For once I had a relatively busy weekend. On Saturday, I took Erin down to Gund headquarters in Edison where they were having their quarterly "Get Rid of Inventory" sale. Was notified of it by a coworker and thought it'd be a good idea to drop by to see how things were. Basically they set up a tent next to their shipping department with big cardboard boxes stuffed with animals. When you walk in, the person at the door hands you a huge, transparent garbage bag. And people actually fill those things up. Freakin' incredible. And most of the items are about 50% off so pretty good deals. Both Erin and I wound up spending just $19 each. Erin bought some small Winnie the Pooh animals, hoping to sell them off to some gullible friends in Taiwan for a 200% markup. ;-p Me, well, just look below:

Afterwards we headed up to my parents' place to show off our spoils and to see how the home renovations were coming along. They were still in the process of tearing out the kitchen and only 1 out of the 2 and 1/2 bathrooms that we have there was useable but when everything's done, it'll look pretty darn good. Although I think my dad's going a little nuts with the marble tiles. He's marble-izing anything that doesn't have carpet practically. Old linoleum floors? Marble. Counter tops? Marble. Garage? Marble. Just kidding on that last one. =) I'm afraid the house is going to come crashing down one day with all that marble. But whatever makes him happy I guess. =p And after they're done with all this, they're replacing the carpet too. Sheesh.

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of going on a 7 hour munch fest with June, who was down for the weekend from Chicago. Joining us were some other fellow UofC alums: Diana, Felix & Suzanne, Andy & Anne. Starting from Fe & Suzanne's apartment, our first stop was Sushi A-Go-Go for lunch. Down near Lincoln Center, they apparently had excellent sake sangrias. And the sushi wasn't half bad either. Unfortunately, Andy & Anne didn't get their in time to eat but that wouldn't be much of a problem as you'll see later.

Since we were in the area, Andy invited us up to see his workplace at ABC News. It's kinda cool cause he sits a bit behind and to the left of Peter Jenning's seat during the news broadcasts. And he has a flat panel display. And an Aeron chair, that bastard. ;-p Actually they had Aeron's all over the place. Anyway, we got to sit in Peter Jenning's seat and snap some pictures. And got a brief tour of the whole operation over there from the makeup room to the control room to the photo-editing rooms. Interesting to see.

Afterwards, we decided to head down to the NYU area for the mandatory stop at St.'s Alp for some tea with tapioca. Apparently Anne's first trip to such a place and she was quite amazed at the tastiness of it all. Understandable of course. ;-) We hung out there for awhile waiting for Diana to give us a call since she had run off to her ballet lessons. 3 martial arts and now ballet, I think we should have a pool to see what she goes for next. Spelunking? Paragliding? Alligator wrestling? Lion training? Glass blowing? The possibilities are limitless. =)

When she finally did call it was time to talk about well, dinner. Heh. So after deciding on the New Yorker residents' favorite Ethiopian place on the upper West side, we decided to reconvene at Fe & Suzanne's place again to freshen up before we went and stuffed ourselves some more. After the obligatory bathroom runs by everyone involved, we stepped back outside where we...

promptly froze our butts off. Damn! it was cold that day. Sucks when the weather goes from 60 degrees to 20 overnight. Needless to say, waiting for the bus was not a fun event. But eventually we arrived at Ghion and settled down to some damn good finger food. Vegetarian though it may be, everything was quite good. Although apparently I disappointed Anne for not being a voracious pig. Where she got that impression from I'll never know. =p

Anyways, it being a Sunday night and a freezing Sunday night at that, there wasn't much left to do afterwards 'cept for everyone to haul ass back to their respective homes and warm up. But overall it was nice seeing everyone again, especially that crazy Korean woman from the Midwest. ;-) Even if our main events for the entire day revolved around food. Guys, next time, let's do something else besides eat, yeah? And for heaven's sake remind me to never, _ever_ drive in to the city again unless you can guarantee that I can find street parking without a problem. Paying $43 for parking is just criminal. That's one less PS2 game that I'll have to wait another month or two to get. ;-p

Monday was the 6 month anniversary of the Sept. 11 affair and the day culminated with the memorial of light that is set up a bit north of where the WTC used to be. It was still way too cold Monday night to go check out the lights but Tuesday warmed up a bit so we headed down to Exchange Place then. With each square beam of light consisting of 48 searchlights, it's definitely pretty impressive and the beam really gets up into the clouds. Unfortunately it doesn't turn out very well in pictures. If you're in the tri-state area, it's definitely worth checking out one evening before they shut it down for good in April.

unless they're bad changes. ;-) Anyway, a couple of things to touch upon in this entry. First off, I finally got my ass in gear and coded over parts of my site to be database-driven. Should've done this ages ago but for some reason I just kept stallin'. *shrug* Plus Felix wouldn't set up the database for me. ;-p I'm still not 100% happy with it but it'll do for now. Makes updating the site a lot easier nowadays at least. You can now also leave little comments on my spews if you deem it worthy (or not =p). And you can now also suggest links to me from the links page.

Secondly, congratulations to my ol' high school pal Selina Wong, on gettin' hitched! After years and years of meticulous planning, the big day finally came. Yeah yeah so it was half a month ago. At least I mentioned it! ;-) Seriously though, it was a very nice ceremony and dinner and I'm very happy for her. Although not as happy as they are since they've apparently been on a shopping spree with all their new-found wedding wealth. =) I mean with all the tv and region/macrovision-free DVD player buying, you'd almost think that the wedding was just a cover for them to get tons of cool stuff. ;-p Anyway, unfortunately I forgot my damn camera in the car so I didn't take any pictures. But George did and I'm still waiting for him to send me copies, that bastard. ;-p Oh, and I also had the opportunity to catch up with another of my old high school acquaintances at the wedding since Helen and her husband David were nice enough to hop over from Utah to take part in the festivities. They had some interesting things to say about living in Mormon-land. =)

Man, you give donations to one non-profit organization and suddenly every other non-profit org finds their way to your door! I made 2 small contribs to Planned Parenthood in the past couple of months and all of a sudden I'm getting mailings from every org under the sun. Not that I really mind but I feel bad cause there's no way I can donate to all of them. Although the Sierra Club might be good. At least I get a free backpack from them. ;-p And a really cute polar bear picture that joins the other 2 on my refrigerator door. =) And then I've been getting letters from NJ Senator Corzine keeping me abreast on his votes against that oil-drilling policy that Bush is trying to ram through Congress. I vaguely remember signing a petition online about it awhile back and I've gotten 2 letters from Corzine already thanking me for my interest. Almost makes me feel important. =p