Just Blowing Hot Air

What Is This?
This is a grainy picture (sorry for the poor quality but my LG Shine broke and I have to resort to using an old cell phone camera) of a hand dryer at the Burger King in Westwood.

Hate It Or Love It?
Don't you hate it when a hand dryer doesn't get your hands completely dry?

I'm all for the save-paper-save-the-environment concept. But sometimes it's annoying when the dryer lets out a lackluster stream of lukewarm air and your pants are your only substitute for paper towels.

Enter the Dyson Airblade (check out the nifty animation!). This beast shoots out sheets of wind at 400mph to simply dry off your hands. How awesome is that? Best part is, they've installed one of these $1200 monstrosities in the De Neve bathrooms.

Wait. Hold up. $1200? Let me get this straight: budget cuts are causing UCLA to admit less students, cram more kids into already crowded classrooms and even drop some majors entirely and we're spending money to dry off our hands adequately?

Well, at least it makes for some good entertainment.

A Miscellaneous Musing...

If you always make sacrifices for the future, when will you ever take the time to be happy? Sometimes it's good to sacrifice for the present.

Thoughts?

The Love Train

It's been some time since I last posted, so I'll give a quick rundown of what's new:
-Hate It Or Love It has been read over 10,000 times. You guys are awesome!
-This weekend, I made the journey down to UCSD for Sun God Festival. I had a great time and Bobby Ray was amazing. Some guy named Drake was there too.





Anyways, on to business.

Hate It Or Love It?
Don't you love it when you strike up a great conversation with a random stranger?

I take the Amtrak for my adventures to San Diego. Riding the train is not by choice; I literally have no other means of transportation to get there. I know what you're thinking: what a drag. And I would've agreed with you after my first trip. But besides being more relaxing, the Amtrak rides have another benefit.

At school and back home in my community, I'm generally surrounded by people like me. Same socio-economic status. Same values. Same experiences. Hell, even same race. I've met a more diverse cast of characters sitting on that train than I have doing any other activity.

Once I get on the train, I always try to start a conversation with the person next to me. Each ride is like a two-hour-long peek into someone else's life.

On this trip there was Henry from New Zealand, who cooks for a living but is also a photographer, a skateboarder and an artist. There was also Lily, who moved to the O.C. from Virginia and dropped out of high school. On the way back, there was Vanessa, who was an aspiring doctor. And on my last trip, there was John, the Vietnam War veteran who also played semi-professional hockey back in his day.


One of Henry's drawings

Talking to all these people has certainly put things in perspective for me. Not everyone is born into a well-to-do family, grows up without any real adversity, gets a good college education and becomes an engineer or doctor or businessman. But everyone has a story to tell and I'm content to just listen.

Go Phoenix!

What Is This?
This is basketball god Steve Nash shaking hands with the Spurs after beating them with one eye.

Hate It Or Love It?
Don't you love it when your favorite team beats its hated archrival?

Sports are about pride. And I don't just mean playing sports. For fanatics like me, even watching sports is a nerve-wracking, heart-stopping and pride-crushing experience.

At least that's how it was after watching my beloved Phoenix Suns get brutally knocked out of the NBA playoffs year after year by the universally hated San Antonio Spurs. Imagine Voldemort defeating Harry Potter in each of the seven books.

It seemed like the Suns couldn't catch a break against these guys: there was Joe Johnson's eye injury one year, Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw's suspension another year and Tim Duncan's unlikely 3-pointer after that. In fact, the Spurs won 16 out of 22 playoff games against the Suns since '03. The Spurs and Suns were, once again, set to meet in the playoffs and I couldn't help but wonder if the result would be the same.

Not this year. The Suns swept the series 4-0 and thoroughly dominated the Spurs in almost every respect. No longer could my two friends/die-hard Spurs fans Andrew Shu and Ailin Zeng rub their victories in my face. It was my turn. As the weight of those past four playoff eliminations lifted of the Suns' shoulders, the weight of always cheering for the losing team lifted off mine. Victory was sweet.

And that steak dinner Andrew Shu owes me for a friendly wager on the series will be even sweeter.

"I'm So Hard"

What Is This?
Here's the story behind the conversation (click on the image to see a clearer version):
I just figured out a really tough physics problem. I wanted to type: "I'm so good! I finished this really tough physics problem!" As I'm typing, I see Selena say, "I did the harder ones." Result: "I'm so hard."

Hate It Or Love It?
Don't you hate it when you're about to say something but read something right before you say it, and you accidentally combine the thing you read with the thing you say?

It can lead to a horrible, horrible miscommunication.

Can I Get Fries With That?

What Is This?
This is a picture of me at Sonic Drive-In. Yeah, it was windy there. Hence the new hair style.

Hate It Or Love It?
Don't you hate it when you go through a drive-thru (or toll booth or the entrance to a parking garage with the ticket-dispensing machine) and you end up really far from where you need to be?

Things like drive-thrus, toll booths and parking garage ticket-dispensing machines are built around one concept: convenience. You can get/receive items quickly without even leaving your car (what an American concept).

I have trouble enjoying this convenience because I often find myself more than an arms-length away from the target. At this point, I have two options: reverse and reposition my car or reach and hope I don't fall out of the window. So instead of being able to sit comfortably in the driver's seat, half of my body ends up hanging out of the car in an attempt to grab my cheeseburger, pay my toll or take my ticket.

Maybe I'm just a bad driver. And maybe I should adapt this post to be "Don't you have it when you have to deal with the consequences of being a bad driver?" But at least I'm not at my friend Tricia's level yet.