Weekend

And now ladies and gentlemen, lets do the news:

I suppose the thing that I care about the most is that GB has voted to leave EU. And it's retarded. There are so many reasons for which it's just such a terrible idea, but ultimately, over the years they will see  their economy fall and GDP not live up to it's potential in relation to other countries. It's very sad, really.

With that being said my weekend was fine. I chatted with Katelyn on skype for a couple of hours then went out with Katie. I ate so much  pasta Saturday I can honestly call myself pastaman! We watched Finding Dory. Then I hauled my butt over to the other part of town and watched Independence Day with Chris and Alina. Finding Dory was so much better. :P

Sunday I went on a hike. Did the whole Los Liones thing to the first viewing point in only 30 minutes. That made me happy. That's a 4-minute improvement on last time. Thought I don't know if I'll be able to do so well every time. I ran parts of up-hill as well.

After the hike I picked up Katya from Union Station. We walked around the historic downtown. It was underwhelming. Then we drove to Echo Park and spend some time on the padalboats. Then we had some fish-n-chips and clam-chowder and I put her back on the train. Short and sweet.

I was trying to see Hope after that so I drove to Burbank. But her thing ran 2.5 hours past due and I just basically walked around. Bought some small things I don't really need and left the valley. I stopped by Alex B and Alina's. Met their baby for the first time. That was nice.

Then... (tun-tun-tun) I went home and watched the last episode of the season for Game of Thrones. What a delight. I mean.. I was so happy. It ended with 4 people sitting on thrones being very straight-forward about what they're going to do next. I hope John marries Daenerys. But I'm glad to finally see Cersei on the throne. She's not hiding anymore. She's ruling like she's always done. And she check-mated all her enemies with one move. Quite genius.

And I finished the evening watching a comedy about Hitler in modern times. It's called "Look who's Back". Quite enjoyable. Raises good points. At least it's the first thing I've seen where Hitler isn't demonized but at least shown as someone who's done things for his people, which he did much better than so many of modern rulers.

Exes dating friends

So my ex messaged me yesterday saying she wanted to get coffee. At first I was excited because woo, more people wanted to hang out. But then I got a little nervous I've been remembering more of the stuff rather than good about our relationship. And then I got even more nervous when she was being especially punctual about this meeting.

Long story short, she told me that she's now officially dating one of my friends. :/ At first I was surprised and happy for them. Then she said that's surprised I'm not flipping out. I thought about it. It's a bit back-stabby, but it wasn't outside of the realm of possibilities. But then she said something that made me lose my appetite: they just spent the week together.

Somehow, knowing that while I was on vacation having a blast, I felt good about it knowing that at least I was having a better time that others. Now that I know that she's having a magic getaway with one of my friends. That shatters my believes.

She could tell I wasn't happy anymore. I tried to rationalize it and realized that this isn't the first time this has happened. Cough, Chris and Krystle. And cough(?) Igor and Monica. Somehow some people grow up without realizing that their friends might have feelings for their exes. Those who do then, in order to preserve friendships, stay the fuck away from their friends' exes. Or make abundantly sure that they wouldn't be hurting anyone's feelings. Chris talked to me before dating Krystle. This friend didn't.

I don't know what the difference is between the people. Maybe some just don't have feelings for their exes, or just aren't super capable of empathy. Whatever the reason, I was hurt for aforementioned two reasons. That, plus I wanted to move on first. So much for that.

Either way, that evening coupled with us terribly losing the pool match in the tournament last night made my day kind of shitty. I was looking forward to at least watching Game of Thrones, but I was too late for that, too. I spent the rest of the night drinking and talking to strangers on Omegle. And I talked to the OC girl on the phone a little.

When I woke I was dreaming about my ex telling me that she's dated other ones of my friends and I shouldn't judge. 0.o I was angry while still waking up. I'm feeling a little bit better now. This deep-rationalization I'm doing is helping me understand myself as a person and be sad in a constructive way. But honestly I wish I knew how to do self-behavioral-therapy so I can just move on without going through the struggle. If this last sentence didn't make much sense to you, look up "Behavioral Therapy Revolution".

Wedding then back to normal.

Last Sunday was fun. I woke up in Toronto then went back to LA. I talked to a pretty girl in the passport line. I was lucky because the passport check happened at the Canadian site and I just randomly decided to get there 4 hours before my flight so I had time to go through it. But the real joy came from the fact that with my plane landing at 12:30 and Father's Day lunch being at 13:00 I could make it!

It was nice to see family. Our reserved tables were outside and in 35 degree weather some of us have refused to sit outside. So we had to wait for an hour before we got our table. Well, at least the food for delicious.

After that I came home, relaxed for a few minutes, then I had 15 minutes to get ready for Rui's wedding. So much rushing. Lina helped lint my suit. Stuff randomly still fit so I think I looked good. The wedding was good. Large restaurant. Many people. Not enough drinks though. But everyone around me was that... pregnant-age so it's not like anyone was actually drinking. I barely got someone to help me finish the bottle of champagne I got for the table. We took some silly photos and not-so-silly photos. Good photos all around actually. The wedding was supposed to wind down around 23:00, but everyone at my table left at 22:00 and I decided to follow suit.

Instead of going home I drove down to San Clemente to see one of the women I met on OkC. We walked by the the beach and then sat at a life guard booth watching the waves crashes on the shore under the full-moon moonlight. But when I was driving back I was pretty tired already. Remember, it's been a long day. And this guy with bright lights kept following me. Eventually I pulled to the right-most lane and slowed down to let him finally pass. That's when the sirens went off. Luckily the officer understood when I complained about this creep following me. :P

Monday was ordinary. Work. Tempest. Sleep.
Tuesday was mostly ordinary. Work. Then at the end of the day the Movie Club at work was showing the first Independence Day in the court-yard. Wine, beer and candy were provided. I got Lina and Chris to come out. Alan invited AnneMarie. So at least I was in company of good people.

Toronto

Dear diary:

I'm on the train back now. It's the same train. This one's taking me to the airport. It's so exciting that it has WiFi! I've spent the last 6 days in Toronto. I haven't had the chance to sit down and "chill" on the computer, much less reflect on anything. I haven't slept much either. It's been great last few days. The couple of days before that were pretty lame. But even so I wasn't sitting in my room. I was out and about and looking for things to do.

I'll try remember things backwards. Today I woke up super early after only a few hours of sleep. Last night I went to bed after 01:00 because I was packing. Somehow my backpack got a lot heavier. All I've added to it are 3 t-shirts. I bought two of them and one was free from the concert. I had a day pass to NXNE for the rock day. The highlights included me dancing through the crowd. I skipped a lot. You know. Hop-hop. I did that for hours. Twisted my ankle a few times. It hurts. So worth it. I was there walking/dancing/skipping from 15:30 to 23:00.

I must've put at least 8-9 drinks into me. I had a really interesting time buying them though. You see that was the only place that didn't accept credit cards. It's cash only. I didn't have any CAD on me and ATMs are useless if you don't carry a debit card. So my method was simpler: I waited for 30 minutes to download gWallet and PayPal on the super-slow 2g network that TMobile provides. I chatted with... (insert two names here because I don't remember) for that time. These guys were walking around taking Polaroid photos of people and just giving them away. So I got one with the strangers!
But back to the drinks. They didn't have any money to share. So I was just walking around asking if people had cash I could buy off of them with PayPal. For the first 20 people or so I asked about Google Wallet. But I don't think anybody in Canada even knew what it was. Haha. But at least people have heard of PayPal. Most politely declined. Some said they would help if they had extra cash. One woman just looked straight at me and just said one word "No". She's a bitch. I don't want to sugar coat it. But I digress. Eventually, after around a 100 people I found my savior. Her name is Dee and she just watched her whole family reject me and then she just pulled out her phone and said she can make it happen. <3 Being pretty young all she had was $15 on her and she shared it all. I want to praise her for kindness. But in retrospect the favor is a small one. I'm frankly shocked that it was that much hassle.

When I was in line finally buying my  first drink I was ecstatic. One of the people I'd asked for help from earlier saw me with money and gave me a high five. They asked if I finally found someone who "just gave me money". 0.o. No douchebag. It's the 21st century. How the heck do people not know how PayPal works? But I digress. To my future self: reminder, the first drink I got was water. It was hot and I was thirsty.

With all that being said. I had a blast. I hung out a little with Katrina, a photographer I had met earlier. I chatted with Toni (female) from Russia for a while. I danced with a random stranger toward the end of the night. I talked to hundreds of people. :P I talked SXSW promoters from giving me free vodka shots. I got hundreds of high-fives. :P I learned that Zolas make good music. Got a photo with their bass player, too.

But all of that was after I went GoKarting. You see I didn't have in-and-out privileges. And I got there really early when it just started. There were barely any people. So I went across the street and drove around like a maniac. :P Then I had a pack of green-tea ice cream. Come to think of it my major meals that day was a pack of ice cream and a lot of smirnoff ice.

--

And now I'm at the airport. Sitting in my terminal. Already passed passport control and customs. Flying into a domestic terminal. That means I might make it to father's day lunch today! That's exciting. And I can make it to Rui's wedding! Today's going to be a good day. Or something! :P

Before the ice cream and the go-karting I was on a boat tour around Toronto islands. I spent most of that time enjoying the summer breeze, sound of waves, waving at passing boats and writing postcards. :P The boat tour was free. Came with the tour bus. So I hopped on the tour bus after.

Friday was a good day. I decided to be a tourist. And after working for a few hours I took the sight-seeing-tour. I had tickets to a local castle called Casa Loma. The tour bus took me there. I had no idea how convenient hop-on-hop-off tour buses are. I got to meet people. Listen to silly facts about the city. And I got to got where I needed to. So, that being said I had this super blissful moment at the castle, sitting on the patio having an insanely good drink. It had St. Germains in it and peach. Do I need to say more? Yes... with champagne. The grounds were gorgeous, too. I mean... it was just a house, but it had towers, a ballroom, a library, a canon, cool attic and an underground passage under neighbour's house to an extension down the block.

When I was tired of the sun I hopped back on the tour bus and headed downtown to work a little more. I knew the NXNE had a free stage in a square where I really wanted to be a few years ago. So I wanted to get there. I hopped off the bus a little too early and ended up walking up Younge St. Somewhere before King St. I found this restaurant market called Marche. I don't know how to describe it. You walk in and get a card. You make purchases at the buffet with that card and then pay the tab at the end when you leave. I like the idea. The food however was really good for buffet food. I had... a salmon quiche that was yum-yum. That and literally the best piece of cake I've had in my whole life. It was hazelnut chocolate something-something. I don't know how they made it, but it was like .. a soft brownie that's not dense but not too fluffy. Super rich flavor, but not sweet.

I worked from the Marche. The atmosphere was amazing. Great music playing. Better than at any of the shows prior. I didn't want to leave. Working was fun, too. That is how I wish I'd spend more of time. Sitting at a cool spot. Looking at regular people. Listening to soulful music. Eating delicious food. Doing good work.

I made a decision that I didn't want to go to another show that night and bought an improv ticket instead. This one was called BeerProv. You know... because everyone was drinking, especially on stage. It was alright. I appreciated doing something different for a change. It wasn't a better improv show I've seen, but I did laugh a lot. Like a lot. Some of the jokes were stupid, but nothing got offensive. So that's cool. This dude made a remark about being dumped after 7 years together because he wanted to pursue a career in improv. Everyone on stage, his-mid-sentence gave him a hug. I don't know if they train to provide emotional support, but that was an inspiring moment. I want a collective like that.

Gotta go board the plane. Maybe I'll finish this there.

--

Thursday...  I went to a concert at the Rivoli pool house. I played pool. I listened to music. I walked around a lot. I met Katrina, one of the photographers covering the festival. It was a good day.

The other days before that in Toronto weren't eventful. I worked and walked around a lot. I was kind of aimless and just exploring. Took a while for the night life to pick up. I kept going to the same bar in the evenings almost every night for the lack of better of things to do. They had this barrel-aged porter which was $35 for a liter. So good. But that's about it. The next time I go I think it'll just be around the weekend. On Tuesday I was walking around asking if there was a good spot to go to.. but the answers I got were things like "Hard Rock Cafe" or "McDonalds".

Travel.

Hey diary.

I'm not dead. I've forgotten that you exist. I'm still sad, but less so for the last few days.

Summary:
 - Friday went to have a drink with Alex
 - Saturday went to Singles Mixer
 - Sunday to a birthday, then beach, and then went on a date
 - Monday flew to Toronto

It was Tuesday that Katie at Tempest was telling me how to throw front-fulls off the trampoline into the foam pit. It was so much fun. I even did a double. But people quickly told me that I'm pulling too early and going off axis. So I'm back to doing just 360. But it looks better, or so I hear.

So then on Thursday I played with them some more. It was awesome. They don't hurt and they're a new fun thing I can kind-of do and work on improving. That's what Tempest is supposed to be about!

The whole week at work I was participating in a fix-it. A competition to do most things to boost engineering productivity. I got #8. I think I get some toy or something like that for it. Or maybe a coupe of months of Youtube Red. He-he.

Friday I was trying to get Alan or Ethan (intern) to go see X-Men. But they refused. So I worked until 21:30 then went to Basement Tavern where they were supposed to have live music already. Well, I was wrong. I had a gross beer and waited until 22:30 for the music to start. All that just to find out that it was karaoke night and the band sucked. So I left. I think that was Friday. I might be confusing my days. Either way, I know that Friday night I ended up at Snake Pit (bar in West Hollywood) with Alex L. I had a drink. We laughed over nothing. Then I went home.

Saturday I didn't get to sleep in. I woke up early to let the maids in. Yay maids. Two short old guys. Hehe. I wonder if they also do the "topless maid" thing. But, they scrubbed the bathrooms and the kitchen for a couple hours. I spaced out after that and went to Tempest. I had one goal at the gym: do the front-fulls 20 more times and I succeeded! I figure this puts me at 40 attempts already. Another 60 and I'll start throwing it onto a mat. Later that evening I went to the single's mixer. The same one I always go to at 3110 Main. This one was a little less lame than the previous, but the ratio was still 4:1. There were 40 guys and 11 girls. I decided pre-game this time and had a drink at work first. I ended up having another drink at the event anyway. Too boring otherwise. The games this time weren't as much fun, but I think I did decently well. There were some nice people there. I don't mean to brag, but I got two callbacks the next day. That's a first. :P

... Getting of the train. Will continue when I get to my AirBnb.

... Woah and now it's almost 02:00 and the day is over. I'll have to pick this up later.

Venting

So lets go with "Angry". Because it's my mood. I'm angry. I wish there was some big-ol reason why, but it's a few things. Lets list them:
 * The morons at the security company dropped my footage request and the video of my car getting broken into disappeared.
 * Bernie lost the primary today. This is the last stop for him.
 * My tolerance couldn't keep up withe shit-storm of people freaking out over a "too-light" sentence that this kid got for having sex with a sleeping girl or something like that. I don't even know about the actual story because all I get from my neck of the woods is hatred toward the guy, his father, the judge, the system, the f**king everything. Thing rationally you sheeple!
 * I'm in pain. Has to do with working out for the last 4 days.
 * I spent the evening booking tickets and scheduling events. None of that was fun today. Delta crashed twice on me and told me to "start over". Had to book a flight by phone. :/
 * I'm angry with myself for eating too much sugar. I had an apricot-oat bar that had 14 grams, and then I had 6 bookies, that's another 16 grams. That's 30 grams from just sweets. I'm disappointed in myself. Damn stress.

That's about all I can think of. I'm sure there are other things. Like Wayo yesterday was supposed to go to the movies with me, but totally bailed right before going. And I messaged Hope because she said she wanted to go, but she never replied. And then there're the angry comments with Katie on Facebook. I need better friends.

NinjaCon

There's nothing special for me to describe here today. Yesterday was NinjaCon, a small anime convention. I had bought tickets a while ago. Rui was supposed to go. She invited me. But turns out she never bought a ticket so I was there by myself. I went anyway hoping that I'd find someone to hang out with or something to do there. I was from about 11:00 to 14:15 and it was boring for the first 3 hours. Then it got better with contests and more people coming. I mean there were only like 60 booths selling hand-drawing stuff and self-made trinkets. There was a panel with voice actors... for animes I haven't heard about. Aaaand yeah. Boring. I took photos of what I could. There wasn't much. When it was time, I left for Tempest.

Now at this point it's been days since I've done something wither another person besides having a snack with the intern on Friday. So I asked if anyone wanted to go grab food/drink after. Andrew was the only one who agreed and we had tea at Starbucks after.

In absence of other ideas I went back to the con. It was still going for another couple of hours. But when I got there it was pretty much all dismantled. So I went to get sushi instead. By. Myself. And it was cold and lame. I want my Saturday night back. I don't know for what... but I think there are better ways to spend it.

Ups and downs.

Thursday was a decent day. I worked hard. Then went on a meet-and-greet. The woman had a skin problem of some sort. And I'm particularly sensitive to that because of my childhood. So it was an immediate no-no. We had a short and pleasant conversation and then I got out of there. Went to Tempest. Had a good time there. Not sure why. Was teaching people again. Had a sense of purpose. So that was nice.

Friday however, I got a text from someone asking about something in the apartment. I thought it was about the AirBnb in Toronto.. but I recognized the number as my ex's. Le sigh. So I knew that was coming. The day went slow. As slow as they go. The morning meeting got canceled so I was rushing to finish some work in that time. Then I had a Project Euler meeting. I took the intern that sits next to me. Then I played soccer. The weather was crap. Very overcast and foggy. I kept messing up.

Alan and Bria were out and when I got back it was pretty much just me and the intern working. He's new. So I'm still careful about what I say around him. Nobody to talk to about life. Le sigh. That being said at some point I realized that it was the first Friday of the month. There are food trucks down the street. I wanted to go. Sucks to go alone though. I went with the intern. I needed to get food and it didn't look like I was going to find another human to go with.

I paid $17 for a piece of white bread with two spoonfuls of lobster on it. Seriously LA. That's expensive. We chatted about programming and ... that's pretty much it. The intern is 18. No much life experience yet. I went home. Not really feeling up to doing anything. I was hoping to run into my roommates but they weren't home.

Alex L stopped by to borrow a camera. He's going on a trip. Sounds like a good time. He didn't have time to get out of the car. I just chatted with him for a few minutes and he was on his way.

Then my ex stopped by. I brought out the thing she wanted. I didn't want it to be awkward. We sat in the lobby for a bit and talked about the little things. Small talk. You know. Trying to remain pleasant. I told her deeper things, too. She didn't. That's probably good. We kept it courteous. I had to clarify that I'm not a socially-uncomfortable monster unable to talk to those who've wronged me. Then it got late. She left... and I was unable to go find actual humans to hang out with. So I spent the new few hours chatting with strangers online. Therapy.

Today I'm going to NinjaCon. I don't know why. Bought the tickets a while ago. Might as well go. Going alone. Don't expect anything good to happen.

Looking for AirBnb

So I'm going to Canada soon and I'm looking for a place to stay. I've looked before and the prices seemed affordable but I was really hoping to find someone to stay with through a dating site instead. Well that didn't pan out. In fact the reply rate for that was much lower than normal messaging. So with only a couple weeks left I have no choice but to get a room. I don't need an apartment so a private room should do. I'm looking for something under $100/day and it's tough. My trip touches nights on the weekend and it leaves me with only two choices. One of them rejected me this morning. Hm. I don't see another reason but that I'm a guy. It's a woman host. The timing is somewhat odd because I was just listening to a podcast on discrimination on AirBnb. But that one was for being black. Well ladies and gentlemen: men get discriminated against just as much as Blacks.... and before someone checks my privilege, check it on a university campus. 

Aside from that, yesterday was another anti-social day. Woke up. Went to work. Worked really hard because I only have two days a week when I can do that. Came home. Played NeverWinter. Watched Game of Thrones with Alina. Chris couldn't join because he had too much work to do. Then spent the rest of the evening messing on eHarmony and AirBnb.