oh... i forgot..happy halloween!

ps: i know you're out there... leave a comment dangit!

i am a self-professed geek. if you didn't know that tidbit about me before today i'm going to endeavor to prove it to you in this little exercise. during my torturous bus ride home last night (i couldn't go three weeks of taking the n judah without a serious disruption in service, could i?) i started to think about all of the email addresses that i've had over the years.

now i know that most people get email accounts with their college id cards from their jobs but it looks like i've taken acquiring email accounts to a whole new level. in fact, somewhere in the sudan there are ten people starving without email accounts because i hogged them all.

now i have to admit, i started emailing earlier than a lot of other people. i got my first account when i was a senior in high school and i think the address was glee@ctep.edu. it was provided by some educational group and i remember emailing my buddy who had just gotten into berkeley about this "cool" new technology. i followed that up with a free email account on slip.net (poohbear@slip.net). this account was cool because slip.net had a free dial-up number that i could use to access my mail from anywhere. i think ended up giving this account to my friend howard so that he could check email from home.

then i got to college. stand back... there are going to be a lot of email addresses flying at you from this period. because i was originally enrolled in uc berkeley's extension program-- i couldn't get a traditional uclink account. to make up for this i signed up with the fine folks over at ocf and got glee@ocf.berkeley.edu. when they finally let us get uclink accounts-- they made us sign up with uclink2-- and we then got gillee@uclink2.berkeley.edu.

in order to be cool like my other friends-- i went by the computer science undergraduate assocation (csua) and got gillee@csua.berkeley.edu. extracurricular groups at cal were able to get hosting space from a free server on campus so after i became president of alpha phi omega i got gillee@server.berkeley.edu so that we could move our website to their server. (that never fully happened). yeah, i know this is getting boring...
so i'll just list out a couple of more addresses.

glee@haas.berkeley.edu (yes, i fooled them into giving me an account-- they killed it shortly thereafter)
wwwgeo@seismo.berkeley.edu (for my webmaster job for the dept of geology)
apmp@alumni.berkeley.edu (asian pacific mentorship program)
gillee@alum.calberkeley.org (my "permanent" alumni account)

admittedly, signing up for the csua and ocf accounts was pretty smart because i still have files hosted on their computers.

i'm sure i was assigned others but i can't seem to remember them... they were probably all issued from classes like ids anyways-- so no big deal....

then there were the accounts that i got from my isp's... gilbertl@sirius.com, gilklee@pacbell.net, gillee@netzero.net, gillee@altavista.net...

then there were the accounts from the free webmail services. at first i just wanted to check out which ones had the best user interfaces and the best tools but they soon became a good way to filter/segegrate my email.... gillee@mailexcite.com (now gillee@excite.com), gillee@hotmail.com, gillee@email.com, gillee@hotbot.com, gilklee@yahoo.com (i can't believe i didn't get gillee@yahoo.com), etc. etc.

of course i shouldn't forget the email addresses that i use for my personal projects...gil@gkelly.net, mrg@draftnik.com, gilbert@bowlcut.com, gilbert@beefyfolk.com...

i think that the bulk of the email messages that i've read in my life would still fall under my old work email, gilbert@ticketweb.com. i have a feeling that the email address on my new (ok, i haven't signed anything yet) business card will be gilbert.lee@i-channel.com (how corporate) and i think that may be the end of my email binge for a while.

i'm just glad that i've never had an aol.com following my name....

oh. i'm not a geek because i've had a lot of email addresses--- i'm a geek because i could actually remember most of them-- and because i wrote this stupid blog about the addresses....

hey... have you guys noticed that you can now comment on my blogs? look for the little comment button underneath my musings.....

i finally got the job offer that i was waiting for today. i guess that is good news but it means that i'd probably have to put china on the backburner for a while....

urgh... a million things to express but i'm too tired to compose it in electrons right now.

some things to consider: how are the commodores and a typical law firm similar? what do you need to do legally to change your name? if you were going to be a rock star, which one would you be? why do girls wear pants that are so low that you can see the straps of their underwear? (ok... some of these questions are easier than others....)

all these answers in due time...

sunday afternoon and there's no forty-niner football to watch. =p i've always been a die-hard niner fan but i've done my best not to be hardcore. unless it was a critically important game i've always tried to live life first-- and enjoy football second. i think that i would enjoy a game today simply because of the dreary weather and lack of things to do-- but i guess i'll have to improvise.

as for my the blog that i wrote on friday... my mom was hospitalized for a couple of days with a bleeding ulcer. she is doing well now and has been released from the hospital but no one in my family has been hospitalized for anything for a long, long time. hearing over the phone that she was in the emergency room on friday put me in a somber mood but thankfully i think everything is going to be just fine. you can never underestimate the importance of the people around you--- i don't know how many tragedies and losses we have to endure before we all truly understand this.

yesterday i was reading the wonderful collection of profiles that the new york times was publishing detailing the lives of those lost in the september 11th tragedy. a pair of sisters who recently started working together missing... a pair of jennifer wongs who both worked at the same company lost... people who had just met the loves of their lives gone. every day the times is sharing a few of these lives with its readers-- and i don't know if any stories were ever more fit for print.

life has a strange way of turning everything upside down. as i was eating my lunch on market street today i smiled broadly at what i thought was the cutest sight. a muni bus stopped and a pair of kids got out from the front entrance. they were talking to the bus driver and i could hear them say "bye mama."

the children, who couldn't have been over 9 years old had been dropped off by their mother while she was on duty. these two children, like children their age have done for decades, almost crossed the street without the light-- but the mom honked her horn to warn them-- freezing them in their tracks. she finally started her bus again, this time with the door open-- issuing a warning about when to proceed across the street.

i couldn't have imagined a more perfect exchange. something happened tonight that i won't discuss yet but it makes that one moment resonate stronger within me.

ok... mini blog for everyone!

a great use of the internet: the Guggenheim Museum's new web exhibitions.

what i've been listening to non-stop: garbage's beautifulgarbage

regarding the anthrax scare...don't let the terrorists mess with your head. demonstrations of fear by us means victory for them. the moment that we live our lives in fear-- is the time at which we no longer live. live is short... don't let anyone else drive your life.

dang... i forgot how tiring working can be-- i haven't had any time to write any blogs for you guys... shame on me! i guess being busy is better than being bored. what a glorious day it is today in the bay area. beautiful blue skies with few clouds to be seen. i hope the weather holds up as i'm going to be going to the a's/yankees playoff game. the a's have a two games to zip lead so this could be the end of the yankees' dynasty. history in the making... just how i like it.

i met a new mandarin conversation partner today. it was nice to practice my chinese again. i don't think that i'm rusty from my china trip but practicing is always helpful. my conversation partner doesn't speak too quickly thankfully, so we were able to carry on a good discussion. hopefully, my chinese skills will continue to expand.

of course, scheduling to meet her this morning was a totally "gilbert" idea as i knew that i would be out all night at cal basketball's midnight madness event. this year's event was ok but seemed to pale in comparison to ones in the past. for one there were no free t-shirts!!!!!!!!!!!! i don't know about you, but the midnight madness shirt was a regular staple in my collegiate wardrobe... i guess i was bummed out that they didn't hand out shirts to all of the attendees. aside from the giveaway appeal, i always thought that it was a good way of building spirit and marketing the team throughout the campus.

(editor's note: the writer was able to acquire this year's putrid t-shirt by rebounding a shirt that had been thrown into the audience. for those who don't know... rebounding may be the author's only redeemable basketball skill)

as for the festivities of the event... the audience slam dunk contest (lowered rims) and three point showing display were pretty standard fare (aside from the asian guy who jumped over a chair to dunk the ball). [ed. note 2: i personally would have done a reverse windmill dunk with a couple of pump moves but i wanted to save that move for the lowell courts.]
the scrimmages that the men's and women's teams ran were pretty sloppy-- filled with lots of hotdogging and goofing off. i'm not sure but i was very unimpressed. maybe because i've got such high hopes and i wanted to be impressed. the sight of highly regarded jamal sampson running layup drills and missing all of them with lazy shots was very poor. hopefully, ben braun will get them in shape-- we can't afford for the basketball team to follow the football team down the tubes.

anyways, last night was a terrific way to end my week... it was a week filled with lots of stories that i will have to share with you all a little later. until then...

i had a bunch of good ideas to write about this morning as i was taking the bus to work. sadly their all gone now. must have been all those delusions that i got from working my ass off and going to see janet jackson instead of getting my body's daily required amount of rest.

hopefully i'll have something to share with you tomorrow morning before i sell my soul to corporate america again. =p

hey kids... sorry for not writing recently. i guess the schedule that i'm keeping with my temp job has sort of screwed up my writing schedule. i don't have a problem with getting into work at 11:30 but after getting home from a full day of mindless work the last thing i want to do is document my day on this log. i think that my work engagement should be over after friday so i think i can handle a couple more days of duty.

the thing that sucked about getting this job last week was that i totally missed barry bonds breaking history. because i was at work until 8 on both thursday and friday i didn't get a chance to even watch his historic homers via tv... oh well. oh yeah, props to barry for breaking the record. i'll give him some credit-- i gained more respect for him-- not as he hit more and more home runs but rather as he continued to be more respectful and humble with those around him. congrats barry...

unfortunately, the giants didn't make the playoffs. which sucks double time because i was able to get tickets for both game one and game two... but the are of no use to me now. (not to beat a dead horse... but did you notice how many "solo" home runs bonds hit-- and how many of them came in giant losses... now that is just plain sad.)

this weekend was also pretty mellow. aside from renting some dvds and playing basketball i had a pretty slow weekend. my back has been acting up since basketball so i've been trying to take it easy. alright, that is it for now. hope to update this real soon-- you guys deserve all the blogs that you can get.

i just got a call from a temporary firm that i'm working with about a potential assignment that they have for me... the job's pay ($14) and duration (3 weeks) aren't bad but I'm not totally excited about it. (Ok.. those of you who are saying to yourselves, "that gil is one lazzzzy ass"-- go direct to jail). The problem with the job would be the hours (11:30-8:00) and the tedious nature of the work. (too mundane to tell you all.=)

i've accepted the assignment and i'm awaiting confirmation on when i start. the way i see it-- i can use the money and a part of me thinks that i want to work as a temp until the end of the year-- when i might move to china. i need the time to look for work out there and i really don't want to move before the end of the year.

plus, having a job that starts at 11:30 will give me a chance to have interviews and to return calls from would be employers. all in all a decent situation-- but it looks like i'm going to have to skip the janet jackson concert that i had planned to go to next week...=( at this point-- any money that i can add to my coffers would be great.

urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh. i'm so frustrated. my computer was acting funny yesterday and i found out that there was a virus on my machine. doh! although i've run multiple virus scans and followed the instructions on how to repair my machine, my computer is still acting goofy. i can think of a million ways to better spend my day. currently, i'm using another slow, tiny-screened laptop to write this log and it is only adding to the frustration. urrgh.

hopefully, i'll have good news later....