At least for another month. I totally called this. The powers that be at Xanga decided to extend their CrowdHoster campaign till August 31 and have lowered their target goal to $50K instead of $60K. On the Xanga Team's latest update, John (who I assume is one of the higher ups, if not the highest up) said he'd pledge $10K of his own money if they hit $50K (this, I did not see coming). As of right now, they're a lil over $2K away, and at the current rate that they were going, it looks like they're going to make it, and that makes me kind of happy.

Barring a flood of donations over the next few days, it's more than likely that Xanga will be shutting down after Wednesday, July 31, 2013. They started a Crowdhoster campaign to raise money to re-launch Xanga on the WordPress platform. Their goal is $60K, and it was original supposed to end on July 15, but they extended it to July 31. They were maybe half-way to their goal on the 15th, around $30K, and as of today, the 29th, they're only at $45K. I've already done my part and made a donation pledge. I personally don't think it's going they're going to make it, but you never know. I don't see why they couldn't just extend the deadline again like they did last time. It'd be awesome if Xanga has a successful relaunch, but I'm prepared to move on. It's been a good 9 years, Xanga. I'll definitely miss it.

I know not very many people read this, and I kind of have a grasp on who does. For those that I don't know, and want to keep in touch, here are my other social networking sites:

• twitter: erbun (I almost never post, I just follow celebrities)
• instagram: bungi (I almost never post, I just follow kpop stars & some fam)
• facebook: me (not sure if that link will even work)

As for my new blog site, I haven't decided which platform to use yet. It's either going to be Blogger or WordPress. I've created an account on both sites, but I'm not sure which one I'm going to use. I'll probably blog on both until I figure out which one I like better.

So long, Xanga. It's been real......

I was out shopping someplace (I forget where), but they were playing music in the background. Then Fireflies by Owl City started to play, and I immediately cringe. It was like a subconscious, involuntary reflex, that I couldn’t NOT do. All because of a one week trip to Washington DC in the summer of 2009. We stayed with Haile’s cousin, Mark, and every time we got in his car to go anywhere, he’d play this damn song first. Every. Single. Time. By the end of our first day there, we were SOOO over that song. And he’d play songs from other bands that sounded like it, like Nickasaur and Swimming with Dolphins. But that damn Owl City song.....to this day, 4 years later, I still hate with a passion. Thanks, Mark.

I have never been more excited/anxious/relieved to see these 2 parts finally come in, after waiting nearly a month for them to arrive.

They are a relatively new part and is manufactured in England (the old one, across the Atlantic), so I knew it might a while to come in. I had ordered it from a guy in the one of the mini forums. He's based in SoCal and apparently had the hooks for these, and has been the supplier for several of the forum members. These members had nothing but nice things to say about this guy, so I trusted their collective opinion and ordered through him. Well, 3 weeks after the initial order & payment, I hadn't received jack, and had to open a Paypal dispute for him to actually answer my attempts of contact. I tried email, his website contact page, and forum private messages, but dude would not respond until Paypal put a hold on payment. He blamed the delay on the fact that he was currently out of the country and not really set up to process orders efficiently. He basically said I had to wait another week before he could actually find out if he could place the order. I called fucking bullshit and demanded by money back, which he willingly obliged. Lucky for me, a major mini parts website started to carry the same mounts, at about the same price, and more importantly, IN HAND IN STOCK. And I received them a week later.

So here's the old upper & lower mounts off the mini. The upper was leaking and no longer providing engine damping, causing additional stress on the lower mount. The lower mount actually looked fine (I've seen pictures on the forums where the lower mount is completely torn up), but I still replaced it anyways since I was already all up in there anyways, and for the peace of mind. With the new mount, I know that won't be failing anytime soon.

And here's the new mount installed. Pretty sexy, yah?

compared to this BS:

I could've driven on the leaky mount, but it could've cause damage to the transmission & axles. So I can finally drive the mini again without having to worry. The NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) is a little high right now, but that's to be expected. They say it takes a hundred miles or two for the new mount to settle & break in. It's only a little interior vibration at idle, so it's no biggie, and it'll eventually die down. The only downside is that when I was putting the front passenger-side tire back on, I left the wheel lock key on the wheel lock (AGAIN!!!! DOH!!!) and drove off, so it's lost forever and I have to order a new one. I feel like a giant idiot for doing that again.

I've been having problems with not getting enough sleep at night and waking up tired. It's mainly due to my after-work naps, which range anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours. I've trying to keep myself busy after work, but then I stay too busy and end up staying up late. I never find that right balance. It's been a struggle.

Today at work, I was in a meeting and noticed my co-worker sitting next to me kind of getting tired. He then pulled out a 5hr Energy bottle & downed it. When I saw that, I swear you could see the metaphorical light bulb turn above my head turn on. I thought "Why have I NEVER even considered that?!?!" I see the commercials all the time, and I've used it before to keep my energy level up while driving or snowboarding, and it never occurred to be once that I could use that to stay awake after work. Doop-dee-durrrrr!!! (**smacks palm into forehead) It's soo obvious that I feel really stupid for not even thinking of it.

It reminds me of when I realized that I could take ibuprofen or acetaminophen to help with sore back, sore muscles, sore anything. I previously just used it when I was sick or had a fever. It was the same mindset, where I didn't even think of it before seeing someone else use it. I would just think "Man, my [whatever body part] still hurts. Hope the pain goes away soon...."

So after work, I went to Target and got a a 6 pack of 5hr Energy, since I had a Groupon to burn. I get back to apartment, and what do I immediately do? Pass out on my bed for about 2 hours. COMPLETE FAIL!!

Hadn't been to the State Fair in maybe 9-10 years. I forgot how huge Cal Expo (the venue) is. We purposely waited to go in the evening, around 6pm, when the sun had gone down a bit and wasn't too hot. Good times.

Solano County's booth. 707!!

Zoe looking hella serious like she's reading the State Fair Guide. Too cute.

A's fan in the making (daddy reluctant). Gotta start when they're young.

Weird Al in concert. There were Hella people. You can barely see him in this pic. He's onstage with his accordian.

"The Works" funnel cake. If this were a 3D picture, that fork would totally be in your face.

We also had deep fried nutella, which was basically like a deep fried corn dog, but instead of a hot dog inside it was nutella. It was soo nutella-y. They also had a deep fried snickers, but I couldn't partake since it has peanuts . We couldn't find the deep fried coke, either.

Went to an open house on Friday. Put in the offer on Saturday. Got rejected on Monday. They said they received 30 offers, and I figured it would be competitive. My offer was higher than the listed price, but since that price was kind of on the low side, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a straight up cash offer. We won't know till the sale is official maybe a month or two from now. Oh well. I didn't have high hopes for this place, but it was kind of the "perform storm" for me. It was in my preferred price range and it was also in the my preferred location (North Natomas, along my current bus route). I hope I get lucky and find another home for sale that has those same preferred qualities.

July 4:

- volunteered to work at the USS Hornet Museum w/ OneBrick

control tower

view of SF & the bay from the flight deck

- manned the inflatable slide & obstacle course

view from the top

- F14 Grim Reaper!

- BBQ @ Auntie Minda's

July 5:

- checked out a couple of houses in Sac

- put in offer for one

- Warehouse Cafe w/ Mikey, Tony, Jenny, Edrick, Mark, & Michelle

- in the cuts!

- had hella big bottled beer selection

- giant stuffed polar bear

- ditzy bartender gave out girl's bank card to another girl, lol

July 6:

- Asiana flight 214 crash landing around noon

- Jaymi's grandma had flight at 10pm. delayed by almost 2 hours

- hella news stations still at airport when we left around 10pm

- Genki Crepes!

I worked at The Good Guys for 6 years (Nov 1999 - Dec 2005). I worked in customer service (as an MCA, or merchandise control associate), and I spent a lot of time answering phone calls, probably the most I’ll ever do in my lifetime. Every time I picked up the phone, I was had to say, “Thank you for calling The Good Guys in Fairfield/Concord. How may I assist you/How may I direct your call?” And I totally had it down.

That was nearly 8 years ago. And yet, to this day, when I hear my desk phone ring (which looks like the the phones they used at The Good Guys, and the ring sounds like it too), I have the overwhelming urge to still say the whole “Thank you for calling The Good Guys” bit. I literally have to pause, say under my breath “Caltrans IT, this is Eric”, sometimes even a couple of times over, before I actual pick up the phone. It’s kind of weird, but it happens EVERY time.

And while I’m on the topic of old habits dying hard, maybe two or three months ago, I found out that I had been tying laces COMPLETELY WRONG for basically my entire life (when do we actually learn to tie laces? 4, 5 years old?). I always just thought that I wasn’t tying my laces very tightly, and that’s why they always got loose and had to re-tie them. I Googled it, and came across Ian’s Shoelace Site. I learned the bunny ears method, but the way I learned to do it, the starting knot and the finishing bow where in the same direction, creating a “Granny Knot” or “Slip Knot”, which sits crooked/unbalanced and can become undone very easily. The pictures on the site made it crystal clear what I was doing wrong, and the correct way to do it and what it should really look like.

So now, I have to un-do maybe 28 years of muscle memory. I can totally tie my laces the old, wrong way without looking at the laces, and do it hella fast. Now, I have to look and make sure I’m doing it the opposite way that I did it before. It’s kind of frustrating, but at least now my laces don’t come loose or undone anymore, not nearly as often. I’ll eventually get used to it, but so far it’s been tough.

So the Giants got no-hit today against Homer Bailey of the Cincinnati Reds, and in doing so, fell to last place in their division. I totally wanted to post something snarky on Facebook about it, because literally no one mentioned it, and I want to say about 85% of my friends on Facebook are Giants fans. I wanted to post something like,

"if no one on Facebook mentions an event, did it actually occur? maybe the wheels are falling off the bandwagon, even without getting hit....." (pun totally intended)

But then I got to thinking about karma. It's kind of low to kick someone while they're down, right? I don't want karma to come back and haunt the A's. So I didn't post anything and put it here instead.

The Giants have won 2 World Series rings in 3 years, and they have the 2010 NL Rookie of the Year and 2012 NL MVP, Buster "the ladies love me" Posey. So you know what Giants fan, CRY ME A FREAKIN' RIVER for getting no-hit. Aside from losing Posey to an injury for the entire 2011 season, y'all had EVERYTHING go your way for 2 out of the last 3 seasons. So there goes your karma. You'll probably be getting more for blocking the A's from moving to San Jose, just you wait and see....