Recently in Life Category

Image via Wikipedia

Good day to everybody.  Or whatever, pick a time of day.  I thought I'd write a little bit of something while I had a little free time today.  

You know, it's hard to believe that there is less than a month before I head off to Australia.  Wow.  With the recent destructive weather in Melbourne (see link below), my mom was hoping that the city sunk or something so I wouldn't have to go back.  Or wouldn't BE ABLE TO go back.  It's funny in a way, but in another way I want her to get used to having time to herself.  Since my father passed away, I've been at her house almost every day.  It's been several months now and originally I had hoped to be out on my own by November or December at the latest.  I think when something like that happens, a person tends to treat the surviving parent like a child... a 5 year old.  Really, my mom's not that old.  My parents were both in their early 50s.  One thing that I have learned is that I need to watch what I eat (and I say this after eating a Whopper and double cheeseburger from Burger King yesterday).  So really I feel like it's overdue.  I don't know whether guilt will force me to move back to the USA.  That tends to happen.  I think that if I could go back in time, I would have never bothered moving to Australia so I wouldn't know how much I love the country.  But I am happy to be there.  And sometimes Texas can be nerve-racking.  

A few other things that have been happening:

TROUBLE:  This weekend turned out to be absolute hell for my mom.  The computer totally stopped working.  It was about 6 years old but incredibly, it was a great computer up until the day that it stopped working.  It was running Windows XP and up to that point, Windows XP was my favorite version of Windows.  (Have I mentioned that I am mostly a Mac guy?)  So, after playing with the insides of the old tower I realized that the cooling fans were completely broken and the DVD player on it had crapped out, I called Brandi and we decided the best thing to do is to replace the whole thing.  I went shopping with my mom and picked up a PC for about $700 with a new monitor, 6 GB of memory and a decent sized hard drive.  (My mom isn't a game player so the smaller 500 GB hard drive is OK.)  It came with Windows 7 and I have to say that I am really liking it.  It runs really nicely and I've only installed 2 of my usual programs on it:  Opera 10.50 and Trillian.  I won't add any more than I have to because I'm leaving soon and it's my mom's computer really.  

Not only did the computer not work, the riding lawnmower's battery crapped out and the TV is having some issues.  There are blue pixels and yellow splotches all over the screen.  You can see through it the splotches... it's like someone peed on the screen.  It started while I was playing LittleBigPlanet.  Everything that I touched over the weekend started breaking... sad really.

OPERA 10.50 ON WINDOWS 7:  Opera 10.50 on Windows 7 rocks.  I love it.  It's pretty.  It's snappy.  It's absolutely wonderful.  I can't stress this enough:  if you haven't tried Opera ever or in a very long time, now is the time to try it.  It's the default browser now on this computer/account (PC) and on my Mac.  So much has been improved from previous versions that it would be impossible for me to list them all here.  One of my favorite features is Opera Sync.  No matter where you are or what browser you use, your Speed Dial and links are available.  You're more than welcome to go and download, install and try it for yourself.  http://www.opera.com/browser/

IDIOLOGIC REDESIGN:  To update you, it's getting done.  Slowly.  So far it's about a week late.  You should expect me to be late with everything now.

Image via Wikipedia

Well okay I'm not Indian or close to it, but I received a message in my My Opera inbox from someone who told me about it.  Back when I was doing a cultural awareness course, I learned a little about it.

Here, in SE Texas, we have a good amount of Indians who come here for their studies.  I was driving past the university one day and saw a group of people with some kind of paint all over them and I thought "Oh, strange.  But I admit that it looks like a lot of fun."  That's when I wish that we Americans had festivals like that.  Sure, we have chili cook-offs and rice festivals (your guess is about as good as mine), but when do WE get to throw brightly colored paint all over each other and have a great time doing it?  We don't, unless we're drunk... but paint and drunkedness just don't mix very well.

Holi, is also known as the Festival of Colors (or colours if you're in a country that spells it that way).  It's celebrated by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and other cultures around the globe.  I can't really give you any insight on it REALLY is so that's why I included the link at the beginning of this paragraph.  

As many of you are aware, I also live in Melbourne, Australia and the press has been reporting a lot about Indian students getting robbed and beat up.  Some of those crimes are racially motivated, unfortunately.  But I have also noticed that people in Australia are a lot more unnecessarily rude to Indians in general.  I think that sometimes people have a downright fear of people who are different:  different cultures and different religions tend to scare some people.  And out of observation as an American, we are kinder to Indians than Australians are.  It's a shame that they're not closer because it's much cheaper to fly to Australia than to USA and that's why (in my opinion) Indians go to Australia instead.

I can not stress enough that if you do not know enough about a group of people, don't generalize.  Don't listen to the stereotypes.  Don't listen to the negativity people spread because it will only breed more intolerance and hatred.  

I'm happy to have my friends of many ethnic backgrounds.  I learn from them and they learn from me.  When I don't understand something fully, I ask and I expect the same.  

And if you stumble upon this and you're an Indian in Australia who has been wronged in any way, I know it's not my place to apologize but I am truly sorry.  I too know how hard it is to go to another country to try to make a life when the culture is different.  (Yes, things do differ between Australia and the USA).  And there ARE nice people in Australia who would love to be your friend, even if they're not originally from Australia themselves! :)

To all my friends who celebrate it, I hope you have a great Holi and wish you the absolute best!  (And absolutely NOTHING against Australians, I love you too or I wouldn't make that country my home.)

Ah we needed an update, didn't we? Sure you did. I know I did.

Well so 2010 is here and as far as I know, mostly queer. I'm sitting here with my fingers in my ear because the dog is snoring. And I could keep rhyming like a bloody idiot, or I can get on with my bad ol' self.

I haven't been feeling very spectacular lately with my kidneys and such. I jumped on the scale the other day and it said 187.5 pounds (which is 85 kg). I was like, wow. But something told me that the scale was wrong so a day or two later, I jumped on (literally) and it was 178.5 (and that's about 81 kg).

So what could have happened where I lose 9 pounds (ahem, 4 kg) in one day? Any one of these things may have happened:

• I dropped the new-born baby I was holding.
• The dog jumped out of my arms.
• The alien jumped into the toilet and flushed itself.
• I threw my guts up, literally.
• I had to pee... really bad.
• I was full of shit, um, literally.

I assure you it wasn't any of those things. Or maybe it was just the bathroom scale being funny. I usually weigh myself with minimal clothes on like with my underwear and socks on only. When I weighed myself, I was wearing jeans, a jacket and doing something else... I don't remember what... I think brushing my teeth.

BUT I poke fun of myself saying that but honestly, 2009 was my heaviest year. I had never, ever hit the 180 pound mark and I am struggling very hard to keep the weight off. I have always been somewhat on the thin side. I liked it. I had no real problem with it and putting weight ON was always a huge problem. Well I have it now. And it's very, very hard to lose.

So this year, I will focus on that. I need to get into better shape. My body is reminding me that I'm getting older and I'll have man titties (yes, this is a scary link) in no time. Something I don't want.

Now all you people who thought I would never put on weight can laugh. ;) If your goal this year is for a healthier body, let me know. I know it sounds funny but I can give you some dietary tips (and I'm so capable and qualified to do it). I wish you luck and hey, don't quit on your new gym membership, yeah? Your body will love you for it later.

My goal for the first 6 months of 2010 is to lose about 5 pounds a month. Very easy. Very attainable.

The area in that light blue is how much I weighed (mostly) in Australia so it goes to show you that I've been putting it on like crazy in the USA. There is just too much good food here. I am hoping to lose 20-25 pounds of fat this year. If I put on muscle, that's even hotter/sexier/better.

And these graphs were made by OmniGraphSketcher by Omni Group which make awesome Mac software. (And making graphs is a nerdy obsession of mine...)

I'm a little early for this for the USA (it's officially 2010 in Australia though so it makes it okay) but I want to wish you all a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2010!

I hope my 2010 doesn't suck as bad as 2009 but let me tell you, I'm going to have a rough start to 2010.

Plans for me tonight? I don't really have any. My aunt's having a party but very unsure that I will be there until midnight. Originally I was supposed to go to Houston but I can't be bothered driving almost 2 hours to get there.

I'm planning to visit my sister today so I might get some podcast recording done while I drive.

Also, I quietly added a countdown to the front page of idiologic.com for a rough indication when I am heading back to Australia (for who knows how long).

I noticed today that I haven't really replied to many comments since October and I apologize for that, so I want to say 'thank you' to the people who have been commenting since then. I thought I might just make it a bit easier on you to read same of my replies here on this entry:

To Rudy regarding the post I did about people commenting:

Thanks for being patient regarding the sponsored posts. I feel guilty doing them sometime, but they do help me out quite a bit. :) But at least they're not too obtrusive which is what I was more worried about.

And about my Christmas episode, yeah it was supposed to be out on Christmas Eve or earlier, but oh well. My Christmas went well. I got a lot of clothes, a Bluetooth headset and a Magic Mouse on the way. I also got a lot of candy which I don't really need. I hope you have a great New Year's Eve and Day! :) I didn't get the big glass ruby. Maybe someday.

To Mark, regarding your comment on idioPod 100:

I used to be a lot more negative than that. On some days I am entitled to be lazy and when I say that I'm being lazy, I pretty much mean it. I could do a lot more, but being more positive is the way to go because one thing that I've noticed is that negativity spreads. I admit that I do have self-esteem issues and unfortunately that has been a problem since before Gilbert. Sad thing when someone has that much control over someone... but it does happen.

To the Anonymous Commenter on the same podcast episode:

Thank you for listening and I'm glad that you really liked it. Let me know if you have more questions that I can answer. :)

Alright, so I think that's it for now. I hope you all had an awesome Christmas! :)

So alright, I haven't made too much of a big deal about it this year, but yes, exactly 30 years ago on 1 December 1979, a baby boy was born: me. Oh and my friend Jonathan too. Also one of my friend's grandfather's. Wow.

It's unfortunate that my father isn't here to celebrate my birthday with me but I guess that is the funny thing about life. I'm still saddened by the sudden loss of my father, but life must go on.

From today, I look forward to the years ahead and it's time to buckle down and do the things I have always wanted (like skydiving, possibly... I was supposed to go with my dad, but I think he would want me to go anyway and yes, I'm scared).

I'm looking forward to being with my family and friends here in Texas. We're having chicken and sausage gumbo! My mom's making dinner and my sister is making the cake. So I have to thank them to bits!

Also, let's not forget that December 1st is also World AIDS Day. I used to be kinda mad at that day sharing my birthday but I'm over it. Please protect yourself when having sex and if you choose not to, get tested regularly, yes? Or buy RED products that contribute to AIDS research.

And if I've offended anybody by what I just said, it's not my intention.

"There are a lot of double standards as far as that goes," the singer told the AP. "We've seen female pop and rock performers do that for the last 10 years. They've been very provocative, owning their power and sexuality. You just don't see men doing it very often. And I'm hoping to break down that double standard with this number."

I am just letting you guys and girls know that I needed to move around my podcasting schedule for a bit so basically the 100th episode will NOT be out until the first or second week of December.

Why?

Right now I am working on my dad's memorial DVD that I promised my family. I thought that if I made it on my Mac that I bought in Australia, that it wouldn't play on the DVD players here. I was wrong so that meant I have been lying to people for the past 1.5 months. It's time for me to get it done, so I need to get it done by Thanksgiving which is next Thursday. I won't be able to record and post 3 podcast episodes by then.

I started idioPod 98 on Monday thinking I would post it on Tuesday, but it looks like I'm going to have to redo it. But you guys know me, who knows if it's going to happen, right?

On that note, I miss my dad and I miss Australia. I miss Felix (my dog) too.

This weekend has been the weekend of overeating. I'll try to remember what I ate, but the list is just too big I think:

Friday: I didn't eat much during the day because I knew that I was going out to eat at night. Lately, I haven't been much on going out to eat and eating everything I order. (Of course, here in the USA you're expected to eat everything and that's why people are so overweight.) So I waited until about 8:30 pm to go to a place called Chili's. And if you're in Australia, which many of you are, it's like TGI Friday's. So it's so-called American food mostly. I had planned to go to a place called Cheddar's which has the same junk, but it was getting late and when you go there, you're expected to wait about 30 min to an hour to be seated. I haven't figured that out yet.

So anyway, that late at night, I ordered a deal where it was 1 appetizer, 2 entrees and 1 dessert for $20. Silly me, I thought they'd be smaller portions. They weren't. I had skillet queso which is basically hot dog chili in cheese dip and you eat it with white corn chips. It's always really salty and those chips typically have 1 gram of fat EACH. So I probably ate like 30 of them. Next, I ordered a buffalo chicken sandwich (fried of course) with fries. And for dessert I ate a brownie with ice cream. I was really full then.

Saturday: Didn't eat breakfast and wasn't very hungry. I was still stuffed from eating all that stuff (which was a pretty good deal if you ask me.) I ended up leaving a little past noon driving around for an hour trying to decide where to eat. I decided that I wanted to go to my favorite place here for Vietnamese food. They closed it apparently and turned it into a game room. I was pretty pissed. I ended up going to IHOP and ordering one of their plates with eggs, bacon, sausage and pancakes. Good stuff, especially the apple cinnamon pancakes.

Later that day, I went to a hamburger place and got an order of fried mushrooms.

Sunday: Today I made the mistake of getting Chinese buffet food here (which is a lot of sugary junk). I overeat again. I can't even tell you what it was because I don't remember. A lot of it was just sugar-chicken... not too many vegetables. Then later I went over to Brandi's and ate a half-bowl of chicken and sausage gumbo (which is a cajun kind of soup stuff).

And here I am. I think I'm missing some stuff in there, but yeah, so I am super full. It sounds like it's not a lot (especially for American standards). But I STILL feel stuffed!

So that's a little about my weekend of eating. I had made a plan of not eating out more than 4 meals per MONTH. I hit that in like 2 days. And wow do I feel fat. I've been hovering around 170 pounds lately. I'm sure I'm about 5 pounds heaver.

But at the same time, I feel like I want some strawberry shortcake. :)

Happy Halloween

I am getting pretty bad at telling you guys to enjoy your "holidays" so here we go. I hope that your Halloween is a good one. I know that since it's on the weekend this year, there is more of a chance for you to enjoy it.

What are my plans? Well, we have a tradition in my family where my mom makes a broccoli and cheese soup with breadsticks. Oh yes, and Ghoul-Aid which is basically orange Kool-Aid, grape Kool-Aid, ginger ale and water. Good stuff.

So I'm really excited about that. The number of scary movies coming on TV have been awesome too. I usually don't go to parties or anything like that for Halloween.

So I hope you do something fun this weekend and if you don't, it's your own damn fault. ;)

And now to show you some of my favorite Halloween candy:

I love that stuff. Though I see there are "Mary Jane's" mixed in which I have no idea if they're the same thing or not.