I’ve been watching and reading the coverage on what’s going on in Lousiana and Mississippi, and it’s horrible. It’s almost hard to imagine that the area could have been hit so hard, that the cities could have been so vulnerable to something like this. My prayers go out to anyone who is involved, that people will find a place to stay and the power to go on. I don’t know how much of an option rebuilding is, or if its something that should be even done should something like this happen again.

I’ve also been reading message boards and people’s comments on this tragedy, calling this “our tsunami” or as bad as the tsunami that hit Asia. I don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand, I feel it’s horrible that this has happened, that hundreds of lives have been lost, that before this over even more people will die. On the other hand, I don’t see this as something comparable - hundreds of thousands of people died in the tsunami, most people who were not warned about the coming tsunami. There was warning that the hurricane was coming, people were told to evacuate. I’ve heard so many stories from people in the area who evacuated, but who had friends and family who stayed “because we’ve survived it before.”

Still, the loss of life and the destruction of one of the most colorful US cities, not to mention all the damage in the areas that were hardest hit - Southern Missisippi (though the media sometimes seems to forget) is awful, almost hard to imagine. I hope we can get through this, and I hope all the people who have been evacuated find someplace to go.

This is only the beginning….

Tags: Daily by Yano
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I know I mentioned this a while ago, but who is interested in playing a football pool this season? It’s nothing as time extensive as a fantasy football league - all you have to do in this pool is pick the winners for the games and choose your confidence in your choice.

Here’s an example…lets say there’s 5 games being played this week.

Red vs. Blue
Green vs. Orange
Black vs. White
Gray vs. Pink
Yellow vs. Purple

Within each game, choose who you think will win. Once you choose your winning teams, then rank them in order of 1-5 as to how confident you are that that team will win. Let’s say this is how I think the games will go down:

Red will beat Blue - 4 confidence because red is a pretty strong team
Orange will beat Green - 1 confidence, because both teams are about even
Black will beat White - 2 because Black has been on a losing streak, but I think they’ll win this one
Gray will beat Pink - 3
Purple will beat Yellow - 5 because Yellow sucks and Purple is the best team in the league

Depending on what happens with the game, the amount of correct guesses I have adds up the corresponding confidence points. Lets say all my picks were right except for the Black game, that means that my total points come out to 13.

It sounds confusing right now, but really, it’s easy!

In a nutshe11, you pick the winners each week, assign them a number - if your pick wins, you win that number.

At the end of the season, the overall winner (or top 3 depending on how many people play) will get a nifty prize.

So if you’re interested in joining, sign up for an account here:

Office Pools
(when it asks you what tournament you want to join, type yanowhatimean?)

Comment here and leave your address (or if you don’t want to comment, email me at kwannon-at-gmail.com) and I’ll send you a tournament invite. It’ll be a lot of fun!

More instructions coming soon - if you have questions, just comment below!

———

For those of you that were winners for the NCAA tourney last March, I haven’t forgotten you. Email me your mailing addresses and I’ll hook you up with some sweet, useless crap.

Tags: Cool Link by Yano
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Yesterday Dave and I played in a charity bowling function that an old college friend was involved with. It’s been a while since we’ve been bowling, and although we were planning on getting some practice in, we were just too busy to do it.

It was a fun time, even though we didn’t play our best games. It was fun to get competitive with some of the other friends that attended. They had some raffles as well, and also something called “The Strike Zone”. People could buy a set of tickets, and if they had a strike in frames 4, 5 or 6, they were entered into a drawing for each strike they had. It added a lot of pressure to those frames. But lucky me, I got a strike in one of them. But I didn’t win. However, I was just happy to get a strike!

I ended my night with a score of 92, 107 and 122. My last score actually beat everyone else in my team. Of course, everyone was tired by then and didn’t really care where the ball went, but I still rubbed it in that I won. Especially with Dave, who of course said that he threw the game because he beat me in the last one.

Yeah. Right.

Tags: Daily by Yano
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Found out they just posted the trailer for “Rent”, the movie based on the hit Broadway musical. I totally forgot that this movie was coming, I’m so excited! What’s so awesome about the movie is that it’s got most of the original cast members, including Jesse L. Martin (who you might remember from Law and Order), Taye Diggs and Idina Menzel (who’s been popular lately for being the original Elphaba in Wicked). It will be really strange to see Rent on the big screen - there is so much imagination that is used when you see a musical on stage. Seeing it all laid out for you in film is a bug change.

Whoo hoo! Rent comes to theaters on November 23rd. Looks like this will be a busy holiday season for me in the movie theaters, with the next Harry Potter and the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe coming out this winter!

Tags: Cool Link by Yano
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As much as I try and fight adulthood, kicking and screaming, trying to stay young and childlike, I know that I *AM* an adult. I went to my friend Jen’s baby’s baptism yesterday and the place had a bunch of little kids running around - this time not the children of aunts and uncles, but of people my own age. Jen has her first child, and there are others that have kids already, pregnant or engaged. We’re all going into this new age of responsibility, and it’s really a bit scary, yet in a way, I can’t wait for it.

My best friend Jaygee was in town for the christening, and it was great to have my Orlando girls back together again. It seems like so long ago we’d have our girl trips out to Orlando to visit Jaygee and paint the town red with our craziness! Our lives have calmed down a bit (except for Jaygee, who’s still living the ‘good life’ *smirk*) but we’re all still friends, which is what counts.

Good times!

Jaygee, me, Jen and Rachel

Tags: Daily by Yano
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The latest song I’ve been jamming to is Kanye West’s “Gold Digger”. The beat is SWEET, and I love it that Jamie Foxx makes a cameo in the beginning. It’s just a song that makes me bop my head and dance in my car. The video is cool, and I think Kanye is awesome, I love the way he dances. He’s also been doing a lot better with his public image, which he had some problems with in the beginning of his career (throwing a hissy fit when he didn’t win the Best New Artist). He’s also talked about gay bashing in hip hop and how he was teased about being gay when in school which made him homophobic. He then re-evaluated his attitude towards gays when he found out his cousin was gay.

I just may have to pick up his album “Late Registration” when it comes out on Tuesday!

Tags: Reviews by Yano
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Jillian Gets Down With the Line Dancing

Yesterday we went to the annual block party at my old neighborhood. My dad and my sisters are still living there, and it’s only the second time we’ve had the party. We moved a couple times after I was born, but we finally settled in the northwest side of Chicago when I was 4.

It’s a great neighborhood, really safe and close in a Polish/Italian/Irish community. A lot of the kids I went to school with had a cop as a dad. We stuck out a bit, being one of the very few minorities in the neighborhood, but we never had any problems with it. Then again, we were never really “part” of the community, only becoming friends with a few families on the block. Most were polite but kept their distance.

Over the years, we became one of the oldest families on the block, as new families came in and older ones left. Several years ago “that family” moved it, “that family” being the family that makes your whole block can hate together as a community. Well, I won’t be hard on the family, I’ll just blame the father. He’d sit on his front steps and just be a jerk to about anyone who’d come by. If people parked in front of his house, he’d yell at them, even though his car was already parked. He’d check the stickers on all the cars, and if someone’s stickers were expired, he’d call the cops. My dad had some problems with our old station wagon, and left it parked in front of our house for a week, and one day the car got a sticker on it stating it was ‘abandoned’ and that it would be towed. Hmm, I wonder who called that one in?

Anyway, he finally moved away….and our neighborhood rejoiced. So much that they decided to have a block party, a tradition that was had years before we had even moved in. Last year they had the first one, and this year was the second one.

It was great to come “home” and see the whole neighborhood together, hanging out, socializing, getting to know one another. They had community meetings to plan it and different activities. Each family was assigned an activity - my father volunteered for bingo (he made his own set a long time ago) and in an attempt to break all Asian stereotypes out there - late night karaoke.

The block party was a success. We had friends and family come in to hang out, eat, and play games. I tried to win at musical chairs, but didn’t win. Bah! My dad and I partnered up for the egg toss, and I cannot tell you how happy it made me to see him laugh and have a good time. It seems like it’s been so long that he’s been this happy when he’s been around us.

I had a great time. We played around in the inflated jumping trampoline thing and got winded after about 10 minutes - having Maui and Redpac try to flip me around didn’t help any. We also had some line dancing, poker playing, and football tossing. The dogs also had a great time, running around, making new friends - Ewok had only a short time out to socialize since he doesn’t play well with others.

I loved being home again, seeing how much the neighborhood has changed in the short time I’ve been gone - kids growing up, trees getting taller, new familes, old families. I know that I have my own house right now, but in my heart, this will always be “home”.

Tags: Daily by Yano
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Here’s a fun little quiz that I picked up from Thwip!

What Age Do You Act

I act 25, only 5 years younger than I really am, though I thought I’d score much lower!

Tags: Tests by Yano
20 Comments »

I’ve been home sick with a cold for the last two days. I’ve been working really hard because I’ve got a tough project that needs to get done ASAP. I’m grouchy, haven’t been eating well, and my head often feels like exploding, even when I’ve taken something for it.

Pity me!

In happier news, I’ve discovered that we have the Sci-Fi channel. We’ve got a gazillion channels on our cable, though most of the channels we have access to are the first 100 channels. Today I found the Sci Fi channel hiding up at 160. Silly Sci Fi! Now I have the X-Files! Yay!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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I got to a whole variety of different client site, from the government to schools to hospitals to banks to huge companies. I was at a state government office once, and I had a badge that let me walk around the building without an escort. This really helped when I needed to leave for lunch or walk to the vending room.

During one of my first visits, I passed by an area that had a window that looked at the courtyard outside. I saw several people standing outside talking and milling around. This wouldn’t have been weird if the two men hadn’t been wearing the exact same thing - white t-shirts and green and white striped pants, almost looking like pajama pants. The other two were policemen, but since the building also house the police offices, that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I walked by.

Later on in the day, I was in the bathroom, and there was a woman in there cleaning the bathroom. She said a pleasant “Hello” and I said hi back. I then noticed that she had the same striped pants and white shirt as the two men outside.

“Aha! That’s what the maintenance people wear!” I thought to myself. Pretty ugly outfits for maintenance people. They stick out like a sore thumb!

I was then talking to a coworker later on the week who was also working at the site. He mentioned to me, “Isn’t it weird that the convicts are just walking around?”

“Huh?”

“You know, they’re free to walk around the building when they’re doing their maintenance chores. They’re the ones in the green striped pants. How could you not notice them?”

“Oh. Yeah. Those guys. Um, yeah, that’s kinda weird.” I replied.

Ahh…the lightbulb goes on. The people who were wearing those strange uniforms were convicts! Turns out it was a work program for the convicts - if they had good behavior and worked hard, they were allowed to go outside the prison and work in the state offices. Of course, the state offices had security and everything around it, so there really is no danger.

So I admit to being a bit weirded out when I’d see the green stripes (as I called them in my head), but they always polite and friendly, so there was really nothing to be worried about.

I wonder if all the states do something like this…

Tags: Stories by Yano
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