gatorquaker's Xanga

big game!

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 15:27:36 GMT

today is the first big game of the college football season for me! florida vs tennessee!

thanks to my parents' slingbox, i hear the good ol' CBS football intro music..so sweeeet at 3:30am!

i remember 48 unanswered points for the gators to beat the vols as my parents and i watched at the philadelphia gators club in 95...

i remember beating down peyton manning 4 straight years...haha

i remember staying home from going out in college to watch the lucky overtime kick to beat the gators in 98 and the subsequent drunkenness that followed...

i remember jesse "clutch" palmer's miraculous drive and jabar gaffney's miraculous "catch" in 2000 to beat the vols at the last second...

i remember dallas baker's BS penalty and the sinking feeling i had when the tennessee kicker blasted it from 50 yards with no time remaining in 2004...

go gators!!!

AS IM TYPING THIS BRANDON JAMES RETURNS A PUNT FOR A TD!!!!!!!!! 7-0 GATORS!!!!

O black-and-blue buttocks

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:42:37 GMT

I went to my first spinning class at my new gym today. And, for the foreseeable future, my last. After the first 10 minutes, my ass was on fire. I seriously considered quitting but I didn't see anyone else walking out of the class, and I realized that if I did so, I would look like a complete pussy.

The modern bike seats at the gym (Schwinn quality no less) can't hold a candle to the good ol' padded Husky I used to ride back in the 3rd grade. Or for that matter, the bike I had in Beijing when I was studying abroad there in '99, though the comfort level of that bike seat was no doubt abetted by the leopard-patterned padded butt cushion I bought at the local convenience store (other choices: magenta-colored, black S&M leather).

No, the bike seat in the context of a modern, prohibitively expensive Hong Kong gym was hard, hard pleather. After 20 minutes, I thought it wasn't so bad anymore. I realized unfortunately later that it was due to pure utter numbness in my nether regions. A few hours later, I am uncomfortably bruised in all the wrong spots, probably black and blue except that I can't really optically confirm without the help of an intricate systems of pulleys and mirrors.

Add to that the fact that the spinning instructor kept on yelping randomly, apparently to motivate the class to pedal harder. Plus the music was terrible. Plus my calfs cramped up due to overwhelming tiredness thus leading me to spend the last 10 minutes pedaling at Geritol speed. Plus I still managed to sweat a disgustingly large puddle of sweat beneath my bike which I felt compelled to unobstrusively towel away at the end of the ungodily long hour.

This has all lead me to conclude that spinning sucks.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 12:44:45 GMT

i'll skip the whole "wow it's been six months since i've posted" bullcrap... august 2006 finds me treading water through my mid-late 20's, wondering if the winding road through the capitalistic hegemony i've chosen is really the right one. it's not that i dislike my job...in fact, i genuinely like my colleagues and more or less always have, one of the main reasons i've stuck it out for 5+ years. it's more than i'm a bit tired of the spin game, window dressing the numbers, and casting things in a perfect shade of grey rather than black+white. as silly as it sounds, i don't work at an investment bank for the money. don't get me wrong, i'm certainly under no delusions that i'll save the world with my super duper excel model, but i've always like to, in a nutshell, figure things out. but more and more, instead of reasoning my way toward the truth, i'm constructing a mirage filled with half-truths and omissions, kind of like taking a yellow highlighter and marking only what i want people to see. challenging, no doubt, but not exactly stuff that motivates me to jump out of bed in the morning.

anyway, on to happier thoughts. xiaotang came in for a brief weekender, shortened even further by the fact that her plane was delayed for 4 hours on friday night. we organized a chill wine and cheese gathering on saturday afternoon. she made buffalo mozzarella and tomato, a melon-proscuitto combo, shrimp salad and asparagus. i made pimm's cocktail, baked pita chips and opened the wine and beer for everyone. dampening the cognoscenti factor was the fact that we were enraptured by rich's chappelle show dvds for the duration of the afternoon, plus some xbox later on for the boys. i still can't beat the computer in fifa, although i'm getting close (albeit playing brazil and the computer playing hong kong). maybe i'm just not cut out for video games, a result of a nintendo-deprived childhood.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 09:14:26 GMT

"So how do you pick up chicks in Asia?" my friend Ed asked me.

"You just wear your US passport around your neck."

Perhaps because I so rarely fire up the grey matter in time to find humor outside of sarcasm (the easiest form of humor, I believe, because it entails simply stating the opposite of what you truly intend), he took me seriously. And that's why he thought xiaotang would be a local Shanghai girl that I had reeled in with the passport mojo.

So for the record, just because I met my girlfriend in Shanghai does not make her a green card-obsessed pig-tailed local Chinese girl who wears "PLEY-BOY" sweatshirts. Quite the contrary -- her apparel of choice these days is a full-length down bubble-jacket with faux fur from Shaoyang market.

Usually she writes these updates because I'm on the plane back to HK. This time since she's flying back to Shanghai (delayed flight I just found out) I will do the honors...

Tanya flew in last Saturday night, immediately after which we had dinner at The Oyster & Wine Bar at the Shangri-la. Impressed by her wine selection - a Cakebread(?) Sauvignon Blanc, which was one of the best whites I've had. Usually I'm a stickler for reds. We picked out six types of oysters to try (I never knew there were so many varieties of oysters and flavors. My favorites, I have come to realize, are the sweet and fruity ones, to which I had a crapload of tabasco and vinegar, so that it tastes like a squishy wonton). We then shared the foie gras, I had the seafood squid ink pasta, and I forgot what she had (sorry babe).

Afterwards we went to Felix, the bar at the Peninsula for a quick drink. The elevator going up to bar was much more impressive than the bar decor itself.

On Sunday we went to Japan for a quick two-day trip. Every time I go to Japan I'm amazed at how clean everything is. Clean and orderly, the exact opposite of China. Our hotel - the Seiyo Ginza - was awesome. For a Japanese hotel room it was huge. It even had a vanity mirror area where you could preen and put on makeup a la one of those dressing rooms you see in the movies. Uh not that I used it.

We went to kaiseki (sp?) for dinner with Tanya's friends Roy, Kyoko, Masa and Natsuko, and my ex-girlfriend Meg. Her ex-boyfriend Mark couldn't make it because he was at work, otherwise it would have been an exceedingly awkward meeting of the exes. Haha. Basically kaiseki is where you are served all these tiny courses, each in a perfect little dish that was probably handcrafted by midget Chinese laborers for that purpose. One of the courses was fugu (blowfish). Sounds dangerous, huh? Well, it looked and tasted like a chicken mcnugget.

I made the heinous mistake of referring to Tanya as "Me-. . . Tanya" during a snippet of conversation. I didn't think anyone else picked up on it, but afterwards T sure did. Oh you can bet she did. Well actually she found it funny more than anything else (one of the many reasons she ROCKS!!). However, as penance I will have to watch Brokeback Mountain with her. And keep my eyes open during the gay love scenes. Goddamn.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 11:12:51 GMT

Yet another ignomonious failure in my quest to be a do-it-yourself handyman. My latest source of shame: Lightbulb Replacement.

Two bulbs in the ceiling light in my bedroom were out, so I decided to change the bulbs. After much contorting and screwing, I managed to replace one of them. Somehow the old bulb head got stuck in the old one and I can't get it out. But hey I figured, one outta two ain't bad (hey if a fat long-haired man in a vampire costume like Meatball can get hot chicks, I can butcher his song titles).

So you can imagine my dismay when I flicked on the switch expecting the exile of twilight and got..nothing. I guess that mini-explosion when I tried to remove the first light bulb without turning the electricity off must have done something to the fuse. Now instead of one bulb working I have none, and I gotta get some professional guy to come fix it. Fuck.

---------------------------------------

On Sunday I went fishing for the first time. I think the best adjectives to describe fishing are:
1) dainty
2) gruesome
3) dumb.

Dainty because I apparently do not have the finger dexterity nor the home-ec sewing experience to tie the hook onto the line without much to-ing and fro-ing, interrupted by random grunting.

Gruesome because you have apply the bait, which involves:
a) lifting a single worm out of the morass of creepy slithering worms in a little jar
b) chopping a little section off while it's writhing around (yes, worms feel pain, as evidenced by the blood and the increasing writhing)
c) avoiding the worm's horrible little mouth and slashing claws
d) stabbing the still writhing section that you cut off with your hook (this usually entails having to hold it down with your hand and feeling its undead movements

Dumb because after you cast the line into the water, in which for a brief but glorious half-second I channelled A River Runs Through It, the hook invariably becomes stuck on a rock and gets lost, after which you repeat the whole dainty-gruesome-dumb(DGD)process over again. The first time this happened, I thought I had caught Shamu and reeled/pulled until I realized that either a) dolphins can swim 2-feet deep water, have ogrish strength, freeze when hooked and cunningly masquerade as rocks or b) it was a rock.

All in all, however, fishing was fairly fun. Here are some pictures:

Jack, Lawrence and Catherine: master anglers

DIE YOU FOUL UNDEAD CREATURES!

The one fish that we did catch (and by "we" I mean someone other than myself") I included the Corona bottle for perspective.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 11:53:59 GMT

I spent the latter half of 1999 in Beijing, China on a study abroad program. Now, those heady days of junior year college seem so long ago, but I can't help but draw parallels between then and these Hong Kong days that melt ever so swiftly from one to the next.

Back then, I had already gotten into the habit of measuring life in four-year chunks. I distinctly remember sitting on my creaky bed in a Tsinghua dormintory marvelling that it had already been four years since the junior year in high school, when I spent my days alternatively pining between a high school unrequited crush, hazing freshmen in cross-country (where I was strictly the mascot/token bench-warmer) and memorizing meaningless biology facts in Mr. Robino's Biology Club (I adamantly refuse to go into details; suffice to say it was the nadir of my dork-dom).

In those days of 2400 baud-modem based internet, I had almost no connection to the outside world. I remember how disappointed I was to find that Florida had been upset by lowly Alabama 40-39, ending their national championship dreams. This year, we got crushed by Bama. All in all, I find my interest in sports slowly but surely waning as the days pass and the time difference and Asia's fascination with snooker and badminton prevents me from watching anything of interest on the telly.

Now as opposed to a small room that I shared with my Indonesian roommate Adi (wonder what he's up to these days?), I live in a relatively pimped out pad in Hong Kong. However, the overall feeling of the city is about the same to me. It's kinda like, I can live here no problem, but I wouldn't be comfortable here long-term. At the end of the day, I'm just way too Americanized. What makes me happy is backyard touch football games when the air has that sharp autumn scent, quality chilled longnecks, pumpkin pie, orange leaves, and of course, NFL football on the TV.

Instead, just as in '99, Thanksgiving is just another Thursday. The weather outside, though a bit cooler, is still reasonably warm and humid.

I just returned from a rather grueling trip to Singapore. The highlight was watching Wedding Crashers on the plane on the way back (a decently funny movie, though not all that it was hyped ot be. Old School was much funnier). And of course, talking to Tanya before she left for the good ol' USA. So tonight, I'm posting my random thoughts since she's on a plane and can't do the nightly googletalk conversation. Sigh.

Oddly enough, I find that my conversation these days invariably drifts to her. I'm sure that my friends and colleagues are sick and tired of my recounting of our adventures, which I guess in retrospect only work as inside jokes betweem the two of us.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Sat, 12 Nov 2005 10:58:29 GMT

I went to see Cirque de Soleil with some friends tonight. I really didn't expect the humor component, actually. I'd always pictured it as this mixture of ballet and acrobatics, all taken too seriously. But actually it was quite the opposite. My favorite pieces were actually the comedy skits which involved no contortionism whatsoever.

They brought this fat white dude up on stage and made him straddle some poor chinese girl and mock-hump her on stage. I'm sure they did that on purpose - there's no way a local is gonna do that, but a big white guy who's obviously downed a few beforehand = zero shame. It was awesome.

So Tanya came to visit last weekend. It flew by, and I was just getting accustomed to seeing her around when she had to leave. I'm too much of a guy to be all goo-goo and all (for a while, I said, "yeah we jes hangin out, s'all), but it feels really...comfortable. I'm going to Shanghai on Thursday - can't wait.

I guess I've never really had a long-distance relationship before, but with the wonders of modern technology - googletalk, webcam - it really ain't all that bad. (get your mind outta the gutter - all we do on the webcam is talk. perv.)

Here's some pictures of T and me:

(for clarification purposes, my girlfriend is on my left, not the one obscenely cackling behind and to my right)

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 17:53:24 GMT

You know it's a late night when you're in the office and even the night shift guys have gone home.

Currently, it's 7am in Hong Kong and I'm still in the office. This has officially turned into my first All-Nighter. Starbucks opens in 8 minutes! Yippee.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 14:27:35 GMT

just got home from work at 3:30am, and i have go back in about 4 hours. this is by far the hardest i've worked since i started more than four years ago. thank god i didn't go into ibd - would have burned out and quit not too far into my 1st year analyst year.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 03:15:33 GMT

Today's a lazy sunday day in HK. It's 3:53pm and I still haven't left the house yet. Nonetheless, it's not like I've been merely wasting my time. Ont the contrary, I've filled my time with pursuits such as:
- Randomly strumming guitar, 3 minutes
- Making coffee, 4 minutes
- Reheating Friday night's dumplings, 3 minutes
- Watching Boogie Nights, 2 hours
- Re-watching scenes from Boogies Nights where Heather Graham gets naked, 3 minutes
- Fast-forwarding through the entirely gratuitous and unnecessary display of Marky Mark's fake schlong at the end: -3 seconds
- Reading Maureen Dowd's essay on feminism in the New York Times, 15 minutes
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/magazine/30feminism.html?8dpc

I like Maureen Dowd a lot. For a 50-something columnist for the premier newspaper in the world, she actually got some street cred. I mean, she writes shit like "In the T.M.I. - Too Much Information - digital age, there can be infinite technological foreplay." Plus she's kinda hot for a granny.

HAHAHA - metsgod just sent me this video. I am dying of laughter.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6739710473912337648&q=chinese&pr=goog-sl

It's sheer brilliance - the yao jerseys, the cast, the oblivious dude in the background, the metallicaesque headbanging to backstreet boys. I am not not at all ashamed to admit that my college friends and I made a video recording to this exact same song about six years ago. There were about 6-7 of us, and we each had a solo part. I think it's still on my parents' computer back in Jersey. Looking back, it was the pinnacle of dorkdom, so so incredibly nostalgic that it brings tears to my eyes to think of it. That song "I want it that way" will always have special meaning to me, because it's so intricately tied to my college experience.