Rewards and Points

Drenched. That's how the entire North East Coast felt over the weekend. Rain, rain, and more rain.

Pride and Prejudice was the Saturday night entertainment. I have to join the nay-sayers. The movie gets thumbs down from me. It was long and boring. I fell asleep and possibly snored? The performances were flat and seemed a bit forced on Keira Knightley's part. Go back Keria! Go and make more Pirates sequels! I liked her better as a sword wielding lady than this dull character. This interpretation version of Jane Austen's book is sooo weak when compared to the 1995 Sense and Sensibility. What am I saying, it's weak regardless. With Ang Lee's direction and Emma Thompson's script, the dialogues in Sense and Sensibility came alive and the wit, the humor, and of course superbly executed by Emma Thompson. Bottom line, Pride and Prejuice --- Booo! Sense and Sensibility --- Yeahhhh!


Sunday afternoon I was tempted to go outside in my slickers to scrub the streak of bird poop off my Element until my cousin informed me that in the event I do get struck by lightening, she will not be collecting my body until the rain has stopped. After some careful consideration, I went back to working on the dam RSA portal server setup, and there I remained in my room as a prisoner tied by the 2 laptops for the rest of the night into the wee hours of the morning.

Which leads me to the subject of this particular blog entry. Rewards. What better way to break from work than to figure out how many reward points one has earned while swiping away? After reviewing all my credit cards, looks like Discover and Citibank Dividend Platinum are the winners in the point rewarding world right now. 5% back on gas, grocers, and drug stores.

Bye bye Chase.

RSA

Rational .. wait.. wait.. I know this.. "RSA", "Rational Software Architect". Fine, so I cheated.. anyways.. back to the coding grind again. It's definetely a shocker to the system to be coding again after a good 9 month of non-programming work. Blah.. first day I got the laptop with all the build environment shipped to me, I must have swore at least 200 times. I think I went from a sailor to like captian of the boat.

Black Cloud

Weather this weekend have been sweaty. That's one word to describe it. Sunny as hell (oxymoron there), but I see shadows wherever I go, black clouds hanging.

Father's day -- my dad is with my uncle in PA, my mom is in Louisiana, my bro in Hawaii, and I myself is in NJ. "4 people, 4 different places" as my grandma puts it. Grandma, in bed, not able to move due to injury from falling in the middle of the night 2 weeks ago. The phrase "I've fallen and I can't get up." will no longer be a silly TV ad to me. I've the image of my grandma hurt, silently calling for help in the middle of the night laying there cuz she really cannot move.

Black clouds.

I couldn't even think of what mental thoughts to jot down on the train ride home tonight. It's all so jumbled up here.

Music once again expresses what I can't in words: Elba by E.S. Posthumus.

Semester Bills

While watching "So You Think You Can Dance", yes, lovely program, I was sorting out the boxes of memories from my younger days. Tonight in particular I went through my past academic "stuff".

I am a packrat. I still got my elementary school report cards. Hey those are important!! If I ever have kids, I'll make them keep it as well and the only chance they'll get to throw them away is when they burn it along with me when I finally croak. Yah, I wouldn't want to be buried. Such a confined space. I would rather be spread into the ocean or sea or wherever, preferably somewhere with clean air and water. Take note future child.

Anyways, so I was talking about my inability to part with things. But tonight, I made some progress. Thank goodness for scanners! Whoever invented the scanner is a genius and perhaps the biggest packrat of them all. The mother of all packrats! the ancestor! the master! the legend!

Okie.. off my meds tonight.. so.. I digress again. I love scanning, scanning and filing all of it away in my computer, makes me so happy.

Here I am close to midnight scanning in my semester bills from college days.

It's a good day.

Hustle & Flow

Just finished watching Terrence Dashon Howard in the film Hustle & Flow. Great film. You got the non-typical protagonist of the story -- a pimp, and the supporting cast, mainly -- his hos. Pardon the language, but just going with the flow now. With these characters to start with how can the movie ever get boring?

We get a glimpse of what it's like to be DJay, even if just for a little bit. A man going through his midlife crisis, questioning "is this it for me?" Now that's a man I can relate to; a character all of us can identify with at one point or the other.

"It ain't over for me. No, it ain't over for me." DJay raps over and over. Everyman's got to have a dream.

It ain't over for me either.

Karoke in My Room

Now, I am sure everyone, even those that won't admit it to others, when there's no one else in the car with ya and the radio is up playing your favorite tune, you find yourself start with the humming. Then your foot taps along with the beat, next comes your fingers on the steering wheel. You gain that little bit of confidence (well since you can hardly hear yourself because the music is loud enough for the car next to you to name that tune even with the windows up) and the head start bobbing and then all of a sudden you hear yourself belting out that favorite line "I believe I can fly! I believe I can touch the sky!..." ehhh.. or whatever is on your CD at the moment.

It's a nice moment isn't it?

No one around to critic you on how off key you are or to suggest that you take a lesson before ever consider singing infront of children.

Anyways, I had those moments today. Instead of doing my work, well, I did some work, but mostly I was engrossed recording myself singing along with my fav songs.

Three tracks. I recorded 3 tracks last night. They sounded alright. I wouldn't be distributing them anytime soon.

DIY - Saved Some Money

I didn't save any money on my car insurance today but I did save some $$ by changing out the wiperblades on my car. Well technically only the refills for the blades.

Yah really nothing to brag about, but I do feel better about myself. Cheap therapy.

Whole process took me a good 30 minutes at least. Cuz I am slow and didn't realize the trick to it until I've mucked around for 15 minutes. Hopefully this set of blades refills will last at least another 3 years.

2 front refills = 6.38
1 rear refill = 3.19

Total cost = 9.57

Not bad, not bad at all. Now my little Element is ready for the rain.

Thanks H and A Accessories!

Researching Doctors

Why aren't there forums out there for people to recommend doctors in their hometown area? Huh?

Isn't it frustrating for everyone to figure out which docs are lifesavers and which ones might push you one step closer to the grave?

Okay fine, I might be a little dramatic, but seriously, I racked up some good hours each time I move to a new place or need a new doctor.

Maybe that'll be my money making scheme.. mohhhahahahaa... shh...

Anyways, so instead of working on work, I was doing searches on the web and then cross referencing the different search results to compile a PDF doc with comments on each docs. Yes, I am anal, and I am proud.

Here's the process. Since I have Health Net and their doc finder doesn't really provide details on where the docs went to school and what is their background, I had to do the following (Health Net! Pay attention!):

1 - Search for doctors in my area in Health Net
2 - Print search results into PDF
3 - Search for docs in my area in UnitedHealthcare
4 - Cross reference doctors in PDF file with the results from UnitedHealthcare and take down notes
5 - Search for docs in my area in Aetna
6 - Cross reference doctors in PDF file with the results from Aetna and take down notes
7 - Read over my PDF with notes and then decide which doctor to call up.

Phew!! You telling me!!

In addition, I also like to check to see if the medical doctors are listed in American Board of Medical Specialties or in American Medical Association.

Always good to know who's going to be looking over you or operating on you. Too many horror stories out there about weirdos with fake certificates pretenting to be some medical profession.

Ah, at least several hours of work is not in vain. Buys me some comfort in narrowing down the choices.

Oh yah, I finally remember why I am blogging about researching for docs.. cuz I need one to look at the mellon sitting on top of my shoulders. A month after I was attacked by an electrical pole (full story here) I am still feeling the slight bump, depression and what seems like a crack on my upper right portion of my skull. Figured I better get it checked out in case I am leaking brain fluid.

MOMA - Revisited

Finally met up with a long time college friend in the city today. America is so big and with everyone's schedule, meetings like these are hard to come by.

MOMA it was. Working for corporate America does have its perks -- free admission to some top museums. But not at the Guggenheim though! Cheap @#f@#$. I shouldn't be so harsh, at least I get in some places for free.

Snapped while waiting for friend to show up. Classic streets of NYC.




We went through the exhibitions pretty quickly. Neither of us think too deeply about what the artist was thinking when they created their painting, art, or sculpture. Art is too subjective for me. Some of those paintings hung on the walls look like chicken scratches to me. But I am impressed with all the artists who managed to have others acknowledge their work as "art".

Is it superb marketing? Knowing the right people? Or really 100% talent?

Who knows. I did find some pieces that attracted me visually.


Rene Magritte - The Empire of Light II



Yves Tanguy - Extinction of Useless Light




Barnett Newman - Vir Heroicus Sublimis



I don't know the painter, but the guy matched the painting.





Open Early
Open Late
Open 7 Days

Mohahahahaa!!! I rhymed! As I crack myself up reading outloud Commerce Bank's logo, my friend looked down at me and said "yo, you stupid".

God it's good to have friends.

Scrubbing and Washing in the Rain

June -- has been temperamental so far.

Humid, cool, thunderstorms, and sunny days. Today ranked in the constant downpour to scattered showers range. Someone up there probably heard my pleas for reasons to procrastinate further so they granted me water --- free water!!!

Cheap ass like me can't give up this grand opportunity to get a free car wash. What happened to all those handwashed car services? Now majority of them have those tunnels installed where your car is moved through the spray, scrub, rinse, and blow dry cycle.

Part of the process involves some human labor, but most of the work is done by metal equipment. [Robots are going to take over the world!!]

Anyways, I've always wanted to wash my car in the rain. Doesn't everyone? So I did a quick change into my wet gear:
- Children's Place yellow slicker (it's so cute!)
- sandles
- shorts

Armed with an umbrella and a towel, into the rain I went. Oh, I was out there for good 30 - 40 minutes, giving the Element a good scrub and wipe down. Getting to places ignored by the machines. I am sure all the neighbors think there's a crazy Asian living amongst them. Whatever, I enjoyed the activity.

It's a cleansing feeling. Just you, the car, and the rain. Oh yah, and the garbage can you forgot to bring in for 2 nights now.

Pitter Patter, down came the splatter.

A Fine Example of Idiocy

I've been waiting for my new Cingular wireless phones to arrive since the day I placed the order. You know how it goes. Place the order, wait wait wait for the order confirmation and the shipping tracking number. Get the number and click on the link to see the updated shipping status every 5 minutes..

Finally the phones have arrived! Being my usual anal self, I started going through all 4 boxes of Sony Ericsson z520a to make sure everything is there. Ah ha! I found one of the phones have a pretty big scratch on the bottom of the internal screen. Getting pissy I mumbled to myself "What is this? Is this like one of those phones that customers returned? How come the packaging folks didn't think about adding on a sheet of clear plastic to protect the screens?"

So the next step logical of an unhappy customer is to call up someone to complain.


"Hi, I just received my new phones from Cingular this morning and there's a pretty big scratch towards the bottom of the internal screen. Is there a way I can get an exchange for my phone?"

"Hi, yes, is the scratch on the plastic covering or on the screen itself?"

"The scratch is not on the external screen but on the inner screen which I don't see a plastic covering. Is there one? Oh wait... let me check."

[Sidebar: I swear I checked to make sure there was no plastic on the internal screen before I made the call!"]


"When the phones are shipped there's usually a cover on both of the screens."

[Then I lifted the little tab on the screen completely... viola!! Look at that!]

"Oh!! sorry about this, yes... there is a plastic cover sheet. I didn't see it before."

"It's ok, a lot of people call in with that problem."



Yes, I felt like an idiot for the rest of the day.