Oh yeah, I have a blog. I guess I should update that more than once every several months. Should, not will, but whatever.

Anyway, brief update so it doesn't sound so much like I stopped getting paid and ended up starving to death: I'm living down in DC now, doing government work. Not the most interesting thing in the world, but these days it's the most stable thing around. Plus, I know people here. I even finally convinced my overweight friend to start coming to the gym with me. So, things are pretty ok.

I'm back in New York, after a long trip. Plenty of pictures up for those of you who know my Facebook account. I'm afraid I just don't care enough to upload 100-odd photos twice, though.

The severance paychecks have finally stopped coming; I guess it's finally time to get out the resume and look for some new income.

Lazy, lazy update.

Well, I spent June hosting couch surfers, mostly. It was nice, getting to explore the city. I also met a nice Indian girl in the subway. We've only been out a couple of times so far, though, and now it has to go on hold, since I'd planned...

Next up, a trip around the country again. So many people to visit, and US dollars so worthless, that it's hard to justify going overseas. Plus, I'd really like to go with someone if I'm travelling that far. However, this time I'll be hitting a lot of places I've never been (although I will reprise last year's destinations, to see the same people, among others).

Destinations:
DC
Richmond
Raleigh (I have a friend that goes to Duke)
Columbia
Atlanta
Dallas
Austin
San Francisco
Portland
Seattle
Vancouver
(here it gets a little fuzzy, not sure what I'll do between Vancouver and the next one)
Minneapolis
Milwaukee
Chicago
Detroit
Cleveland
...and, probably a stop at the end in Ithaca to see my old friend/ex Rina.

What's this? I'm updating the journal? Amazing! And why might that be? Well, because I got laid off at work and now have a ton of free time.

Foruntately, I was planning to take a vacation next week anyway, so I already have pre-paid plans to head up to Montreal for a bit. After that, I really don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Money's not really a concern yet: severence pay will take care of my rent until my lease ends at the end of the year, and I have sufficient savings to keep myself entertained as long as I'm frugal about it. Maybe I'll revisit my plan to wander around Europe or something.

Really not much going on lately. Went home for Easter butwho wants to hear about family time? And I was supposed to go see a show with some friends this weekend, but every single one cancelled. So, video games weekend it is.

Also, you know what annoys the hell out of me? Product placement sets like this. I know this site really isn't what it used to be--and maybe never was--as far as being non-corporate or "indie" (I gave up on it as a counter-culture thing the second I found out they were going to be on CSI) but honestly, accepting girls who present their sexuality with a phrase like "I love my Mac?" That sort of consumerist, what-I-buy-is-who-I-am attitude is exactly why people deride "mainstream."

Today I was chatting with a co-worker, and he said the following:

"look, always be more careful when you're dealing with retail money. You lose Goldman-Sachs' money, whatever, they take their ball and tell us to piss right off. You lose something that belongs to Joe Green down in Alabama or wherever, though, and you are straightaway fucked. So just keep that in mind whenever you're working on these smaller projects."

Sure, it's only because the government will enforce, but at least it's nice to have some confirmation that the laws are in place and work well enough to inspire some expectation of penalties.

What happened to all that time?

Anyway... what have I been up to? Went on a carefully-orchestrated visit back to MD. Carefully orchestrated because I no longer have a car, so I had to make sure every place I went was on the way to the next place I was going for the person picking me up. But it was nice, I got to go to a couple of parties, including a UMD dinner which was suprisingly well-attended, even by the usually-elusive Natalie, who lives about another hour south in northern Virginia.

I've also started hosting Couchsurfers. I had a couple of girls from Montreal stay with me last week, and that was a lot of fun. They did tourist stuff during the days, and then at night we'd go out. We saw a pretty good play called Betrayed down on Mercer, about Iraqis who worked as interpreters for the American military. I was not particularly thrilled with the choice initially, but it turned out to be a really good show. Not at all the cheap propaganda I was expecting, with a title like that. (Before I get berated for being pro-war, I don't care for propaganda, regardless of the message. I think it degrades the political environment in general, and everyone has a duty to avoid it, even in the service of a righteous message.) I also had a couple of German girls over the weekend, but I came down with the flu, and honestly, I couldn't even tell you their names. I just sort of gave them the keys, said, "I'm pretty sick," and then went in my bedroom until Tuesday. Just finally went back to work today, actually.

Just got back from a short trip to Boston. Went visiting with a couple of old college acquaintances. I had lunch with the professor who more or less mentored me during my undergraduate career, which was interesting. It's strange to go back to a school you've graduated from and be on even terms with someone who used to, for lack of a better term, "outrank" you. But it's pleasant, you know? He brought me up to date on what's been going on in the CS department and the projects that we worked on together. Actually, said projects were eventually sacrificed on the alter of university politics, but what can you do? He's changed academic focuses since then anyway, having concluded that the previous one was too impractical. The new study is applying CS math to models of cellular processes, using something called the Pi Calculus. I have an old textbook on it, so maybe I'll go back and review that so I can keep up with any articles he publishes.

I also spent some time with Cristy, whom I hadn't seen for almost exactly 3 years. She just started grad school and moved back to Boston after a couple years' hiatus to sort of get her shit together. Cristy's a clever girl, but during undergraduate she was poorly organized and often irresponsible, as well as the victim of a crappy high school. She's grown up a lot in terms of work habits, though, and taught herself everything needed to fill in the gaps in her education, and got into a pretty good school, which I won't mention in order to keep people from finding her referred to on a porn site. So, kudos to her. I've always aimlessly coasted on talent, frankly, and I really look up to people who can pick a goal and really work for it. But work aside, we had a good time playing with her Wii. She also taught me some cooking tricks, so my ability to trick girls into thinking I can cook is that much more powerful now. It may someday even cross the line and become actual ability to cook! Probably not, though.

On an unrelated note:
This set is driving me insane. Mneylu looks exactly like someone I've met, but I cannot put a name to that face... That's going to bug the hell out of me.

Well, it's been a really, really long fucking time, but I am back. I took the job I mentioned in the last entry, way back in December. I spend the rest of that month doing some travelling and visiting before I had to return to 9-5 life, and then for the past couple months I've been waiting for Time Warner to get their shit together and hook up my internet. But here I am again. And according to the RSS I've missed 90 goddamn sets since New Year's.. Seems like they've picked up the daily rate again.

Anyway, the short version of my last couple of months: went to LA to visit Mrm at her med school, where everyone is incredibly hot for some reason, spent a week in a hostel in NYC looking for an apartment, found an apartment (Roosevelt Island, the Fortress of Solitude of New York), spent a couple weeks trying to be extra social with my DC friends, got introduced to the most amazing woman I've ever met the day before I moved away (but she's from Germany and was going back soon anyway, so I guess even if I wasn't moving, it wouldn't have worked out), moved into NYC, got shipped off to London for a few weeks, got back about a week ago, and now finally I have the interwebs again.

That makes my life sound almost exciting. Weird.

So, it's not quite official yet, but I believe I've found a new job. I'm going to be working for the tech department of a bank. The office is right in the center of Manhattan, near Grand Central, the pay is great, the work should be worthwhile, and as a nice added bonus, there's a month of training in London, so I get a free trip to Europe. I'll probably make a couple of weekend trips, maybe to France (hopefully to visit Julia!) and possibly up into the countryside of England, or possibly up to Scotland or over to Wales.

Also, I said good-bye to Dana, my med-student girlfriend. She's spending Decemberinterviewing for residency positions, and I'll be gone by the time she returns, so that was our last date. Sort of bittersweet, as you might expect. We did go to a pretty nice restaurant, though. (For those of you around Baltimore, Pazo has great Spanish food.) Then we watched The Namesake, which waxed trite at times but was basically well-executed and thoughtful. Then, we made out for like five hours. Torture, really... I don't know how I find these girls that are hell-bent on saving themselves for marriage. Maybe the notion's not as extinct as I'd previously supposed.

So, Wednesday was blueball torment, but Thursday night, I went out with Tanya and her husband and some of her friends. There was a Jamaican girl named Keisha who didn't say a whole lot, but was sort of making eyes at me through the evening. However, when it came time to leave, she'd missed her train, so I volunteered to drive her back. Once we got back to her place, I stopped in to go to the bathroom, and when I come out, she's sitting on her bed, looking at me vaguely expectantly. I go have a seat next to her, and she just brazenly turns and straddles me, kissing me pretty hard, lets up momentarily and says, "do you mind if I change?" She then simply strips off in front of me, before donning a little negligee. You can guess how it went from there, I'm sure. She liked to play rough, though (my neck is now thoroughly bruised), and between that and the sudden non-seduction, I was actually pretty put off, to the point that I performed pretty poorly. I think it just made me feel guilty about leaving Dana. I guess nothing other than splitting made sense, considering there's no chance she'll have her residency in New York and I therefore wouldn't see her except on vacations for years. Still, in bed with Keisha, I just felt kind of bad, like I ditched Dana to find someone that would put out, and ultimately, I ended up really not wanting the sex. (Yeah, I know, my male card is revoked.) On the other hand, though, at least it's an ego-booster to have a girl just decide to fuck you with no work on your part.

Oh, and if you're wondering what happened to SiawChing since the past couple entries, I just sort of gave up on her. I have no idea what she's thinking about "us." I might be able to get into a relationship with her, but with two or three weeks left until I leave the area, what's the point? Plus, she's been on vacation for a while, and I haven't actually seen her since before the last time I wrote. I am supposed to see her on Sunday, but we still haven't settled on what we're doing, so I don't know if that'll happen. I... sort of don't care, at this point. After all, it's been an entire month since I saw her, and that was only our third date(?). That, to me, sounds like it ain't happening.