this weekend was a pretty long and busy weekend. we went to vegas to play in the westside volleyball tournament. our team played in the lowest pool available. the first day we played reverse co-ed with the girls hitting and the guys setting. the first day results? we went 0-8 for the day.

the second day we modified our format and had the guys hitting and the girls setting. we ended up taking second place for the day. second place gave us shirts. speaking of shirts, i wonder where mine went…

while we were in vegas, christi and i went to check out mamma mia. neither of us had seen it and neither of us are huge abba fans. i think the only abba songs i know are the ones on the erasure album, abba-esque. we got tickets through some ticket broker online who gave us tickets for nearly half price. i was a little concerned that we might have bad tickets, but it all ended up just fine. we actually got great seats on the lower level in about the middle section.

the show was awesome! i had low expectations for the show, but i was pleasantly shocked. the music was great, the acting was great, and the show itself was very entertaining. if you haven’t seen it yet, i would recommend it.

on monday, i went to the city to buy wedding bands. christi and i went to the gift center to buy them and we saved quite a bit of money going there. i think that my ring was about 30% cheaper there than at other jewelry stores, so i was pretty happy.

after we bought the rings, we went to watch conan o’brien who is visiting all week. dana carvey was the guest and the show was taped at the orpheum. the line went down for blocks and blocks and i was afraid that we wouldn’t get in, but we were just able to sneak in and saw conan live. it was pretty cool.

imagine for a moment, all of the sarcasm that you could possibly muster. take that sarcasm and now roll it up into the smallest little ball you can. now imagine an infinite number of these sarcasm balls. got it? ok, hold on to it now. hold it. hold it. now, with all of these sarcastic balls flying about read the next two sentences:

work just gave me a blackberry. i am so excited.

yeah, that’s right. a blackberry. that means that now i am forever connected to my work email if i so desire. that means that work could get ahold of me any time the blackberry is on. did i mention that the blackberry is also a phone? i’m not sure if all blackberrys (blackberries?) are phones, but mine is. oh, the joy.

but, the good news is that i found a multiplayer texas hold ’em app for the blackberry. maybe it isn’t soooo bad. =P

the FOX network aired a new show, drive, for the last couple of weeks. i’m a big fan of the show and i can’t believe that it has gotten the ax already! that makes me sad. i actually really liked the whole idea of an illegal, underground, cross-country secret race. i thought it was an original idea (maybe one that wouldn’t have much lasting power because you would imagine that the race would end after a season) and i really wanted to see how it would unfold.

maybe i need to stop watching everything under the sun and be a little more discriminating. the real tragedy is that shows like 30 rock, which aren’t nearly as compelling, get renewed orders, but shows that are fresh and new, like drive, get cancelled after only 4 episodes. what tough times we live in.

i try to make time out of my busy schedule to make use of my netflix subscription. i think that i’ve figured that it pays itself off if i watch 4 movies a month. that’s not too bad. i can easily watch a movie a week, right?

well it turns out that my movie watching occurs in spurts. i’ll watch two or three movies back to back instead of spacing it out. some months i will watch like 10 movies. others, i will watch 2. it all sort of depends, but i think when it all averages itself out, i’m still in the positive. there’s this compulsion to see at least 4 movies a month, though, because otherwise, i’m just wasting money. and wasting money is a high motivator for me to make the most of whatever it is that i’m spending it on.

i was talking to some friends of mine and they told me that they got an estimate for some work on their house that was an order of magnitude (that’s right, ten times, yo!) more than i was expecting the work to be. that made me a little nervous. is this home owning thing REALLY all that it is cracked up to be? i do wonder!

anyway, i watched the holiday last night and it was surprisingly good. i guess i am a closet cameron diaz fan, now that i think about it, and i never really liked kate winslet, but this movie was well written and i actually enjoyed it despite jack black. go figure, huh?

i watched vacancy in the theatres (how british of me) the other night and despite kate beckinsale, who i LOVE, the movie was awful. simply awful. definitely not worth the $10 it cost to watch it and certainly not worth the two hours of my life that i was deprived of last friday night. i want my life back!

i went to tapioca express last night and hung out with paul and leeya for a little bit. we talked about houses, weddings, and other random things. i had pulled out pictures that i had of leeya for their slideshow. i told her that she has gone through three distinct phases since i’ve known her: fobby leeya, flapper leeya, and today leeya.

fobby leeya was pretty fobby. =P

flapper leeya had floppy hair.

and today leeya looks like leeya today.

then we went through pictures to figure out which phase she was in during the picture. all good fun. in fact, it was too much fun because when i left, i must have left my phone at the store. it must have fallen out of my pocket because i couldn’t find it at all last night. i decided to call the store to see if they had found it and sure enough they did! phew! i was already thinking about what kind of phone i would have to buy to replace my current phone, but luckily, i don’t have to worry about that now.

work has begun at the house. i went to visit it today after work and the floors are all torn up. i’m going to try to remember to bring a camera with me to take some pictures tomorrow. the toilets have been removed in the bathrooms, the fixtures are all gone, it’s crazy.

the tile has been purchased and they are well underway in installing the tile. after that comes the paint. i’m not sure how long it will take, but i’m hoping that all work will be done by the end of next week.

now that the remodeling is well under way, it’s time to start thinking about how to furnish the house. the most important thing to get is furniture. we are going to replace the refrigerator and we still need to get sofas, tables, and a bunch of other stuff. it looks like there is still a lot of work to be done.

we went to c&k furniture in milpitas over the weekend and weren’t really impressed with the selection there. they have a large selection, just nothing in our style, really. so i think the massive furniture hunt begins. if anybody knows of any good furniture stores, suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

being a new homeowner, there are things that i notice now that i’ve never noticed before. “oh, look at the tile work at this place.” or “oh, look at the cabinets here.” i never cared before, but i am finding myself noticing all of these things now and it is just crazy.

i just want to move in and be done with it already.

the biggest dilemma i have right now is how i’m going to wire the house. it’s on a concrete slab, so i can’t get under the house to do wiring. the house isn’t wired for ethernet and i need my ethernet, dammit!

cindy has asked me to write an updated blog entry AND she gave me a topic, so i’ve decided to go ahead and blog.

List 5 reasons why you blog:
1) I started blogging because a friend of mine (a blogger, then) told me that it was a good idea. i believed him and i started blogging. that was…maybe 8 years ago and here i am, still owning a blog. i haven’t been as blog heavy lately because i’ve been so busy with the new house and wedding planning, but i try to update it from time to time.

2) i blog because i like to share the pictures that i took. i haven’t taken pictures recently, though. i really need to start doing that again. i updated my gallery, though, so i think i’ll relaunch the gallery with new pictures.

3) i’ve met a lot of cool people through the blog. some have become friends, some have become stories, and others have come and gone. i even sort of dated someone because of the blog. it’s just interesting to meet people through the blog. we have such a different context of who we are and what is put forth on the blog compared to who we really are. sometimes some people who i would think are totally outgoing and crazy are actually pretty down to earth and normal.

4) blogging is a great outlet for when you need to put thought to paper. maybe it’s not something that you really want to tell someone else, but writing about it to no one in particular gives you the perspective of closure that you want.

5) it’s fun. it used to be that i cared a lot about how many people would read the blog, how to generate more hits, and all, but really, i don’t even look at my stats now. for all i know, i’m the only one who is reading the blog. that’s fine with me. i’ve met some cool people through the blog and am glad that i’m part of the blogging world. so long as it’s fun, i’ll keep doing it.

i was able to have a listen to the upcoming erasure album and i have to say that it is probably erasure’s best effort in recent memory. ever since cowboy, i’ve been pretty disappointed with the albums that have been released. especially their covers album. what an awful idea.

so i was definitely skeptical when i heard that erasure had yet ANOTHER album out. wasn’t nightbird released just last year? granted, it was not a great album, but i thought it was a pretty quick release.

but after an initial listen, i must say that i’m pretty impressed with the album. maybe the erasure of past has come back in full strength.

the house is ours and we’re now in the process of fixing it all up. we’re going to go choose tile for the bathrooms and the kitchen, do some minor repairs, and get the place all painted up. it’s an exciting time and i want to get it all done soon so that i can start moving into the new place. i’ll have to give notice in a week or so to my current apartment and i guess i need to start moving all of my mail over to the new address as well. i really don’t like moving so i think that i will start to throw everything that i don’t use away in the apartment. that is going to be a lot of stuff.

i already have a pile of stuff that i was planning to sell on the cheap, but i think that i will be adding to that.

anyhow, i had a half-baked zachary’s pizza over the weekend. it wasn’t as good as i remember it being. maybe i’m not really as big of a fan of zachary’s as i had thought. maybe it’s just all hype. the new zachary’s in san ramon is pretty big AND they accept credit cards. cool, huh?

i’ve had a lot of pizza in the last few days. sad as it might sound, i think that i might be pizza’d out. is that possible? i’m not even sure. maybe it’s time to switch to burritos for a while.

that’s right, yo. we’ve closed escrow, i have the keys to the house and we are in full swing. replace this, replace that. fix this, fix that. and when that’s all done, we’re gonna start moving in.

oh, well, there’s there’s the small matter of buying furniture. i don’t think that i will be keeping much of my furniture so it’s gonna be a big shopping spree to come.