Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Wedding Contract for Ben

I, Benjamin Scott Licona, do hereby commit myself to attend my good friend Kelly Chow's wedding to her fiance Tim (Diesel) Sale to take place at the Alderbrook Lodge Saturday, September 2nd, 2006.

I am obliged to go to this most important event, for which I have received an eight-month notice. I will not, under any circumstances (except for death), fail to be present at this event. Should any unforeseen circumtances come up, I am required to notify Kelly Chow immediately and trust in her decision to excuse my absence.

If, however, my absence is not excused, I will compensate her with an item to be determined by a board composed of both Lauren Choi (witness) and Kelly Chow, who will be fair and reasonable. This item will be no less than $500 and no more than $1000.



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Please sign: Ben Licona

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Please sign: Lauren Choi (witness)

Thursday, January 19, 2006

The New Dance Revolution

"Don't drink and do DDR"

Sound advice from a 15-year-old kid. It was 9:30, and after watching the new Queen Latifah movie, Tim and I decided to go to GameWorks.True, we were about twice as old as the other kids there. And yes, the game that we ended up playing was RIGHT IN FRONT of the place, by all the windows, where EVERYBODY can see you. But we didn't care. We were up for a night of DDR.

"What the heck is DDR?," you ask.

Well, DDR is only the COOLEST GAME EVER, aka DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION (yes, "dance" twice, not just for effect, but because it's truly about dancing).

Here are the components of this most exciting and fun game:

1) Game itself with tons of Eurotrash hits
2) Dancing pads, which provide quite a workout














Now, the white boy and the Asian girl really sucked indeed (I did take off my boots so I could dance better, only to have the workers there tell me to put them back on), but we had fun. So much so, in fact, that I decided to buy the home version of DDR.

Upon arriving at work today, my friend Lauren and I spent several minutes ebaying the item. I was stunned at the amount of DDR games/pads that are out there!

Apparently I was totally unaware of the dance revolution that is taking place out there. Unlike the 70's disco dance revolution, this dance revolution is taking place in the houses of geeks all over the world! Geeks who will not leave their house, but feel very comfortable busting out their Napoleon Dynamite moves in the safety of their home.

I'm no geek, but I am gladly joining this dance revolution. I shall organize a dance-athon even and invite all my girlfriends. This will be FUN!

D00d!!! I just found out there are REAL DDR COMPETITIONS! Check out this link, it's really inspirational videos:

3rd Place Champ 2002
DDR'ing to Ricky Martin

Large and in charge do the DDR
My peeps do the DDR

AND, there are organized teams that practice and get ready for competitions. To find your local chapter, click here.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Weird Geek Looks for Love

Ok, so unfortunately I have had the very unpleasant experience of being asked out by Geeks over e-mail, but this is ridiculous!

Keep in mind that "Weird Geek" (whose identity shall not be revealed...He might not have any self-respect, but I'm trying to help him out here...) is a complete stranger.

All of Weird Geek's e-mails are in "slimy green," which is what he is...slimy.

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From: Weird Geek
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:07 PM
To: Kelly Chow

Subject: Sonics... Friday night... Mr. Payton returns

Yo, Good to see, Galen, eh? Glad you made it by last night.
How about Friday, can you make the Heat? Best game all year? Maybe the Eastern Conference finalists? Can you make it?

D Weird Geek


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From: Kelly Chow
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:10 PM
To: Weird GeekSubject: RE: Sonics... Friday night... Mr. Payton returns

Hi Weird Geek, I don't think this was meant for me...Just want to make sure you send it to the right person...

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From: Weird Geek
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:15 PM
To: Kelly ChowSubject:

RE: Sonics... Friday night... Mr. Payton returns
Ah... nope. That's embarrassing. It was meant for my buddy CHRIS Chow. Oops. Well, since I haven't asked him yet, wanna go instead? lol
Thanks, Weird Geek

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From: Kelly Chow
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:19 PM
To: Weird GeekSubject:
RE: Sonics... Friday night... Mr. Payton returns

:) I think your buddy would appreciate the game more than I ever would :)

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From: Weird Geek
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:36 PM
To: Kelly Chow
Subject: RE: Sonics... Friday night... Mr. Payton returns

Right on. Sorry bout that. D

Thursday, January 05, 2006

I'm Getting a CROWN!

"And for what?," you ask?

For my CAVITIES, that's why!

After several years dodging the dreadful visit to the dentist, I finally got up the courage to go. And only because I was convinced that I had A (as opposed to "several") cavity.

The dentist, who was very nice and seemed to be knowledgeable, tried to explain to me what a crown is. Technicalities aside, it all boils down to this: crowns are for people who are old and/or have bad teeth.

I was totally unconsoled by the fact that my dentist said 1) "all of the teeth he had were crowns" and that 2) "he got his first crown at 24."

If anything, the thought of having a dentist whose own front teeth are all crowns only made me more nervous. Should I really be putting my oral health in the hands of a dentist that doesn't know how to floss and/or doesn't brush his teeth often enough?

Trepidation aside, his second reason didn't ease my concerns either; after all, getting your first crown is not like getting your first period, a milestone celebrated by every young lady, excited about entering puberty and womanhood (only to find out that having your period every month sucks).

If anything, I'm one stop closer to toothlessness.

And get this: The "procedure" (deemed as such to disguise the shame I feel for having crowns put in) will cost me over $1,000 out of pocket! Even with insurance, which covers about 50% of it. The only bright side is that they'll give me laughing gas during the procedure (note that I'll have to pay extra for the laughing gas), which means I'll be laughing all the way to the bank--and my overdrawn account...literally.

So that was the perfect end to my "comcastic" (in honor of Comcast, responsible for my defunct Internet connection--hooray to unfairly exorbitant cable fees which forces people like me to pull the plug on cable!--I did it last night) day.

Damn Those Geeks

...and damn one in particular: the backstabbing geek that works with me, which shall be called BG (for backstabbing geek) from now on.

If you're familiar with my postings, he is the damn geek who's responsible for the greatest visual offense in my workplace, namely, his little Cosby sweater/maroon turtleneck combo. Not to mention his high water pants--he doesn't actually mean for them to be capri pants; it's just that he should be getting "tall" pants, but it seems like he doesn't think spending the extra money is worth it.

Sometimes you can't help but feel sorry for somebody so fashion and socially inept like this, but when a damn geek has an evil personality to match, well, then they are getting what they deserve.

So BG has tried to backstab me numerous times at work. I could go on and on about the shady tricks he tried to pull: blaming me for the way a report turned out (in that case, I told the whole team what had really happened, and he was silent--I think he was taken aback by the fact that I actually spoke up) or for the fact that we went way overbudget for one of our campaigns (when EVERYBODY knew that our supervisor specifically assigned HIM to monitor spend in this campaign), etc, etc.

I have even had people come up to me and ask what the hell his problem is and even go so far as to ask me why he's such an asshole. My manager has also brought up his attitude during one of our meetings, profusely apologizing for the fact that I had to "go through that." So in the land of the paranoid, well, in that land, there is no Kelly, because his condescending demeanor to me as well as the lack of respect that he shows are indeed, very real.

I have (and so has my supervisor) noticed that to get one piece of information I have to ask him for it two or three times.

This month, accounting is a mess, and although he is the one responsible for accounting, I've had to spend several hours cleaning up the accounting mess. Granted it was not his fault, I am not getting any help from him whatsoever. The worst part is, he always sends out e-mails to me saying that he'll help me (cc'ing my supervisor, so she THINKS he's helping me), but never does. Every time I ask for reports, etc, he will either 1) sigh in annoyance 2) second guess the fact that I actually NEED the requested information 3) find a way to turn things around and say that I in fact don't understand what's going on.

I have tried several strategies to deal with him in a civilized way, including asking my supervisor straight up if the way I'm doing things are correct (so BG can hear her say that) or ignoring his attitude altogether.

Well, the time has come. The damn geek is going down. I'm tired of his attitude and his lack of social skills. If you can't find a gf (he told me he THOUGHT he had a gf--and was even happy for a while, but all that bliss has come crashing down this week, so I need to inquire about his so-called relationship), don't have any friends but your computer and geek books, don't go taking it out on nice people such as myself.

With my supervisor gone during Feb and putting ME in charge of things, I just can't afford to deal with his attitude problem. I'll put BG in his place and retalliate if necessary. To get things done, of course.

More to come...

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

New Year's

For New Year's we headed up to the Baker cabin.

Equipped with my helmet and kneepads, I felt fearless, ready to get up on the snowboard that weekend, and you could even say a little excited about practicing for two days in row.

The first day was pretty fun, and Tim came up with Kristin and myself, while his hardcore ski buddies went backcountry skiing.

The next day, however, was very painful. Not only did I fall getting off the lift (which hadn't happened at all the previous day), but I also had trouble with turns. The falls were also harsh, as the snow had turned into ice. After the first run, Tim walkie-talkied us and said the snow was softer up on the mountain. In a bold move, Kristin and I decided to take chair 8 up to the top of the hill.

All in all it took us 45 min to get down. Pretty pathetic, but we had fun though.

That night we got ready for New Year's. It was dejavu from last year's New Year's, as a group of about 10 of us wandered around the streets of Glacier trying to find a random party. We finally bumped into a so-called party with a bonfire surrounded by a bunch of what seemed to be Warren Miller-movie characters. Not to mention that we were older than the rest of those kids.

Our next stop was a friend's party. Just like the first party, we were amidst ski and snowboard bums. Upon joining some strangers under a big Costco-size umbrella (it was raining), we met "The Champion," who had been introduced to us as "Timmy the Teddy Bear" the night before, at the local bar. Timmy the Teddy Bear had all sorts of local gossip for us (love triangles, etc) as well as some interesting life stories (his family owns the driving range and mink farm in Glacier). I very much enjoyed the gossip, even though I didn't know any of those people. I told him I'd like to come back to Glacier for some more juicy gossip...and perhaps even more snowboarding.