense will surrender a bunch of yards. the pass defense will contain brady and his receiving corps but won't be able to stop red zone passes. the bills passing offense will not be able to get established, so mcgahee will run the ball into a pats defense expecting the run. we'll finally start moving the ball in the last 3 minutes of the game with new england playing prevent defense with the game already put away. good stuff. blah.

LU sent this angry asian man.

this is for AB who associates chinese people with noodles (of the ramen kind)... and has called me "noodle boy" for many years. that ramen stuff lasts awhile i guess huh?

preservation of the delicate balance of ecosystems through food. good stuff. which reminds me. i haven't had good sushi in awhile...

the disparity in incomes is absolutely disgusting... not only in a national view... but in a global view. we have people who don't have basic necessities out there... and we have people building these monstrosities for themselves.

since this was a weekend with an extra hour of sleep. here's a link about sleep.

ugh, sabres lost tonight to the devils. our first 2 losing streak of the season. i hope this is a short term thing. gonna go see sabres-sens on wed with my dad. ottawa's got a great team this year, hopefully we can at least take the game wed. on the plus side, drury scored his first goal of the season, and briere continues to be on fire.

so i don't think i'm gonna celebrate halloween again this year. i've been putting off reading and studying too much and i need to be more hardcore about it. i need to be more asian. i'm one of those asians who has trouble turning on the asian genes or whatever.

i get a kick out of off the boat chinese people who zero in on me and start talking to me in chinese. i always know when it's going to happen too... cause they'll make eye contact, and then they lock on. then comes the guessing game... are they gonna break out in cantonese or mandarin? is the mandarin gonna be beijing, shanghai, taiwan, or something else completely different? my dialect of preference is cantonese, but only if it's spoken in a quiet way. southern chinese people seem to love speaking loudly, and it's a bit grating after awhile. i really should start speaking chinese more... i'm beginning to develop an english speaking foreigner trying to speak chinese accent. granted, i've never actually lived in taiwan or china except for the occasional short term visit.

so the big news in politics today. libby's been indicted on obstruction, perjury, and making false statements. it's just interesting how different this administration is from the previous administration. the previous one lied about getting ummmmm... serviced. the current one lied about iraq, and because they're vengeful sob's may have outed a cia operative and lied about doing that (yes he's not guilty yet, but there has to be some sort of a case against libby in order for it to get to the indictment stage).

go here -> pi. wtf?

hopeful forward progress: waterfront, cobblestone district. it's very tempting to tell my boss i'm gonna take the job and just put money down on an apartment in one of these redeveloped buildings downtown.

and again i say... i think we have the best us senators in all the country.

if this trend continues... maybe i'll have a better chance of getting into a good phd program, or just a normal pharmacy school. on a side note... there's nothing more attractive than a smart woman.

large polluters, huge drain on natural resources, population getting fatter. china's the new US.

finally they're starting to do something about the whole bios, hard disk boot process on PCs. yay solid-state flash!

this is kinda coolio with the ribosomes and all that. biochem is some tough stuff. it's interesting but boy there sure is a bunch of stuff i need to know and yet have no idea about.

anyone want to shroom? with a 56lb psychedilic mushroom you'd probably have enough to last you awhile.

ok that's it. cleared out a bunch of the links i found interesting. haven't done of of these massive posts in awhile.

anyone know what they want to do for new years yet? i usually start trying to plan @ the beginning of nov. so as to get the lowest airfare... cause they sure to like to jack up the price of tix if you don't make it in that sweet spot of > 3-4 weeks from your flight.

i kinda want to do something a bit different this year instead of going to new york. some minuses about a trip to nyc: a couple friends have left the city already, everything is always so rushed when i visit, things are the same but not... like the 9 train has disappeared. some pluses about a trip to new york: it's relatively cheap as i can still crash @ people's places, friends who are planning to leave the city can have one last big party before a cross country trek, it's new york.

i've been kicking around the idea in my head of maybe going to ottawa. it's a relatively low key compared to new york. i made the trip up there once when i was very little, and i couldn't appreciate the architecture or any of the other stuff that i'm interested in now. i'd like to skate on the rideau canal. it seems like a cozy city with stuff that will keep me interested for 4-5 days.

or... if i can get some people to fly out here we could go up to TO. since i'm always the one travelling out, it'd be nice to not have to do it this new years.

in any case. i am looking foward to winter break. this has been one hard semester.

i caught a bug. flu like symptoms. maybe i should've gotten my flu shots when i went to see the doctor last week? actually i've never gotten flu shots before. every year it's the same, i get the flu. i get one big case of the flu for a week, and then i'm good for the year. supposedly we're due for a super flu soon. one that will wipe out a bunch of people. it's been a long time since one of those has been around. there is a plus side if i should be hit and don't recover. i never have to go to school again.

it's been dreary-yucky the last couple days. all rainy and crappy. i'd much rather have snow. i absolutely hate wearing wet clothes.

penguins are awesome. polar bears are awesome. so this must be the awesomest.

eh. crap. 8am recitation.

night.

i have been meaning to break out this sloan album as it's been awhile since i've listened to it. here's the thing. i think this album as a whole is the weakest of all the sloan albums. however, that being said... there are some really great songs scattered between the "eh" songs.

christielli recently titled a post with the lyrics to one of those better songs... so i dug out the album from my cd binder flipper keeper thingy. there are still some really great songs on this album.

"It's time to let heal
The damage that you can feel
That sense of hope you steal
Can turn into something real"

i'm not sure how it got to this point, but sig lines now are absolutely out of control. i have a friend... who shall remain nameless who's sig is something like 10 lines long. it goes something like this:

name
title
website 1,2,3,...
email
biz phone
cell phone
birthdate
blood type
contents of breakfast
shoe size
etc.

then you have some sigs which adds a, "this email contains confidential information for people who are affiliated with X company. blah blah blah."

1) there is no reason to send ones life story as part of their sig. with the exception of medical professionals, nothing is so important that 50 ways of contacting an individual is needed. on top of that. if someone needs to get in touch with you, they will call you... and most likely you'll be in some sort of address book. sending a sig out that is more than 4 lines is unnecessary. it's just as bad as spam, it takes up quota space on email servers, it takes more network resources, and it's just excessive.

2) those sigs that add confidential info tags are useless. if someone really wanted to, the could go ahead and forward that info on with a click of a button. it's just common sense that business info/secrets should not be allowed out. do we really have to start adding these sigs to the end of every email?

ok. that's that.

lombardi's pies for $0.05 nov 9th! i haven't been since the renovation/expansion. i still like john's and grimaldi's better... but for a low five cents, i'll take lombardi's. man... i miss new york pizza.

if you need a computer, wait til the holidays.

i hope earthlink survives. i've always been a fan. they aren't aol, they're national, they offer good products. when i was in nyc, my roomates and i were on broadband. our main choices were, verizon dsl, and twc cable. at the time, verizon dsl was an expensive inferior product compared to broadband through cable. twc however was another giant company with terrible customer service. enter earthlink who started leasing network capacity from twc due to the twc/aol merger by court order. i never really had any contact with earthlink customer wise, but even though my service depended on twc's network (which was still crappy) i figured at least i wouldn't be giving my money to twc.

nap time. does anyone remember in kindergarten when we used to have nap time and snack time? does anyone remember eating "ants on a log" (ie peanut butter in the grooves of cut up celery with raisins stuck on the peanut butter)? why i thought of that... i have no idea.

have a good sat.

tgif'in friday.

i'm a procrastinator by nature. i stayed up all night studying biochem, and timed it just right. i got through everything i needed to get through. by the time my biostats exam rolled around i couldn't think anymore. so... i totally blanked on one question that had to do with ppv and npv.

i don't even think i know how glad i am that this week is over, my brain in mush.

do you ever just look @ your life and even though situations and settings change, things still feel the same? right now my life just feels like the same photo framed with different backgrounds. i'm in a funk. i need to refocus.


* "St. Lawrence River", David Usher

5 games... 2 tix each. especially looking forward to these games... ottawa, philly, dallas. i actually like ottawa, very fast team, good divisional game. i HATE philly. i HATE dallas more.

ok... more biochem. will post more after exams.

if you haven't heard. brett hull has decided to retire.

unedited link text from yahoo "Hull hangs up skates".

before he hung up his skates... did he find one in the crease?

i'm sorry. i just had to make a comment. i couldn't help it.

ok... i'm finished.

why people dislike americans and see us as pompous arrogant self centered a-holes (and you've never realized that's what people think of us)... look no further than this clip.

ok... fine... there are some smaller countries and new states that i'll give a little leeway for... but come on people! australia has been it's own continent for a long time. korea is frickin part of asia, even if you don't know north from south... get on the right continent!

simple geography.

absolutely horrific.

sad thing is... i don't think general geographic knowledge of north america... let along the US itself is any better. in fact... even getting down to the state level... people are still clueless. i almost bust out laughing when i told a resident new yorker/classmate @ nyu i was from buffalo... and he said i must go home a lot since buffalo is "only an hour away... right?"

yeah... by plane.

dumbass.

school is draining.

i was just offered a full time position @ the place where i am interning.

there would've been nothing to think about if i was still in non-school mode coming out of college or after my 2nd year of working in new york. it's a little more complicated now that i've made the committment and put up money to go back to school. a big part of me wants to finish it.

but... right now... with biochem and biostats midterms, plus a lab practical staring me down next week, working full time sounds like a walk in the park. not to mention i really like what they have me working on, lots of database stuff... table, query building, datamining, and that sort of stuff. plus they'd want me to do some project management stuff if i go full time. the people are great to work with, and i haven't felt this appreciated as an employee in a long time. it's also a fairly large firm with room to grow, in an industry that will always be around.

life is never easy. why is that? there are 2 choices in front of me that would take me in more or less divergent paths. right now... as much as i would like to take the easy way out and just start working again, and not have to study, pull all nighters, go to lab, write 2 masters thesis, (i can't believe i'm saying this) but i'm still gonna stick with school. however... as with most people... for the right price... i think i would sell out and jump ship.

you now how when you yawn and someone else sees you doing it (and sometimes hears you doing it) they start yawning too? well i think knuckle cracking is the same way. these last couple days... i've been sitting @ work or in my classes really tired, so i'm half paying attention. i'll get the urge to crack my knuckles, but it's been so quiet everywhere i force myself not to act so as to not break the silence. after awhile though, someone will yawn or stretch, and crack their knuckles. this sets off a wave of yawning stretching and knuckle cracking. it looks and sounds kinda funny when it happens. the interesting thing about cracking one's knuckles is that people do it differently. each person has their own preference as to the order they crack them, the technique they use. depending on which knuckle i'm concentrating on... i use the bend towards palm, pull outwards, and side to side wiggle techniques.

i've always wondered what makes people crack their knuckles... how do they start? i remember when i was young, listening to my dad crack his knuckles... it was such an interesting sound and i wanted to make it too. so i started... and it frickin hurt. once you start though... i don't think you can stop. it's like smoking... only worse. when you smoke you actually have to make a trip to some store or deli, and buy a pack of smokes. when you're a knuckle cracker... you get that sensation in your knuckles like they need to be cracked... and that sensation stays there until you crack em. i wonder if any dopamine or endorphins are released in our brains when we crack our knuckles. i think a long time ago i made a conscious effort to see if cracking my knuckles felt any different when i was rolling. i can't say at this point if it felt different... cause i don't remember (but it probably did). anyways... maybe for my phd research, i'll do it on the possibility of altered brain chemistry from knuckle cracking. it seems like it could be related to the psycho reward center action of dopamine... but maybe not. are you a knuckle cracker? why do you do it?

i've been waking up immediately following my dreams lately... so that i remember them. i usually don't remember my dreams... but i've been dreaming a lot about being in a really bad recitation section @ nyu... and wandering through main building (oh wait... it's the silver freaking center for arts and sciences now) and waverly onto washington place.

anyone want to help me fill my brain with biochemistry information?

on a food note, LU and i went out to grab some pho the other day. i think that's restarted my vietnamese pho interest. large portions and relatively cheap... fits perfectly in the lifestyle of a poor student. any other food suggestions?

t.c. sent a good link to AS, since AS is the king of the "air guitar". AS' default mode is air guitar mode... it's actually quite amazing how much time this kid spends strumming the air guitar. of course, i got said link too... and i laughed for hours. the labeled diagram on the side totally cracks me up.

my goal this week... study... so hopefully if some nice weather rolls around this weekend... i can spend an afternoon hiking the gorge... or checking out these sites that are part of doors open niagara.

-wullenberg grain & seed elevator
-the mansion on deleware ave
-the darwin d. martin house
-buffalo central terminal
-or maybe i'll just go directly to niagara-on-the-lake cause they have a ton of places participating.

lots of exams and stuff coming up.

post secret

i'm thinking of picking up a sabres 5 game mini pack @ 2 tix for each game. seeing that i'm a poor college student again... i'm opting for the nosebleeds with a view. as much as i'd like to catch a sabres leafs game, i just don't see that happening in the regular season (with the new tiered pricing structure leafs games are really expensive). i guess the mini pack will allow me to gamble a little though, as i'll get early access to score some playoff tix if we hopefully get into the playoffs. if i'm lucky enough, we'll play the toronto @ some point and i can score some tix. it'll work out well too... as my dad's bday is coming up and we can do a father son hockey night out again. we used to go to at least one game every year along with my brother, even when i was in high school and both jon and i had our super busy schedules. when jon and i moved to the city for college it stopped happening. with the lockout last year, and me only moving back @ the beginning of 2004 and going right into school we haven't had a chance to catch a game. hopefully he'll like his bday present. anyone else looking forward to walking into their local nhl arena and smelling fresh ice again?

this was a bit unexpected. i figured we'd pick up a defenseman or forward instead of a goalie. we still have 3 who could potentially start in noronen, biron, and miller. miller has had an exceptional preseason. we seem to be a speed team with character (we've come full circle i guess, as these are the exact characteristics of the 97 team with peca, plante, and audette leading a bunch of players who were @ best 3rd/checking liners on other teams... the last year nolan was still coaching and we won the northeast division). 97 was perhaps the most exciting team we've had in a long time. after ruff came, neutral-zone trap was implemented... and while the games were suspenseful because no goals were scored, they weren't as exciting... cause the speed wasn't there. how do you think your respective hockey teams will fare this year? do you like the new look and/or new personnel?

hmmm... i kinda feel weird talking about hockey... cause well we haven't had the nhl to talk about in a long time... but more so cause it's like frickin 80 outside or something. wtf? it's october! i don't know how people can keep on saying there's no such thing as global warming. this summer was (and apparently it's still going on) has been incredibly hot.

i was looking around for some deals on gotapex like i usually do. a netgear gs605 5 port gigabit switch for under $30. frankly it's quite amazing to me how fast these products come down in pricing and start becoming available to the personal consumer market. way back when, while i was still working full time... we implemented hp procurve gigabit switches into the network backbone of the firm i was at... i think it ended up costing $8-10k for the gigabit switch (there were a bit more ports... but still). that was only in the 2nd half of 2003! for the longest time... to get a 10baset HUB was considered big time. i think back when i was interning with the dot-com we paid $15-20k for a single 10baset hub by 3com (i think we had 5 total @ the main office). the first router i had i actually put together myself, because home routers were still > $100. it was someone's old 386 running linux to which i added 2 NICs.

hmmm... oh yeah. i had been meaning to get to the red cross to donate blood recently... but with the working, and the school, and all the other stuff haven't been able to. well turns out i didn't even have to go to the blood donation center... they were holding a blood drive on the south campus today (and i didn't have to work today). the red cross' blood supply was running low prior to katrina/rita... and is even lower now after the hurricanes hit. so if you have a minute and are qualified to... please donate blood @ your local blood bank wherever you may be.

american red cross.
canadian blood services.

the buffalo bills look like a bunch of scrubs.

enough of football. i'm sick of watching the team lose winnable games every week. i'm sick of hearing "we've got a good ________", and then the ________ falls apart every sunday. i'm sick of the front office make excuses. if this is a growing year for losman, that's ok... i'll just wait til next year when the on-field product is more enjoyable to watch. bring on the hockey. i'm ready for the sabres to start the regular season. at least with the sabres, i know there'll be a pretty competitive product on the ice. with the likes of drury, briere, hecht, mckee, miller, and vanek on the ice... we've got a young group of hardworking guys who won't be boasting about how good they are and then not backing up what they say.

things that i want to do/hitup soon.
-doors open niagara
-hiking @ letchworth, or the niagara gorge
-apple picking, tree climbing, afternoon of sillyness
-get a snowboard, bindings, boots

more encourging signs in repopulating a city.

i really hope this project reaches its intended goals.

the best of the best of buffalo.

in terms of wings, pizza, and weck, my favorite places are all listed. there are a couple places in the southtowns that i haven't been to before. i'm gonna have to head over to west seneca, and hamburg. my family used to do the friday fish fry with the rest of buffalo when i was little... but we haven't done it in a long time. i've forgotten where we used to go... i think i have to get back into the habit again. i'd rank la nova and just pizza over bocce's.

they don't have a taco burrito place listed, because there's only mighty.

damn i'm hungry now.