Rommel's Random Ramblings

Today, I accidentally hit a dog with my car. I think I'll sell my Civic and go buy an Acura RSX.

Haah, I'm just kidding. I did get my window fixed today, though. It cost a lot less than my insurance deductible, so I don't think I'll be filing a claim. Of course, if you add it to the value of the car radio, the total cost would be over the $500 deductible. But I don't think I would want to spend that much money right now, being unemployed and all. I can do without the CD player. I'll just glue together the pieces of the broken dash. I found all of them, and it looks almost seamless if I put them together. In the meantime, I think I still have the original car radio (no CD player) somewhere in the garage.

*sigh* Ok, last night I went to Tustin Lanes for the church bowling night organized by the men's ministry group. That was fun. I even got some free games at their arcade. I was trying to retrieve a token from one of the machines when lo and behold, six or seven more tokens came out. Anyway, I got home at around 10pm.

So, early this afternoon, I went back out to my car and I saw glass all over the hood. I'm thinking, "Oh, somebody had a wild party last night and has been tossing beer bottles again. They better not have hit my car directly." Then I realized, "Wait a second. That glass isn't from a beer bottle. That's from my passenger side window." Great... So yup, someone smashed into my window, broke into my car, and stole my car radio. It was quite unbelievable, actually. I was hoping that Ashton Kutcher would pop out any second. Unlike Kevin's ordeal, this was definitely not done by pros. They could have at least done a cleaner job. I had to end up cleaning up all the broken glass they left behind. They even broke part of my dash and the air vents from yanking out the radio. I probably wouldn't be as annoyed or frustrated if they at least had the courtesy to be neat about it. :/ Oh, well. There wasn't anything left to do but to file reports with the sheriff and my insurance company.

I also left my bass guitar in the trunk last night. It's a good thing they didn't think to look in there. That's probably worth more than the car radio. I think the most gratifying part of all of this is that the car radio that they took is actually broken. It started malfunctioning a few months ago when the display stopped turning on once in a while. It would still pick up radio stations and play CDs, but I just couldn't tell what station or track it's playing. Every so often, I can get the display to appear by tilting the face slightly. After a few weeks, the display would not come on at all. I was then stuck with operating it blindly. Soon after that, the buttons stopped working as well. It was then permanently stuck on the Fish 95.9 FM. I couldn't turn it off or change the station or play CDs. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It is a great station after all. However, I couldn't change the volume level either. Therefore, the only time the volume was pretty tolerable is while I'm driving on the freeway. Finally, it completely died a couple of days ago. Wouldn't they be surprised when they find out that the car radio they stole isn't working? They even left the necessary wiring still in the car. Amateurs... Ironically, I was going to go to Fry's to check out some new car radios today when I saw my car in that condition.

Busy weekend. On Friday night, the youth group had a sleepover at church. That night, they broke off into teams to play photo scavenger hunt. I was one of the drivers. That was so much fun. I think that last time I played that was during my senior year of high school. Afterwards, we were supposed to have a DDR tournament. I even brought the good pads with the foam inserts with me. (Metal ones cost too much.) Instead, we just hooked up the PS2 to the LCD projector and watched The Princess Bride instead. That made us "chaperones" feel old. I think I saw that movie for the first time when I was in 6th or 7th grade. I think of it as a classic, but most of these kids hadn't even seen or heard of the movie before.

So at the end of the night, I was given a choice. I could join the sleep over, or I could go home and sleep in my own bed. I had to come back to church early the next morning for a hermaneutics class that Saturday anyway. If I stayed, I probably wouldn't get much sleep. It turned out I was right. None of the guys slept at all that night. Even though I went home, I ended up getting less than four hours of sleep. Imagine if I had stayed with them. Near the end of the class that afternoon, the drowsiness was catching up to me, and I was starting to fall asleep, too. So when I got home (again) at around 4pm, I planned to take just a half hour nap. I ended up waking up at 11pm. So I was wide awake, and it was a while before I could fall asleep again. I hope my sleeping pattern hasn't been thrown off too badly.

I just saw the funniest Star Wars fanfilms I've seen in a while. Go here to check out Star Fame I and II. The website and the video clips are in Spanish, but the download links are on the right side. I probably understood only about half of the Spanish at most, but found them hilarious nonetheless. Ow... my side is still hurting from laughing out loud.

I think my router at home is flaking out on me, so I've been losing my DSL connection every once in a while. If I reset the router and reconfigure it's settings, it starts working again. Not to worry, I'm still here, just kicking it at home. I've been babysitting my nephew for a few hours every morning until his mom picks him up during her lunch break. He likes talking (in his own baby language) to my life-size Kristin Kreuk poster.

Ok, after my first day of being unemployed, I've had time to let the events of the past day simmer a little bit more in my thoughts. I won't miss the work, but I'll miss the people there. As we said our goodbyes, some of us shared our contact information in order to expand our business networks and to keep in touch. I had to make sure I'd be able to recruit some new players for our church's flag football tournament later on this year. ^_^ As we wrote down our names, numbers, and email addresses, it felt a lot like signing yearbooks in high school. "Have a great summer! K.I.T." I ended up having to write letters of recommendation for a couple of people. That was a new experience. I also won't miss the long drive and traffic everyday, but I'll miss the lower gas prices over at Garden Grove. Gas is generally about 20 cents more per gallon here in Mission Viejo.

Anyway, I think I'm starting to lose track of the days already. I kept thinking it was a Saturday today. Either that, or just the first day of a long weekend. It didn't really hit me that it was Friday today until I hung out at the youth group Friday night bible study tonight. They didn't really have a lesson or anything. The kids just met at church to do their homework or study for their upcoming finals. The older people (such as myself) tutored them a little bit. That felt weird, too. I was neither at work nor at school. But someone did tell me today that I look a lot more rested than I have been recently.

My DVDs of the Evolution 2003 tournament were finally delivered today, as well. Evolution 2003 was a huge fighting game tournament held this past August in Cal Poly Pomona. These DVDs are footage of a lot of the matches. Two double-sided DVDs with over 14 hours of matches, to be more specific. There were a lot of very good players who came from all over including Japan and Europe to participate in nine different fighting games, both 2D and 3D. The tournament from the year before was pretty cool, too. I think these videos help out a better than some strategy guides out there. I think I need it ever since James defeated me at Soul Calibur II with an overwhelming 33 wins versus only 3 of mine. -_-;;

Today was my last day at work. I thought I was going to be ecstatic, but I probably feel more relieved than anything. It was weird leaving without having to train anyone on the stuff I did. The sentence of the day was "The corpse isn't even cold yet." I would say that to anyone who would ask if they could have something in particular from my cube. Things such as my chair, the stapler, printer, monitor... You get the idea. They could at least have waited until the people that aren't staying were gone. ^_^

I am asking this question as a favor for a friend: If you hear of a place called "Threshing Floor", what comes to mind? If someone were to tell you, "Let's meet at the Threshing Floor," would you go?

I'm probably just anxious, but could this work week have gone any slower? Not that there was lack of work to do, though. On the contrary, it was just the opposite. The phones were ringing nonstop, partly because of the four days off last weekend and also partly because our business hours changed this year (we open an hour later). Anyway, I was mostly concerned with making sure that as many major issues as possible can be resolved before we all go bye-bye. Not that I can really care too much, but otherwise, it wouldn't be too good for the poor soul that would be responsible for picking up the scraps afterward.

I didn't know that Amy was taking DDR challenges. ^_^ Yes, it is a good and fun way to workout. I should play more often. I probably play only about once a month now, but I think I have enough time to practice until our next annual get together.

Speaking of sticking it out until the very end, it looks like the 15th, next Thursday, will be my last day at work. That will be the day that the company I work for closes its doors. Rather, it is the day it will cease to be a separate company on its own but continue on as a brand name used by another company. We all automatically lose our jobs, but we have the option to apply for a position at the other company. If we're accepted, we're placed on the other company's payroll. Otherwise, if we choose not to apply or if we're not offered a position, we get severance pay. I chose to move on. This is something I've been thinking of, praying about, and waiting for during the past two years (at least). Many times, I had wanted to quit, but decided to wait until I am laid off. We all saw it coming anyway ever since we started sharing the building with the other company a couple of years ago. At least when they told us on Monday, it was early enough notification. This was unlike all the other times in which they'd break the news the day of. Anyway, my struggle right now is to keep from having senioritis or whatever you would call its counterpart in the corporate world.

On another note, Final Fantasy X-2 looks a little bit too inspired by Charlie's Angels.

Two years after it came out, I finally finished Final Fantasy X with 65+ hours of game time. I think that this is the best one since VI or VII. The spoken dialogue really adds a lot to the game. I actually got the game a while back. I played it for about an hour, but didn't touch it again until a few weeks ago. It's not as if I got stuck or anything. I was so busy to play it until I forgot about it. I do that a lot -- start games but never finish them. Maybe I'll make a list of games to work on: Onimusha 2, Metal Gear Solid 2, Kessen 2, Initial D's story mode (actually, I'm stuck at race against the turbo Levin), Warcraft III: Frozen Throne, Baldur's Gate II, Neverwinter Nights, the list goes on... But then again Final Fantasy X-2 just came out...

It's kinda funny how the message at church today was about starting things but not finishing them. But that was in the context of knowing what it really costs to be Jesus Christ's disciple.