I'm not a Packer fan. I'm not a Seahawk fan. But I am an NFL fan. Or I was. The Monday Night Football game that just finished though... was horrific. 

Even though none of the egregious calls were game changing for our 49ers, (hey remember when Jim Harbaugh unlocked the unlimited timeouts cheat code?), the game has warped to a degree that wins and losses are borderline meaningless. Here's a short IM exchange with a friend.

8:49 PM

N: ummm wtf just happened

me: I dunno dude. Can't believe it either.

N: at the point where the league should step in and say GB won that game

me: league intervening in the decision of the outcome will mean admitting refs had it wrong. it's just a god damn mess.

N: i mean they can't

just never seen so many egregiously bad calls

me: yeah. sports loses meaning when you lose integrity.

N: yup so much worse when it's only 16 games

N: i also lost my fantasy matchup on that play

me: lol. that's right. interception. and points

N: it was the pts. but yeah either way. guy i was playing actually texted to apologize

me: as commish of the league i was debating of making manual stat correction. but then... it's just snowballs into too much damn work to fix all the blown calls.

N: yeah, fix this call, what do you do with other 100 blown calls. my team is now 1-2 just like the packers. although i think i lead the league in pts. its just more shock than anything

To the Xanga world, she'll be known as Arietty, and she knows why.  Not many people knew that we were going together... or whatever you want to call it. We had a mutual agreement early on to not complicate things. Allowed for a sense of freedom that could not have been achieved in any other way. Yup one of those.

Turns out that both of us deep down were the type that knew, understood and highly valued strong committed relationships where meaningful connections were formed. That helped, ironically, for us to recognize that were looking for a break from that routine at specific moments in our lives. September of last year. Almost nine months. No expectations for it carry on for long as it did. No expectations with anything, really. A little fun in figuring things out for ourselves. A little tricky to explain to friends how this person you seem to see a lot of isn’t really what they are thinking. Ah, good times. And now the respite too shall come to pass as this chapter closes.

I'm a big proponent of trying things you're curious about at least once. Be it skydiving, working on a farm, or living in a big city. That way it's no longer on your mind, and you have a better mindset afterwards to assess whether whatever you were hung up about really was that big of a deal. And it solidifies any initial considerations that you felt strongly about. I have greater respect for the artist that, even though they had the inclination they'd be happier painting, they actually tried other things like a career in dancing or Olympic bobsledding, before coming back to visual art. That to me is a fuller life lived than someone who picked up the paintbrush and never let it go.

Thank you Arietty for the wonderful waltz. Now where did I leave my unfinished canvas?

The most irritating thing about the new Gmail is that I can no longer set my emails to "reply-all". Must have been 20 times that I had to resend emails to the larger group because I hit the "reply" button by accident, without selecting more. Usually "reply is a safeguard at work" but most people don't work at Google and most use Gmail as their personal email client, not work. I don't think you're doing many favors having "reply to 1" be the default. At least bring back the settings option to change. Thanks.

Our dear friends and fellow tenants of the South San Francisco office. I wish to ask for your show of solidarity and support.

J.R. and myself J.K. have conducted a gentleman’s wager being of sound and sufficiently sober mind and body. The wagers is as follows:

Following the confirmation to the validity of the recent Facebook profile of one predetermined mutual acquaintance in question, J.R. and J.K. have agreed that loser of the wager shall purchase a bottle of Justin Bieber Someday bit.ly/oU7mG3, and shall wear said perfume for the entire day, Monday July 18. (Many thanks to S.G. and A.M. for their contributions to the idea and for bearing witness to the agreement.)

We will very much appreciate any and all compliments from you our colleagues, to the admirable one of us who happens to be sporting this fine fragrance on that day. The occasional pop song greeting will also be most welcome.

Thank you for your time and attention,
J.K. and J.R.

I was browsing around for fonts and came across this very cool visual explanation of a licensing agreement:

http://typodermicfonts.com/pages/license

Making the terms easy to understand like this better ensures that your intentions are followed. If only all legal documents (and lawyers) can be translated in such a simple and succinct way.

Would that be asking for too much?

Randomly removing spam comments from my site when I stumbled across this post of mine 3 years ago:

Reflections through a Measure

Took this quiz again.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.4
Mind:	7.6
Body:	7.6
Spirit:	7.7
Friends/Family:	5.8
Love:	2.9
Finance:	8.1
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Overall, life has been better. And the aspect of love hasn't had much movement. Ironically I have no intention on shifting my focus from my current path. Big things are afoot and they can not wait.

The first part of this year sure went by fast. Seems like I was riding week after week of short succinct burst of developments. From good news like Hikaru getting acceptance letters to lots of college. To a close friend being let go from his job. To huge brainstorming sessions where I've developed great ambitions.

It's not even 5 in the morning yet. I have a lot of mental energy, and I want to put it to good use as I've been in a "get stuff" done mode recently and I want to put it to good use. I'm loving how my house is shaping out. Got my living close perfect in terms of the style I've been looking for. Bathroom finally underwent the painting I was putting off for the longest time. I'll post pictures up soon. One the hardest part of the bathroom turned out to be the removal of the old hooks on the back of the door. A man becomes quite the knowledgeable handyman when he takes on tasks himself. The trickiest part about it was that the head of the screw was worn away and there's now good way to unscrew it. The first of the three hooks came off easily enough. The second and third took me over three hours. Took me tons of tries with various tools. From screwdrivers, to power tools, drilling holes into the wood, wrenching with pliers, to hammering down the screw to see if I can loosen the grooves to pull it own.

Of all the tools I tried the one finally did the trick was the hammer. And I must say I appreciate the design of this tool so much more now after this last experience. What's so great about it?

Well the trick is actually the curved hook at the end of the hammer. The torque/lever mechanic of it provided enough power for me to rip the fasteners off the screw, so that only the screw was left attached to the wood. The only remaining part was twisting the screw off with the pliers. Mad props to the engineer that came up with this design.

I've been thinking a bit on the friendships I have, and about people I know and what kind of friend they end up being. First off I think I'm like every other guy as I split women up into 2 categories right off the bat... first impressions... based on looks before I even talk to them.

   Type X: Women that I would be willing to sleep with

   Type Z: Women that I won't ever sleep with. (Or women that would put me to sleep if I even bothered thinking about them)

Now how we treat women after we classify them is where we get into different guys and different personalities. For me my philosophy as a single man, if ever I open myself to know a new female acquaintance, there are only 5 paths that they would ever go for me.

   Path ZF: Woman I won't sleep with -> Woman that's my good friend (Nothing more)

   Path ZFL: Woman I won't sleep with -> Woman that's my good friend -> Woman that I love as a friend

   Path XF: Woman I would to sleep with -> Woman that's a good friend (Nothing more)

   Path XFL: Woman I would to sleep with -> Woman that's a good friend -> Woman that I love

   Path XX: Woman I would to sleep with -> Sleep with them (Nothing more)

Now... to date I can honestly only name 3 women that have every achieved ZFL status (family members excluded of course). And so far there's only 1 woman that's been XFL. Now some other "Properties" of note:

• Once a woman is ZF, or ZFL, they can never be XF, XFL, or XX for me anymore. Same vise versa for the X vs Z.
• Once a woman is XX, they can never be XF or XFL for me anymore. Same vise versa.
• Once I'm in a committed relationship. (Found an XFL). Any other XF would be downgraded in friend status. This is out of my own personal choice, as I would not want to present opportunities that would tempt myself into changing another XF into an XFL, thus throwing a wrench into the relationship.

Curious to see if others have a similar approach/philosophy. Do you have the same "Types", "Paths", and "Properties"? Do women have the same mirroring approach for guys?

Followup on my last blog by showing a snapshot of how my beard grew.

This month the guys on my team at work and I will be participating in No Shave November. It's exactly what it sounds like. We've done Mustache March before, but not enough people were on board for that one. This time we have all the dudes in on it in a grand display of male solidarity. The rules are pretty straight forward. You don't shave or trim during the entire month of November and let your beard, or mustache or whatnot grow out naturally.

I see there only being two real challenges to hold a man from making such a commitment.

1. You may have to present themselves to the client at work at some point in the month.

2. Your significant other would disapprove. Kissing and other intimate activities become different experiences with untrimmed facial hair.

Here are two pics I've taken charting my progress so far: