One of the great things about cleaning my apartment is the potential of actually coming across useful stuff that I’ve once misplaced – like money. Since we’re getting new windows installed at home, my roommate and I had been doing a bit of cleaning this weekend, and she actually came across a hundred bucks … of Monopoly money. She did also uncover a shiny real quarter, though I would’ve preferred a real hundred-dollar bill and a smaller denomination of play money. But I guess I can’t complain – free money is free money (though it’s not technically free ’cause it was mine to begin with). Anyway, our fancy new fiberglass windows promise to be much more energy-efficient than the old single-pane windows which were encased in skimpy metal frames. Unfortunately, the beefy new frames also lead to a smaller effective area for the actual window, which will probably allow less light to enter. I hope this doesn’t ruin my Feng Sui!

Why am I so compelled to stay late each night only to prove to myself that an experiment will not work? It’s analogous to the race horse that struggles so hard to gallop around the track only to end up where it first started. Wouldn’t it have been a lot easier not to have started running at all?

I’ve been taking the shuttle bus to do some experiments over at the Schepens Eye Research Institute recently. One of the things I missed since I had started walking to work rather than taking public transportation, is having an isolated period of time to do stuff. Of course, I could be studying. But instead, I’ve taken on a renewed addiction in playing Tetris on my cell phone. I know it’s pathetic, but I guess that’s why they call it an addiction! Among other things I’ve recently grown addicted to are the website SpikedHumor.com, specializing in funny and outrageous video clips, as well as the recently-released demo of Age of Empires 3. The demo itself is still very buggy, but the graphics and game engine are impressive. Check out this screenshot of my most excellent army!

It’s hard to believe that my 3-day-trip to Stanford is already over. Since last Sunday, under orders from the commandant, I was sent to Palo Alto on an assignment to learn an electroporation technique from a lab at Stanford. This, I had thought, meant having a chance to bask in that California sunshine, munch on some fresh fruits, and maybe even catch up on some papers while lying beside a swimming pool as beautiful women play volleyball in their bikinis. =P But alas the experiments turned out a lot more time-consuming than I had anticipated. And without a car, I was pretty much limited to the lab and the hotel. Nevertheless, my hosts were gracious enough to put me up at a pretty nice place, and even treated me to a luxurious dining experience at The Three Seasons in downtown Palo Alto. I was also happy to meet up with some old college friends, and even finished reading The Elegant Universe, an undertaking almost a year in the making. Hopefully, the technique will prove useful and breathe some life back into my experiments back home.

When Melody noticed the newly-released Simpsons 6th Season DVD box-set, her immediate thought was: “Glenn’s not gonna like this.” Indeed, when I went to BestBuy yesterday and saw the bright yellow plastic box shaped like Homer’s head, I became overwhelmed by a sudden fear. How in the world am I going to fit this into my neatly-aligned row of DVD boxes? Just then, a note fell out of the box with the words “To All Those That Fear Change” printed in bold letters. I gave a sigh of relief as I read about their alternative packaging offer to get an unimaginative old style replacement box designed specifically for us “anal-retentive nerds who like their DVD boxes to line up perfectly on the shelf.” Heheh. Well-played, Mr. Groening. Anyway, the week’s been otherwise the same old thing, with the exception of a trip down to New York for Leo’s wedding. Beside satisfying our Japanese noodle craving once again, we also decided to try something new. I will not expound further, but let’s just say that it’s a privilege to have such an understanding girlfriend. =)

This year’s Restaurant Week in Boston helped us uncover another hidden gem right in the heart of Brookline itself. Among the places we tried including 209 Boston and Cafe Fleuri, one place clearly stood out above the others. Opened just 2 years ago along Route 9 and serving traditional Northern Italian cuisine, La Morra not only offers a rustic and comfortable dining atmosphere, but features their own homemade pasta cooked to a perfect consistency. Their clambake-themed Restaurant Week menu included a hearty Tuscan fish chowder, a richly-flavored lobster risotto, semolina-dusted haddock, wood-grilled skirt steak, and some good old traditional tiramisu. Perhaps most memorable for me was a linguine dish with fresh herbs and tomatoes which sounded simple at first, but offered subtly tantalizing flavors and textures that words can barely describe. This week also happened to include Sammy and Howie’s one-year old birthdays. For those of you who have been wondering, both of our rats are doing extremely well. In celebration, I’ve created a new page with their pictures to share our moments together over the past 12 months.

It’s finally happened. Someone ACTUALLY died from playing too many computer games. Of course, this kind of news will not deter me from my gaming… just as another exploding Fung Wah bus will not stop me from riding it next weekend. Speaking of games, I really miss the old days in college sometimes, when my friends and I would stay up ’til 4 in the morning fragging HPB’s in CTF Quake or slaying acid beasts in the dungeons of Diablo. There’s nothing more satisfying than ganging up on some unwary newbies and blasting them back to the Stone Age (literally, in the case of AOE). So last week, I downloaded several new releases including a demo of F.E.A.R., as well as the best-selling GTA: San Andreas, which packs a healthy serving of drive-by’s and car-jacks. Despite the hilariously stereotypic dialogue, the constant swearing does get a bit overbearing after a while. Combined with the dreaded realization that I’M now the newbie, I’m afraid I’ll have to quit the online gaming arena soon and go back to playing Leisure Suit Larry or 7th Guest with Melody. =P

After a bit of optimization, connecting both an amplified antenna and a pair of old-fashioned bunny ears to an HD receiver, I’ve finally gotten all the free digital HDTV channels I want piped into my little idiot box at home. Sweeeet. Last night, I came across a special on video games from the most-unlikely of networks to air it: PBS. The show brought on a bit of nostalgia as it documented the evolution of gaming from the early days of Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt on the original NES, to the birth of FPS games like Doom and Quake, and to the emergence of MMORPG worlds more recently. Did you know that Pac-Man was originally named Puck-Man in Japan, but was changed when it got here to avoid people altering it to something more offensive? Btw, I’ve taken down my guestbook ’cause it was getting spammed too much.

It’s past midnight and I’ve just helped submit a manuscript to the highly-esteemed Science journal. This would’ve been a real exciting time except that it’s NOT my paper! Unfortunately, the first author of this particular paper is out sick, leaving it up to the 4th author (out of 11), me, to do the dirty work of putting the figures, statistics, and final text together. In fact, I’ve pretty much been working full time on this guy’s project for the past 3 weeks, which is hilarious given that I’ve got lab meeting to present tomorrow. Too bad I can’t present HIS data.

The plan was simple. On the eve of our friend’s final days as a bachelor, we would give him one last opportunity to savor the taste of good food, the scent of money, and the company of a few fine gentlemen. So it was our plan to meet Saturday morning to drive down to Mohegan Sun, devouring anything we could feast our eyes upon, rake in the dough, and perhaps indulge in a drunken revelry until the wee hours of the night. Of course, things never quite turn out the way we expected. After stopping for some Memphis dry-rub for lunch, another stop to put some air into my tires, and yet another hour to locate the last guy after his call night at the hospital, we didn’t end up leaving the city until almost 3pm. Even worse, when we finally got there, we realized that none of us actually knew how to gamble. We tried putting our six brains together, watched the Craps table for about 10 minutes, and left as clueless as before. We then spent much of the time walking around, nervously clutching our measly stipend savings as we tried to find a game we could actually understand. It didn’t help that the lowest minimum bet at most tables turned out to be $10, which made for a very stressful 10 minutes at the Blackjack table. We finally took what little money we had left to satisfy our stomachs buffet style, before driving back to Boston feeling somewhat defeated. Fortunately, refusing to succumb to our poor fortune, we took a detour to the last resort of single-men: the nudy bar. Centerfolds of Boston is deemed the classiest strip joint in the city, which isn’t saying much considering there’re only two in total. While the place was small and somewhat run-down, the performers were surprisingly attractive. As a final treat, we put our wallets together to buy our guest of honor one final lap dance before the place closed. Despite everything, the weekend in retrospect felt well-executed, accomplishing what we had set out to do… except maybe replacing “money” with “ladies”.